IN Dublin Castle on Thursday for the launch of the city as the European Capital Of Sport for 2010, Marco Tardelli was invited to turn his thoughts to another European capital, Warsaw, and the draw for the Euro Championships which will take place there tomorrow.

AS ONLY Sky can, they blasted yesterday’s big match coverage to, well, the sky.

WITH Tom Coughlan being edged towards the door and a new consortium ready to enter, Cork City’s future once again hangs in the balance.

HERE’S one for your next pub quiz: what do Archbishop Tutu, The Edge, Salman Rushdie, Al Pacino, Dame Helen Mirren and Sir Alex Ferguson have in common?

THEY don’t write football journalism like they used to.

WHO’D be a gaffer? Well, you, me and millions of others is probably the correct answer. Whether we’re in the press box, on the terrace, in the pub or even all alone in front of the domestic box, we’re never slow to express an opinion on the actions of the man in the dug-out, especially when he seems to have got it all wrong.

JUST when we all thought we were ready to move on...

PELE’S visit to Ireland this week reminded me that I’ve been lucky enough to meet with the five footballers I consider to be the greatest of all time: George Best, Maradona, Johann Cruyff, Zinedine Zidane and ‘El Rei’ himself.

FORGIVE us our trespasses, not to mention our sloppy passes, but with those other Blues fetching up these shores at the end of the week, it was hard not to view yesterday’s grand slammer at Stamford Bridge against the backdrop of altogether more high-stakes games to come in Dublin and Paris.

ON the day of the draw for the World Cup play-off, a few of us found ourselves in the company of a brace of Irish football heroes of yesteryear.