Dangerous spectators don’t give peace a sporting chance

NEWS that someone called the BBC threatening that the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) would murder Neil Lennon if he took the field for Northern Ireland provoked shock, disappointment and disgust.

The actual game he then didn't appear in, a friendly against Cyprus on Wednesday night, has been hardly mentioned since. But the Lennon affair has made headlines as a sign of just how sick society is in Northern Ireland.

Jim Boyce, the president of the Irish Football Association, was eloquent in his denunciation of what had happened.