THE Red Knights have vowed not to overpay in their battle for control of Manchester United.

Barcelona 1 Shakhtar Donetsk 0

TOURISTS looked bewildered and day trippers stopped to stare as Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse trooped through Kinsale yesterday, followed by up to 200 revellers eating and drinking their way though the town.

WEDNESDAY’S last group game against Montenegro may be academic now that Ireland are assured of a play-off place but try telling that to Liam Lawrence.

“SAM is coming home,” that was the triumphant chant around Kerry, last night, as preparations were being made to welcome home the victorious All-Ireland football champions.

DIDIER DROGBA reckons Chelsea now have the mental edge over their rivals for the Premier League title.

IT WAS so cold last Saturday evening in Croke Park that we had to rely on gossip about the world’s most famous golfer to keep ourselves warm.

STEPHEN JONES and Ronan O’Gara are used to going hammer and tongs at each other and this British & Irish Lions tour is no different.

CONOR COUNIHAN enters the Páirc Uí Chaoimh boardroom ready to play his trump card.

ON a day of watery sun and blustering wind, I took the train to visit Castlelake, Carrigtwohill, five years after its phenomenal launch.

LIFE IS anything but dull for Gael Kakuta; leaving one’s country of birth, learning a new language and trying to establish a fresh life and career at such a young age is difficult enough for any teen but to then hit the international headlines at the centre of potentially one of the biggest football contractual stories since Bosman is probably something he could have done without.

SAM ALLARDYCE is not one of those managers who needs an excuse to celebrate his own talents, but even the biggest critics of the self-styled ‘Big Sam’ would not begrudge him a sense of satisfaction on Saturday evening.

PERHAPS it’s just as well that only a third of Sunday’s likely starting line-up were in the Munster team that lost 23-8 to Perpignan in the Heineken Cup in 2003.

CHELSEA could be without 18-goal striker Didier Drogba for tonight’s clash with Portsmouth after the Ivory Coast international hurt his back in a training ground incident yesterday.

OWEN MULLIGAN haslabelled Tyrone’s first-halfperformance against Kerry onSunday a “disgrace”.

GEORDIES are a strange breed; Newcastle only have to announce the signing of a second-rate player and for whom they have paid well over the odds and they all descend on St James’s Park in their thousands, loud and invariably bare-chested (and that’s just the women), telling all and sundry that this is the signing that will change their fortunes.

HE will be familiar to regular Irish visitors to the Masters but for the purposes of this article he will remain incognito.

CROKE PARK’S press centre hosts Liam Sheedy after yesterday’s win for Tipp over Waterford. Green flags dominate the conversation at his end.