Football diary: Kicked into touch

Call it coincidence, but a brochure sponsored by JJB Sports that falls out of the June edition of FourFourTwo magazine invites readers to win a pair of Wayne Rooney's boots. Which is a little unfortunate since the Nike T90 Supremacy boots have been blamed in some quarters for causing Rooney's metatarsal injury. Still, if you know how old young Wayne will be during the 2006 World Cup, you could win a pair of signed match boots, and watch him training with Man United. Although not for a while, sadly.

Fawlty logic

The Germans are going to clamp down heavily on fans at the World Cup who goose-step, give Nazi salutes or, to borrow a Basil Fawlty line, mention the war. Anyone convicted of inciting racial hatred faces a prison term of between two weeks and three years. So how come there were T-shirts openly on sale on the streets around Stamford Bridge last week depicting the famous Fawlty jack-booted walk, salute, and finger under the nose? Police officers just walked past. Perhaps racism isn't a crime in London?

Champion hangover

Hearts have never before qualified for the Champions League, so you can imagine that the revelries in the claret part of Edinburgh went on into the wee hours after they beat Aberdeen. And beyond. Certainly the Hearts website was slow emerging from beneath the duvet on Thursday morning. "Due to the celebrations, we will bring you the details of last night's game later today," they said. "Please forgive us."

Claridge's 999 call

Steve Claridge was hoping to make the 1,000th appearance of his career, for Walsall, against Barnsley today. That was until Richard Money, appointed this week as manager of the club just relegated from League One, told Claridge that his contract won't be renewed for next season, and neither will he be required for action this afternoon. "The timing was not great," says the itinerant striker. "When I came here I knew I had to play the last seven games of the season to get to 1,000, so to fall one short is disappointing. I want to carry on next year as I don't want to be stuck on 999. I still feel I have a lot to offer." Consequently, Claridge is now seeking club No 20 in a career that stretches back over 23 years.

All you need is Cash

With a plethora of football-related tunes already hitting the shelves of the music shops - courtesy of the World Cup - the annual requirement for the FA Cup finalists to issue something

sing-alongable has been met by Liverpool. They are releasing their own version of Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire and last week, before kick-off, invited the Kop to dub the "Der, der, der, der, der, der, der, der," chorus for the final edit. Listen very carefully to the finished article and you might just hear the counterpart of "Villa, Villa, Villa" in the background.

Taken from telegraph.co.uk