ONE of the most depressing things about watching the FA Cup Final between Manchester City and Stoke City last Saturday was hearing the TV commentator say that the scorer of the only goal, City’s Yaya Toure,  was reputed to be earning £220,000 A WEEK!

City’s win, following their midweek clinching of a place in next season’s Champions League, means that they are guaranteed to splash out even more millions on transfers during the summer as they aim to mop up all the world’s top football talent for themselves.

Football Diary
by Patrick O’Connor

THE BBC football website regularly includes a very funny satirical spoof TV programme called Special 1 TV featuring puppet caricatures of top football personalities.  It is ‘hosted’ by the Special One himself, the Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho. Apparently it was Mourinho who came up with the nickname Special One  but the British media adopted it with relish during his trophy-winning spell with Chelsea.

IT could be described as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly!

I’m referring of course to the Champions League semi-final first leg between those two Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona.

THE mouth-watering attraction of the Real Madrid versus Barcelona Champions League semi-final first leg will ensure that the normal parochial English football fans will be glued to their television screens this week.

For some, it will be an even greater attraction than Manchester United’s game at Schalke.

THE British have a reputation for being efficient and well-organised but don’t be fooled – we can cock it up as well as the rest of the world.

Take the idiots who run our football, for the past few years they’ve been doing their best to devalue the FA Cup, once the most prestigious knock-out tournament in the world.

ABOUT 10 days ago whilst waiting for the beginning of my team’s game against Cardiff City, I watched the last half-hour of the West Ham v Manchester United Premier League game on the concourse TV.

United, two down to the London side, fought back to win 4-2, displaying all the resilience, aggression and drive you’d expect of champions-elect.