Sambo - All or Nothing, Wolfhound Press, £6.99, and out this month, uses short quotes to kick off the beginning of each chapter of a book that traces the heroic exploits of Antrim and All Star hurler Terence `Sambo' McNaughton.
Chapter three begins: "Can you imagine Ardoyne playing the RUC? You wouldn't have trouble selling tickets" - a Belfast GAA man when asked about rule 21, which bars the security forces from joining the GAA.
Chapter eight begins: "If you want to even that up Sambo, I'll turn a blind eye" - a referee who knew I'd been hit, didn't see it, but wanted the game played fair. Tempting?
And what of that nickname `Sambo'? Less politically correct than one would have hoped from a man from Terence's corner of Antrim.
Meddling under a car one childhood day in the early 1970s, our hero emerged with his face completely blackened by oil. His brother Shane, a fan of the most gloriously-naff sitcom of the time, Love Thy Neighbour, stuck the name on McNaughton and he has carried it around since.
Say it ain't so Sambo, say it ain't so.
According to a sharp-eyed GAA enthusiast from this paper, the programme for the St Patrick's Day Croke Park football and hurling double-header included a long list of regulations which patrons are asked to either accept, or face possible ejection from the ground. One of these was a list of banned items which included, bizarrely, flags and banners.
While reading this `interesting' material, an announcement came over the public address system announcing that a "best banner" competition was being held.
Perhaps the competition was just a ruse to flush out the rulebreaking, banner-carrying, flagwaving patrons, who knows?
It hasn't been a good week for corporate footy. Shares in Manchester United took a battering following the club's exit from the Champions League after the 1-1 draw against Monaco at Old Trafford on Wednesday. The company's stock market value was slashed by £26 million to £353.3 million. United would have had the chance of collecting a £4 million-plus jackpot had they landed Europe's premier trophy.
At Newcastle United, shamed board members Freddie Shepherd and Douglas Hall found that you can't go around slagging off players, boasting about the profit margins and branding Tyneside women as "dogs". Not only have the supporters' club called for their resignation, but on Wednesday, the club shop was offering 50 per cent discounts. The two allegedly boasted that Newcastle shirts were made for a fiver and sold for £50. After a frenzied day of stock market activity, £9 million was wiped off Newcastle shares. Gone are the days when the biggest headache for club's was the players looking for a half-crown pay increase on the minimum wage.
Officials in the International Amateur Athletics Association (IAAF) are asking athletes to take part in a voluntary blood donation experiment in an effort to design tests which will eventually detect unusual levels of the human growth hormone (HGH) in human blood.
At the moment, many athletes and swimmers are thought to be using the hormone in order to boost performances. Not only is there no test to measure HGH, but mandatory taking of blood is both legally and, in some instances, morally unacceptable (there are various religious objections) in may countries.
Asking athletes to donate blood seems to be a small step and in the face of what is now happening in Germany, where former East German coaches are facing prison sentences for pushing drugs on children, you wonder where it will end. But asking for the co-operation of the very athletes they eventually hope to catch cheating? Naive or what?
Nobody's immune from the sands of time, not even `The Voice of Racing'. Sir Peter O'Sullevan, the BBC's racing commentator, has lost his nameplate in the Cheltenham press room. O'Sullevan, who covered so many Festivals for the BBC, finally hung up his microphone after calling the Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup at Newbury last November.
He entered the course's press centre to find the space where he prepared for his commentaries, marked with his name, has now been given over to the Irish Star.
"I just came in to see if I was still alive," said The Voice. "It seems I'm not!"
Hercules the Lion, Aston Villa's mascot, was a bit too wild for Debbie Robins at Villa Park last week. The crowd roared when the mascot mauled the reigning Miss Birmingham and yesterday, the management told the man in the suit, 28-year-old Gavin Lucas, to get out of it - for good.
"I don't go around grappling women," protested Lucas, a draughtsman from Birmingham. "This was just a bear-hug, a bit of banter." His next Herculean task will be explaining himself to his fiancee, Clair Beebee.
