Sports round up
■ ENGLAND'S oldest ex-footballer, Derek Ufton, died last Sunday at the age of 90. He won one cap – in a 4-4 draw with the Rest of the World in 1953 – and made 277 appearances as a centre-half for Charlton: 1948-60. He also played in 148 cricket matches as a wicket-keeper batsman for Kent, scoring 3,919 runs and claiming 314 dismissals (catches and stumpings).
■ Also, another footballer, Lee Collins, passed away nine days ago, aged just 32. A defender, he made 470 club appearances during his career, his first 20 in 2006-07 as a loanee with Hereford from his parent club Wolves. He went on to play for Port Vale (163 games), Barnsley, Northampton (86), Mansfield (82), Forest Green Rovers (64) and Yeovil (39), serving the latter since 2019.
■ Cambridge, rowing on home water, won last weekend’s Varsity boat race which took place on the Great Ouse in Ely, Cambridgeshire.
■ Pole Hubert Huckutz and Aussie Ashleigh Barty won the respective men’s and women’s singles finals at the Miami Tennis Open, but the GB pairing of Dan Evans and Neal Skupski lost in the men’s doubles final. And on Monday we see the start of the Monte Carlo Masters.
■ This weekend Real Madrid play Barcelona in the 246th El
Clasico (so far Real have 97 wins, Barça 96 with 52 draws). And coming up are the second legs of the Champions League quarter-finals with ChelseaPorto, PSG-Bayern Munich on Tuesday and Dortmund-Manchester City and LiverpoolReal Madrid on Wednesday. Also next Thursday there are the four second leg quarterfinals in the Europa League with Manchester United-Granada, Roma-Ajax, Slavia Prague-Arsenal and VillarrealDynamo Zagreb.
■ It has been confirmed that 8,000 fans will be allowed inside Wembley Stadium to watch the Carabao Cup final between Manchester City and Tottenham later this month. And in May there will be larger assemblies allowed inside sporting stadiums.
■ Last Monday Rebecca Welch became the first female to referee a league game in the UK when she took charge of the Harrogate-Port Vale EFL 2 game.
■ Tomorrow afternoon we have the Grand National from Aintree and my eachway tip is the Henry de Bromheadtrained Minella Times, priced at 14-1, with female super jockey Rachael Blackmore likely to be in the saddle.
■ The US Masters Golf Championship ends on Sunday.
■ The old men of snooker, Jimmy White (aged 58) and Stephen Hendrey (52) met each other in a World Championship qualifier last Monday – and it was Hendrey who came out on top, winning six frames to three.
■ And the IPL cricket season starts in India this weekend with the Punjab Kings taking on the Rajasthan Royals and the Mumbai Indians facing the Royal Challengers Bangalore.