Hereford’s banner ban

hErEFOrD fans at the FA Vase final at Wembley were not impressed that a banner reading ‘We needed help — we got FA’ was banned in a heavy-handed manner by security staff. The banner was a reference to the lack of help from the football authorities for the now defunct hereford united. An FA spokesman said the banner was over the regulatory size and that the double meaning of the message was obscene.

FRIDAY will offer a good measure of how sensible it is for England’s cricket and football teams to decamp to the North East. The Test match at Durham — a ridiculous venue in May — will highlight the madness of former ECB chairman Giles Clarke’s strategy of venues bidding for international cricket and then, like Durham, ending up £5m in debt. It is costing £900,000 to stage the second Test against Sri Lanka, which they will not recoup. However, Sunderland’s Stadium of Light looks like being at near capacity for England’s Euro 2016 warm-up game against Australia. EnGlAnD rugby coach Eddie Jones was a guest of football counterpart roy hodgson during a training session at St George’s Park near Burton last week. Jones, thinking of following his predecessor Stuart lancaster and using SGP as an occasional training camp, was checking out facilities. But if he goes there, Jones will have to get work done on the rugby pitch, which oddly has not been maintained. Jones has also visited a number of Premier league clubs to learn from their training methods and gave special mention to the set-up at Crystal Palace.

THE League Managers’ Association, who have commercialised their union to an extraordinary degree, have plans to upgrade their sponsor-fest manager of the year awards dinner by taking it to the Royal Albert Hall.