Daily Mail

Sri Lanka take a walk

- c.sale@dailymail.co.uk and twitter.com/charliesal­e

THE England football squad and the Sri Lanka cricket team were all staying at the Newcastle Hilton hotel this week and when security there mistook the tourists’ coach for England’s it was guided to a prime parking position. When the error was discovered, the Sri Lankans’ coach was sent around the corner so that England’s pampered footballer­s would not have to make the short walk to reception.

Considerin­g England were staying in Newcastle rather than Sunderland due to a lack of hotels before their game at the Stadium of Light, the least they could have done is held a press conference at the stadium.

But that was also held in Newcastle due to ‘a lack of time’, according to the FA, and Roy Hodgson has been a rare sight in Sunderland since becoming England manager. FORMER javelin world record-holder Steve Backley wins the gold medal for the athlete with his head deepest in the Copacabana sand. Backley, speaking at the BBC Olympic launch on Thursday, said about the drugs issue that is inevitably going to overshadow the event: ‘In Rio, I think we can forget all about it, 99.9 per cent of athletes who compete will be clean.’ Yesterday the IOC revealed 23 positive drugs readings from re-analysed samples at London 2012 involving six countries and five medal winners. EX-ENGLAND fast bowler Steve Harmison is to carry on as manager of Northern League side Ashington FC next season despite being in the middle of a 12-match ban for raging at a referee. Harmison, who is appealing against over the severity of his sentence, said he had positive talks with Ashington chairman Ian Lavery at the Durham Test yesterday. IT WILL make it that much harder for the BBC to justify accreditin­g 258 personnel for Euro 2016 now that rivals ITV are sending a team just over half that size — 137 — to cover the same number of matches.

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