Bill Bridge: Can Tevez and co keep their cool in what could be a big test for football?

WE have seen the best and the worst of English football over the past couple of weeks but there is something totally different, frightening even, in the air as Wednesday's match at Old Trafford in the Carling Cup semi-final approaches.

Two exceptional performances from Leeds United – who must surely win their replay against Spurs if the Londoners show the same lack of backbone at Elland Road as they did in defeat at Liverpool last week – a thrilling match between Aston Villa and Blackburn Rovers and one of the most horrendous fouls of recent years, perpetrated by Arsenal's William Gallas, who has somehow remained unpunished, gave us the national game in cameo.

Now comes the crunch, the meeting of United and City in a Manchester more bitterly divided than it has ever been.

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There are many reasons for that situation – the infantile behaviour of Carlos Tevez and Gary Neville not least among them – but when the Greater Manchester Police and the nabobs of the Football Association call representatives of both clubs to meetings aimed at cooling the atmosphere then we are in uncomfortable territory.

So far apart are the two clubs in terms of normal relations, the meetings had to be held separately, club officials apparently not being able to sit down together and talk without ill-feeling boiling over.

There were suggestions after the first leg at Eastlands that some United supporters deliberately arrived late at the game to put pressure on the police and smuggle into the ground various items of ammunition. Golf and snooker balls, darts and other missiles were confiscated but still there was an incident of a cigarette-lighter being thrown at a player.

In such a volatile situation you might have expected some of the senior people involved to have tried to calm things down. Instead, Sir Alex Ferguson racked up the acrimony by suggesting that Tevez should have been sent off in the first leg for a nasty tackle on Wes Brown.

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If their idol comes out with statements like that – rather than keep his own counsel – then it is hardly surprising that the supporters turn to intimidation and worse.

Much of the fuel for the potential conflagration comes, it has to be said, from this trade. No-one would have heard of accusations from Tevez about Neville made on a Spanish TV station had not sensation-mongers from the red-tops chosen to tell the English-speaking parts of Manchester.

Similarly, Neville's thoughts on Tevez, originally made in a newspaper in Malta, would have rested in the silence they deserved had not some hack decided to spread the poison.

The clubs, of course, could put a stop to such comments if they wanted to simply by ensuring the players do not speak out of turn, just as the FA could punish both Tevez and Neville for bringing the game into disrepute.

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The will is not there and we may see the consequences of cowardice on Wednesday night.

"TIRED" was the euphemism of choice when the future of Scarborough's North Marine Road ground as a venue for first-class cricket was raised by Yorkshire's chief executive Stewart Regan.

Regan and Gordon Hollies from the England and Wales Cricket Board both used the word without suggesting they were referring to Scarborough itself. They were being too generous, perhaps fearful of upsetting the natives; Scarborough is not so much tired as asleep.

That is not to decry the pleasure of travelling to the East Coast to watch cricket. Few grounds offer better viewing than Scarborough and there are few more enjoyable places to be on a sunny summer's afternoon than standing on the banking, ice-cold lager in hand.

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Better still, rather than a day trip, is to stay over in Scarborough, enjoy a meal and good cricket conversation into the night with the hundreds who still make the pilgrimage.

But at the heart of our delight at visiting North Marine Road is nostalgia; memories of childhood and stories told of the days between the wars when the Festival was a highlight of the year, not for hundreds but thousands; a mixture of seaside holiday and opportunity to see the stars of the game.

Everyone, from Bill Mustoe, the energetic chairman of the Scarborough club, down knows the ground is in urgent need of investment but no-one seems to know where the money might come from.

Yorkshire are paid 40,000 by the club for the privilege of allowing Scarborough to host fixtures and, with the county club needing all the money it can find to complete the new pavilion, they are hardly liking to waive that fee. In any case, 40,000 would not solve the problem.

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Scarborough is hoping for a good response to their fund-raising appeal in March and there are discussions involving Welcome to Yorkshire which might bring some money to replace out-dated seating.

But help from volunteers and cash from the tourist board – welcome as it will be – will not awaken Scarborough. The club needs a massive injection of money and their only potential saviour would appear to be the local authority.

Hopefully Bill Mustoe and his colleagues can reach an agreement with Yorkshire to continue hosting cricket on their ground; their negotiating position would be much less fraught if they had support from an authority which has been more than generous in spending on other sports facilities in the town in recent years.

and another thing...

WE are due an election in the first half of this year and judging by the political newssheets we could well be heading for a hung Parliament.

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Moral bankruptcy on the left and lack of ideas on the right as to what to do to lead the nation out of the financial morass are cited as reasons for likely stalemate, but here's a thought.

Imagine a hard-nosed business man (that rules out Messrs Brown, Cameron and Osborne) staking 20m of his own money (that rules out Brown) buying a company 100m in debt and in danger of losing its wherewithal yet bursting with confidence he will make his investment pay.

The man is David Sullivan and the business is relegation-threatened West Ham, yet his prospectus not only promises survival but a move to the Olympic Stadium after 2012. How we could use a leader with ambitions like that.

And while on the subject of government, how can it be that HM Treasury spend billions baling out Northern Rock then allow them to give away 10m of our money to renew their sponsorship of Newcastle United?

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Yorkshire course all set for welcome return to championship stage

YORKSHIRE has staged many professional golf tournaments down the years and there are fond memories of some of the greats of the game plying their trade in the region but of all the magic moments there remains one which everyone over a certain age remembers: Bernhard Langer playing from a tree at Fulford.

From Norman von Nida in the Yorkshire Evening News tournament of immediate post-war days to major winners like Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino, Tom Weiskopf and Greg Norman, Yorkshire has seen the world's best at play and for many wonderful years the place to see the best on a regular basis was Fulford, the gem of a course a mile south of the centre of York.

From 1971 to 1989 Fulford, designed by Charles MacKenzie, brother of the great Dr Alister, on land first surveyed by James Braid, was home to one of the highlights of the European Tour, first as the Benson and Hedges Festival of Golf then as the same sponsor's International Open.

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There was an afternoon of unforgettable reminiscence with Christy O'Connor Snr in the 19th after the great man had played poorly and sought succour in a couple of halves of Guinness, the sight of Sam Snead holing his second shot at the par-five 18th, the delight on the face of Ian Woosnam as he completed a round of 62 in 1985, an achievement beyond comprehension to a golfing mortal.

But it is to Langer that conversation invariably turns when mention is made of Fulford. If everyone who says they were by the side of the 17th that day in the summer of 1981 was actually present, then the course would have been overrun; that was far from the case but the story, like being at Headingley for Geoffrey Boycott's 100th first-class century, is a magnet.

Langer never won at Fulford, although he did win the tournament twice in later years, at St Mellion a decade after his historic tree-climbing in Yorkshire, and again in 1997 at the Oxfordshire – two of the German's 42 European Tour wins.

When he played his second to the 17th, he was playing for place money and looked to be in trouble when his ball caught the branches of the ash tree overlooking the green and somehow became lodged 15ft or so above ground.

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Langer and his caddy surveyed the scene from ground level then up he went to see whether he could play his ball as it lay and thus avoid a penalty stroke – every shot was worth saving in the Benson and Hedges, no matter where you were in the field. Finally – with several groups by now waiting to play behind – Langer took out a club, went back up the tree and took his precarious stance.

His chip was perfect and the ball found the green below; Langer had, in those few moments, entered Yorkshire golfing folklore. A plaque now advises passing golfers that this was indeed the spot where history was made and pictures of the moment are in the clubhouse.

The winner of the Benson and Hedges International that year was Weiskopf, the tall Ohian with the smooth-as-butter swing, but Langer, who had only been a professional five years, was rapidly making his way up the rankings.

He had won his first tournament – the Dunlop Masters – a year earlier and in 1981 recorded two victories, in the German Open (a tournament he now promotes) and the Bob Hope British Classic, having Tony Jacklin and Peter Oosterhuis as respective runners-up.

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He won the first of his two US Masters titles in 1985 and when the world rankings were introduced for the first time the following year he was the inaugural No 1.

Fulford's place on the PGA calendar, first gained with the Martini International in 1967, seemed to have been cemented by the success of the Benson and Hedges International and the course also staged the inaugural British Women's Open – won by Jenny Lee Smith – in 1976 and the Sun Alliance Matchplay Championship in 1979 when the International was moved for the first time to St Mellion.

The eventual departure of the B&H – due in part to larger amounts of money being offered by other courses keen for TV exposure – was a blow to the club and to the game in Yorkshire and when its successor, the Murphy's Cup, found a new home after being played at Fulford in 1990-91 the region's great run of staging top-quality tournaments was drawing to a close.

But now there is a glimmer of hope that the good times might be returning.

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Talks are in progress with a view to Fulford staging a European Seniors' Tour event in September and it will have escaped no-one's notice that one of the stars of that ensemble is none other than the same Mr Langer, who by then will be 53.

It would be a great moment if he stood once again on that 17th fairway, the ash tree bigger than ever guarding the green, and played his approach.

This time there really would be a crowd.

Changing face of Fulford course

FOR all its star-spangled history and assured place on any shortlist of the country's outstanding inland courses, Fulford enters a new decade determined to stay at the forefront of the game.

This year, the Yorkshire Amateur Championship returns to the course and visitors returning to play Fulford after a few years' absence will notice subtle changes to the lay-out which, while keeping faith with the original design by Charles MacKenzie, are intended to improve its defences against advances made in technology.

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Under the direction of Gary Pearce, who was last year named the UK Golf Club Managers' Association manager of the year, the club's greenstaff have created 16 new bunkers and restored several of the original hazards.

"We were determined to remain sympathetic to MacKenzie's principles while trying to match the improvements made to equipment," said Pearce. "We have also taken a few teeing areas a little further back and the course now measures around 7,000 yards from the championship tees."