Well, it was bound to happen at some stage. So many major sports have been tainted in recent times by the scourge of performance-enhancing substance abuse (cycling, athletics, baseball ... the list goes on) and it appears that not even the once-gentlemanly pursuit of cricket is immune from this sickness.

At the time of writing, Pakistan cricketers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif had yet to hear the results of their B samples, but the damage has already been done and it is hard to see them avoiding a heavy suspension from the game.

So, with all the doom and gloom, some light entertainment is called for, and I hereby oblige - enjoy... 

Surprise, surprise - England's only national daily sports betting newspaper, The Sportsman, has been forced to shut up shop just seven months after promises of shaking up the UK media market . Ha, ha, ha!

Just a few months ago, I was working as a freelance Sports Sub-editor in London and a mate who worked at Bloomberg sent me an advert from The Sportsman calling for experienced sports subs. So I contacted them and was invited for an interview. So far so good.

I took a day off from the national daily I was involved with (for a freelance, that's a huge sacrifice), put on my best suit, and armed with a headful of what I presumed would be useful info about The Sportsman, made my way across London to their impressive waterfront offices in Hammersmith. In rush hour, three tubes, one black cab, an hour and a half later I arrived there. That was some journey...

I was met by one of the editorial executives and I guess I should have known straight from the start that they were a Mickey Mouse outfit - he prompty sat me down on a couch, stated he was "very busy" and that the interview would "have to be quick" and started firing questions at me. Right there, in the middle of reception. Talk about a lack of professionalism. All basic rules of recruitment and Human Resources ignored. Never mind, I thought, maybe that's just their informal work ethos.

But when he asked me whether I had any subbing experience, I realised that he was just wasting my time. "Did you not read my CV?" I asked politely. "Yes, I did" he said. Clearly he had not, as my nearly 10 years in the field was well documented there. "We use QuarkXpress here" he continued, "and you will have to learn Quark if you want to work here." Once again, I enquired about my CV, as my cover letter stated I had 14 years of Quark experience (which was probably more than the so-called interviewer had). When he asked: "Can you write?", I was ready to walk out. I was a multiple awarding-winning sports writer, it said in the first line of my bloody CV. Was this guy for real?

Anyway, to cut a long story short, he soon realised that I was a former Sports Editor with considerably more experience that most of his staff and said he would call me to "arrange a freelance shift so that they could assess my skills on the job". Great, I thought!

Suffice to say, the call never came. I have heard similar stories from colleagues at the national Sunday paper I was also freelancing at, who had the misfortune to cross paths executive staff of The Sportman. Thoroughly unprofessional, seems to be the common thread . One woman racing writer turned up for a job interview and was offered her own column! She was as shocked as the rest of the staff. What had she done to deserve such generosity when she was not even a household name? The mind boggles...

So, am I surprised that they have closed? Not in the slightest. If they failed so abysmally in their handling of (potential) staff, the lifeblood of any newspaper, how did they expect to succeed? It''s a shame though - there is a market for a daily sports paper in this country. But anyone thinking even remotely of attempting such a daunting project would do well to learn from the mistakes of The Sportsman.

At the risk of sour grapes, I guess it was a blessing in disguise that the phone call never arrived. Otherwise, I would be numbering among the unemployed today. I just feel sorry for all the journalists who have lost their jobs. Who cares about the executives. I am sure they have been richly rewarded for their efforts (or lack thereof)...

I have decided to leave the hectic world of full-time journalism at Independent News and Media for the more sedate life as a full-time academic at Leeds Trinity College; or so they said... Don't know about lecturers living a life of leisure, so far it's been pretty tough work.

The name of this blog may turn out to be a misnomer as I have moved from the big city - London - to the more gentrified climes of West Yorkshire.

As for the world of sport - football is today reeling from claims by the BBC's Panorama that Bolton boss Sam Alardyce allegedly accepted illegal payments for the transfer of players. While I must stress that Allardyce has vehememtly denied any wrongdoing and the allegations remain unproven, I really don't understand why everyone is so surprised by the suggestion of cloak and dagger dealings by Panorama.

With the vast amounts of money involved in world football these days, it is inevitable that deals will be made under the boardroom table. Surely fans, players and managers are not so naive so as to assume that the (astronomical) figures regularly bandied about for the sale of players are straightforward transactions - like buying a new car or a house?! Chelsea have already landed in hot water for their underhanded approach to Ashley Cole and you only need to look at the extraordinary affair of the Argentinian tranfers at West Ham realise that the murky business of tranfers anything but black and white. 

After the scandal that has completely engulfed Italian football, very little can surprise me anymore...

So now we hear from a report on the bbc site that England football fans put on "a concerted e-mail campaign" to prevent Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo from winning the Young Player of the World Cup award - Germany's Lucas Podolski got the nod. This even though Wayne Rooney and Ronaldo attempted to patch up their differences after Rooney's ignominious exit from the ill-tempered quarter-final clash. And even though the referee who sent Rooney off, Argentina's Horacio Elizondo, was widely supported for giving Rooney a red card. Elizondo later shrugged off any suggestion that a ref could be influenced by the claims of a single player (Ronaldo) into sending off another (Rooney) in a World Cup quarter-final being watched by millions and subjected to television scrutiny by so many cameras. He told the Manchester Evening News he did not send Rooney off for pushing Ronaldo or for any protestations from the Portuguese wing. Rooney was sent off for a vicious stamp on the groin of Ricardo Carvalho - end of story.

So why can't England fans just deal with it? So what if Ronaldo winked at the bench after the incident? How can anyone be sure what that was all about? One that that is certain is that Rooney could have caused serious injury to Carvalho with that senseless lunge. I am a great admirer of Rooney but he deserved to get his marching orders for that attack.

What is it about England football fans that robs them of all sense of sportsmanship? Why can't they accept that, based strictly on performance, their team did not deserve a place in the semi-finals of this World Cup? Like the majority of fans supporting England in this country and elsewhere, I dearly wanted Sven Goran Eriksson's men to repeat the accomplishments of 1966 - but in the harsh light of day it is now clear that was never going to happen. England were just not good enough. Full stop. Their brand of long-ball football and heavy reliance on set-pieces was never going to trouble experienced defenders who ply their trade in the toughest leagues in the world.

So, everyone is to blame for England's demise - Ronaldo, the ref, Eriksson, the phase of the moon - but themselves.

It should be added that the "concerted e-mail campaign" probably did not make one iota of difference to the selection of the Young Player of the tournament, who was selected by a Fifa panel and NOT through popular vote. But it smacks of sour grapes.

It's a shame that I don't update this more often, because there is so much happening. Since my last post on "From Leftfield", there is news - the column bagged the Top Sports Writer gong at the annual South African Journalism Awards. It came with a cheque for around £500! Sweet! The piece that was acknowledged was a telling indictment on the parlous state of football in South Africa and on a global scale, with racism, hooliganism, match-fixing and the like threatening the Beautiful Game. Since that column, there have been even more examples of this brand of loutish behaviour, particularly in Europe, where the seething under-currents of social tension have recently spilled onto streets and football terraces. And to think that when I chose to write a Masters dissertation on "Racism in Football", a top UK sports pundit told me I was "wasting my time"...