Ronnie O'Sullivan had barely taken his seat beside Barry Hearn at the pre-tournament press launch for this year's World Championship on Monday before he looked like he would rather have been anywhere else than here right now.

The venue for the question-and-answer session was the Groucho Club, a spot frequented by media sorts just off London's Leicester Square. It was an outpost far too small for this level of grand unveiling which only added to the general sweatiness of the occasion.

"Wakey, wakey," said Hearn, chairman of World Snooker and a former manager of another multiple world champion

Millwall failed to unearth a shot on target, but their fans got plenty away in the cavernous stands of the new Wembley. Who said football wouldn't pay tribute to Margaret Thatcher at the weekend?

The disturbing scenes from Saturday's FA Cup semi-final with Wigan were straight out of Thatcher's era as Prime Minister. It was perhaps predictable Millwall fans were back in the dock.

The lovable array of ongoing ruffians who fought each other during a sodden match before switching focus to the bobbies don't appreciate being told what they can and can't do. Handed down from father to son through

These increasingly drunken darts tournaments are an accident waiting to happen. They have been for some time.

The most depressing aspect of a "fan" spitting on the ongoing world champion Phil Taylor before he played in the Premier League in Glasgow on Thursday night was the unsavoury episode's ability to detract from the unique skills of such figures, to soil the game's soul.

The incident has been greeted with surprise. This onlooker was not shocked. Not in such febrile conditions laced with copious amounts of lager where Mr Joe Public and a few pints of confidence cannot be trusted to behave

Living in the past remains a dangerous business. There is little currency to be gleaned from poring over the golden years. Unless your name is David Bowie.

Scotland supporters may think their team will suddenly wake up from a self-induced coma at some stage, but being enshrined in international football's purgatory can be a lengthy ordeal. It already is.

The most worrying aspect for Scotland is that the malady lingers on, a comatose state where there is no bottoming out.

Scotland have not visited a major tournament since the 1998 World Cup finals in France. When Brazil 2014 unfurls itself

In the foothills of the Alps, Celtic discovered that some mountains take time, serious forward planning, the proper personnel, some good fortune and copious reserves of cash to climb. And even then, one might not make it down the other side alive.

Celtic’s 2-0 defeat to Juventus in a teeming Turin last night was not quite the ending they had envisaged after their compelling input into the group stage, but there comes a time when the fiscal realities of competing in the latter stages of the Champions League shine a light on the obvious facts of life.

Attempting to live with clubs who possess a

If it ain't broken, fix it. Rather than unearthing large dollops of their television Euro millions on the Spanish equivalent of Shoestring to find out whether or not much-vaunted players are behaving properly during time off, Barcelona should use their resources more wisely.

Amid a time of apparent public outrage in Catalonia that claims Barca allegedly endorsed the use of private detectives to tail Gerard Pique and his girlfriend, the pop singer Shakira, off the park, matters on it are suddenly more pressing. Or not when you study Cristiano Ronaldo leading Barca a merry dance with a couple of

A lot of discussion has been regurgitated this week regarding the somewhat doomed lives of Paul Gascoigne and George Best, fabled and equally tragic footballers, who apparently began their descent into drunken stupors when their careers shut down.

The main difference between the two is that Best stopped playing at the elite levels with Manchester United at only 27 to get “started” as he told Terry Wogan back in the 1980s. Gascoigne had to be dragged kicking and screaming from football at the age of 37 after retiring during a short-lived stint with Boston United in 2004.

It would be fair to

Long before he rose to eminence as the world's leading golfer, Vijay Singh - wearer of a US Masters green jacket and winner of two US PGA Championships - spent time working as a bouncer on the door of a nightclub on Edinburgh's Lothian Road. For anyone who has lived in the Scottish capital, having one's wits about you is certainly a prerequisite to a palatable evening.

Back in the 1980s when Maggie Thatcher's Conservative Government was wreaking havoc in various outposts of Scotland, one imagines this would be especially so. Lothian Road on a weekend night is certainly an alternative view of