Thanks to Bill Gleeson who sent the following erudite piece form Scotland. He encloses the first few paragraphs of an article in Thursday's Scottish edition of the Mirror.

"The man who masterminded BSkyB's £623m takeover of Manchester United couldn't name one of their stars yesterday. `Asked who played left back for the club he had just bought, American Mark Booth (41) confessed: `Naming players is not my area of expertise.

"Then Sky's chief executive passed the ball to sidekick Vic Wakeling. He tried to avoid the tackle, saying, `the only person who can name the team is Alex Ferguson.'

"WRONG! The Mirror can help out Rupert Murdoch's henchmen - United's regular left-back is ULSTER international Denis Irwin.