Cassano denies rift with pie

Sampdoria striker Antonio Cassano has denied reports of a bust-up with a delicious pie, insisting that his relationship with pie remains as strong as ever.

“I’ve had my problems in the past, with managers, referees, journalists, even with my own team-mates” admitted the 27-year old. “But with pie? Never. Pie has always been my good friend. These stories are simply false.”

According to reports in the Italian press, Cassano has been unhappy with the way that pie is frequently flaky, with an insufficiently moist filling to compensate for the dryness of the outer crust. Fan forums have linked the striker with a move for a tray of macaroons, while Twitter was recently abuzz with rumours of a link-up with baklava.

But the former Real Madrid and Roma man insisted he was happy with the pie on offer at Sampdoria, and was in fact making plans to extend his belt.

“I’ve spoken with the manager and the chairman, and with my agent, and before Christmas we’re all going to sit down together and sample a huge selection of pies. But I’ve made it clear that I can see myself eating pie at the Stadio Ferraris for the rest of my career, as long as the pie on offer remains the right pie for me.”

Sources close to pie were also quick to deny the rumours. “Anyone who suggests there are problems between pie and Antonio knows nothing about pie,” a spokesbiscuit told reporters yesterday. “These allegations are as baseless and insubstantial as a meringue.”

A return to the national team for Cassano looks unlikely, though, as Italy boss Marcello Lippi still blames him for the disappearance of all the after-dinner biscotti following a clash with Norway in 2005.

Citing Wigan refund as precedent, fans take beloved clubs to cleaners

Wigan Athletic's decision to refund fans who travelled to their 9-1 humiliation at White Hart Lane has brought about a devastating domino effect as supporters across the country have pushed for compensation payments ranging from £6.50 to £500,000.

After falling victim to Harry Redknapp's new strategy of scoring nine goals, Wigan captain Mario Melchiot declared that his side would be refunding the Latics fans who made the 6,000 mile trip to North London to watch their heroes get flayed by a fairly good side.

Sadly, this well-meaning gesture has had a huge knock-on effect as fans all over the country have submitted invoices to their clubs for past indignities.

Portsmouth face a bill of £6m to pay back the Fratton Park faithful for their dire start to the campaign and the entire crowd for August 29's Blackburn-West Ham bore draw have claimed back their hard-earned cash.

Mr Kevin Ardley, an elderly Grimsby Town fan, has delivered an 8,000-page report to Blundell Park in which he outlines his grievances and demands a settlement of nearly £500,000.

At the other end of the scale, Ian Kirwin of Milton Keynes - a Manchester United fan since 1996 - claimed £35 for "this time my uncle took me to see United play some shitty little team [Exeter City] in the FA Cup and they only drew."

The smallest claim of all was £6.50 from a Tottenham fan demanding compensation for "the 42 minutes when it was only 1-0 and we were missing loads of chances" during the 9-1 win over Wigan.

A few clubs are reportedly considering a "pay as they play" system to combat unforeseen refunds where a collection plate would be passed around after each goal, near miss and punch-up.

Dismay as Brownitez survive again

Public surprise was turning to anger last night as Phil and Rafa came through another judges' vote to remain in the Premier League, despite the pair's increasingly shambolic performances.

Sky Sports have received nearly 3,000 complaints after it was revealed that for the fifteenth consecutive week, no contestant was to leave the network’s top-rated entertainment programme. This is after Phil [above right] and Rafa yet again failed to take enough points to guarantee their safety during Saturday's programme, the latest in a series of fiascos to befall the orange-tinctured calamity twins.

The two had been tripped up earlier in the series by the Defending Set-Pieces task, the Don’t Gamble Your Season’s Transfer Kitty On A Famously Crock-Prone Midfielder challenge, and most notoriously the Brtiney Spears round, when a rendition of the star’s 2000 hit ‘Lucky’ turned into a call-and-response rap about controversial refereeing decisions in previous shows.

A Sky spokesperson defended the decision to stick with the goateed duo. “There is a loveable quality to Phil and Rafa,” she said. “Viewers can tell they’re out of their depth but they just keep plugging away. Everyone watching at home likes the idea that you don’t need to be successful or talented to get your face on the telly.”

She refused to be drawn on rumours, reported last week in Heat magazine, that glamour model Jordan is set to replace the troubled contestants as soon as she completes her UEFA Pro Licence.

Cunning Redknapp strikes gold with 'score nine goals' gameplan

Master tactician Harry Redknapp was basking in the glory of Spurs's biggest win of recent times today, after his plan of scoring eight goals in the second half proved too much for his opposite number Roberto Martinez, who had instructed his Wigan players to score 'one goal, maximum'.

Spurs marksman Jermain Defoe, who bagged no fewer than five goals in Tottenham's amazing 9-1 romp, gave the credit to boss Redknapp for a tactically astute half-time team-talk. 'The gaffer noticed that we was only winning 1-0,' revealed Defoe, 'and he told us that obviously if we could get some more goals, it would be harder for Wigan to catch us up.'

'We was thinking maybe two or three, but the boss says to us: 'no, let's have a whole load of goals. Try and get eight. If you get eight, we'll have nine and that should easily be enough to win the game.' Some of the lads wasn't convinced it would work, but obviously, the scoreline speaks for itself.'

A spokesman told Back Of The Net that Redknapp was unavailable for comment today, having been called away to Monte Carlo to settle some debts, but an insider revealed: 'Harry came up with the plan a couple of weeks ago after the Arsenal game. He told the players to try and concede two or three goals in that game, and obviously the result was disappointing. So in the week following that, he got the calculator out and hit on the scheme of scoring a shitload of goals against Wigan.'

Redknapp's spokesman was understandably tight-lipped on the question of whether the Spurs boss would employ the successful tactic in their next game, against Aston Villa. But with rumours circulating that Villa supremo Martin O'Neill is instructing his own side to win 4-3, fans are bracing themselves for a classic.

Sky forced to rename 'Super Sunday' after Stoke-Portsmouth clash

Sky Sports face the threat of legal action this morning after describing yesterday's bill of Bolton v Blackburn and Stoke v Portsmouth as a 'Super Sunday'. Trading Standards authorities launched an investigation when hundreds of viewers complained at the poor fare, and a panel of experts ruled that not one minute of the 180 could accurately be described as 'super'. Around thirty minutes were 'good, honest toil', seventy minutes consisted of 'attritional stuff', and the remainder was classified as 'total dogshit'.

'Originally, I had no intention of watching Stoke-Portsmouth,' said one disappointed viewer. 'There was a 'Friends' marathon on T4 and those guys' antics never get boring. But then I saw the trailer for the football and when they announced it was a Super Sunday, well, I felt I couldn't miss it. There were all these slow-motion shots of Ricardo Fuller and some of Paul Hart looking worried on the touchline. And that man who does the voiceover sounded genuinely excited.'

Another Sky subscriber was up in arms after missing his sister's wedding in order to take in Bolton-Blackburn. 'This was a huge deal for my family,' lamented the viewer, who did not want to be named, 'but when I got a text saying Super Sunday was on, I was forced to pull out and get to a television. If I'd known I'd be watching players like Kevin-Prince Boateng and Rory Delap, I would never have missed Polly's big day. Sky should be more careful advertising matches as 'Super' when they're between two functional Lancashire outfits who can hardly put a pass together.'

Richard Graeme, head of media and communications, confirmed that Sky would be reviewing their advertising policy. 'We have already re-classified December 2 as a 'Workmanlike Wednesday', and December 6 [when Sky show matches involving Scunthorpe and Everton], which was going to be a Super Sunday, will now be billed as 'The Best Sunday We Can Manage, Given That Our Contract Forces Us To Share Airtime Around Between Some Dreadful Clubs''.

'Still,' Graeme added, 'it's not like Spurs-Wigan would have been any more exciting, is it?'

While Sky backtracked over their adverts, the man who does the wildly excitable voiceover denied that he had deliberately misled viewers. 'I. JUST. REALLY. LOVE. FOOTBALL,' he boomed from a recording studio, over slow-motion footage of Hull against Fulham.

Keane 'generally enjoyed trip to Paris'

Republic of Ireland striking star Robbie Keane insists he had a "grand time" in Paris in spite of his side's heartbreaking World Cup 2010 qualification play-off defeat.

Hampered by the loss of their trademark luck, the Irish were denied a trip to South Africa by a William Gallas goal, scored after Thierry Henry had tossed the ball from hand to hand like a pizza chef flipping dough.

Amazingly, none of Henry's 19 handballs were seen by referee Martin Hansson and Robbie Keane's first-half goal proved insufficient to prevent despicable clown Raymond Domenech and his charmless underachievers reaching the finals.

But the disappointment at the Stade de France didn't seem to ruin culture buff Keane's enjoyment of the French capital.

"I had a terrific time," he beamed at bemused journalists. "On Tuesday night we went for a walk along the Seine and then had dinner at Les Deux Magots. Just to be in the same seats that the likes of Hemingway, Breton and Camus frequented was a humbling experience.

"And before the game we managed to squeeze in a visit to the Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay where I was lucky enough to get a chance to discuss the work of Edouard Vuillard with Guy Cogeval himself.

"Obviously the game didn't quite go as planned with the failure to qualify as a result of cheating and that, but still Paris was grand."

Manager Giovanni Trapattoni was also keen to stress that he "couldn't remember the last time he had been to Paris" and described the mid-week trip as "an unexpected joy at my age."

Luck of the Irish ran out in 2003, officials discover

The famous 'Luck of the Irish', an unexplained cosmic loophole which traditionally allows the Republic of Ireland to overachieve at international football tournaments, expired several seasons ago, it was revealed today.

The Irish have enjoyed considerable success by invoking the rule, most famously when they used it to progress to the quarter-finals of the 1990 World Cup without winning a game in normal time, forcing a corner, or completing any passes. The LOTI also secured Ireland's passage to the knockout stages in 2002 after they had been outplayed by both Cameroon and Germany. It has been one of the most popular cliches for commentators sentimentalising Irishness, second only to constant mentions of 'pints of the black stuff flowing' every time the men in green lose by fewer than four goals.

This year, however, Ireland look set to miss out on qualification despite generally strong performances, thanks to a brutal draw which has pitted them against both Italy and France. After a fortunate deflected winner in Saturday's first leg with France left the Irish with a mountain to climb, FoI President David Blood launched an informal inquiry. He discovered, according to insiders at Croke Park, that the Luck of the Irish was not renewed in time for Euro 2004, and has been discontinued. 'We wondered what had happened to all those scrambled goals from dubious corners, and qualifying groups full of joke teams like the Faroe Islands,' Blood lamented. 'Turns out

we no longer have our ancient right to skank our way through competitions with functional set-plays.'

'Feck!' added Blood.

It has not yet been established why the Luck of the Irish was rescinded. One theory suggests that the Irish gods were upset by the appointment of non-Irishman Mick McCarthy as manager, but this seems unlikely to have been the cause, as the 1990 World Cup squad was famously managed by an Englishman and contained as many as eight players who had never been to, or heard of, Ireland. Others think the LOTI may have been transferred to Ireland's rugby team, who won the Grand Slam this year after Wales's Stephen Jones missed a decisive last-second penalty.

'But to be honest,' Blood admitted, 'we might have just forgotten to send the forms back after the party to welcome back the 2002 heroes [from South Korea, where Ireland reached the last sixteen]. Now, there was a grand night with some great craic.'

This is not the first blow to Irish heritage in recent years. The legendary Blarney Stone famously lost its magical powers after being urinated on by members of an English stag party, and the nation's official nickname was changed to 'The Emirates Emerald Isle' after a sponsorship deal in 2007. But Blood promised fans that 'whatever happens in Paris, win, lose or draw, the black stuff will be flowing back home.'