Any English football betting fan watching the Spain v. England match on Wednesday night would have every excuse to come away with deep concern about the inadequacy of our team after taking-in the footballing masterclass provided by their hosts in Andalucía that night. It was so good I wondered why I hadn’t noticed it before. Without doubt, the Spanish are European champions for good reason but just how good was jaw droppingly revealed in this game.

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It’s crunch time in Glasgow, once again, as Celtic and Rangers get ready to go head-to-head in this latest SPL slug fest. Home advantage goes with Celtic although this season home advantage has counted for nothing as the last two encounters have seen the away team leave victorious. With just two points seperating both teams it is bound to an intense affair with Rangers insisting in the press they are not interested in going to Celtic Park to defend.

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Following on from his surprising defeat by Madison Du Berlais at Kempton on Saturday, the owners of the Paul Nicholls trained, Denman have decided to pull him from the John Smith’s Grand National and focus their attention on the defence of his Cheltenham Gold Cup crown next month. Apart from the effect this will have on horse race betting fans of the Grand National, now open to a number of potential winners, the condition of the horse is bound to remain the subject of intense discussion prior to his participation in the premier race of the Cheltenham Festival.

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The ruthless sacking of Luiz Felipe Scolari, yesterday by Chelsea, smacks of a club unprepared to settle for top 4 finishes in the Premiership and the odd cup win here-and-there. But it also shows another side, that Chelsea still are not over the split between themselves and the ‘Special One’ : Jose Mourinho. The sacking of Scolari may meet with the approval of those Chelsea legions who pack into Stamford Bridge each match day. Dissapointed by the decline in home form and an overall lack of self-belief by the players seen shouts for Scolari to go. And go he did, forced from his job, 7 months in, Chelsea gave Scolari the old, ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ routine.

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I’m a patient man. Someone who can wait years for something to sort itself out – to get back on track, realise the error of its ways. Then, one day, it’ll dawn on me that it’s not going to find its way back, it’s a lost cause and it’s time to move on. That happened to me while watching the West Indies obliterate the England team in the second innings of the first Test Match in the current series in the Caribbean. Just to get things clear, the respective scores of our top five batsmen in that innings were 9, 0, 4, 1 and 1. West Indian bowler, Sulieman Benn who, along with the phenomenal Jerome Taylor, inflicted much of the damage, scored 23 runs – eight more than our top men combined. The scores of the top three West Indian batsmen in their first innings were 104, 6 and 107, so there’s no blaming the pitch.

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The legendary Denman leads the field of 123 runners entered for the 2009 John Smith’s Grand National which will be run at Aintree on April 4. Denman is one of nine runners from the Irish stable of Paul Nicholls who is anxious for a first win at this, the most prestigious of all of the jump races. Horse racing betting fans with an eye for the history of the sport will know that, should Denman be successful, the horse would become only the third mount to have won both the Cheltenham Gold Cup and the Grand National in company with Golden Miller (1934) and L’Escargot (1970/71).

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David Beckam last night expressed his desire to remain in Milan and by making his feelings public knowledge you can bet the talks between AC Milan and LA Galaxy are already in deep conversation. Certainly, the loan move to Italy has reinvigorated Beckam and his need to be part of England’s quest to win the World Cup in 2010.

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Martin Johnson, now past his honeymoon period as England Rugby Union manager, is struggling to field a team of any great promise for the Six nations tournament which commences this weekend at Twickenham with an opening match against, thankfully, Wooden-Spoon contenders, Italy. Mind you, with the Italians reputedly having the best scrum in Europe and three games in Rome, it could be the Lions who find themselves at the bottom of the heap in three weeks time.

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Two more countries placed their names into the hat for the honour to host the 2018 World Cup. Egypt and South Korea are the latest names to be added alongside Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Qatar, South Korea, Egypt, Mexico, USA, England and Russia. South American teams are barred from applying as Brazil has been handed the right to host the 2014 World Cup. There is some comfort for those that don’t get selected for 2018 – they automatically qualify as a bidding nation for the 2022 World Cup.

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Horse racing betting enthusiasts are still holding their breath after Ruby Walsh rather unsportingly rode a treble at Taunton last Tuesday and thwarted Tony McCoy in his bid to be the first jump jockey to achieve three thousand wins. On Thursday he managed to get within two of the target at Wincanton. Then on Friday his Chepstow meet was abandoned and at Sandown, on Saturday, Walsh had the nerve to beat McCoy in his two big races and further delay the great man’s ascent to these previously unknown heights of jockeydom.

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