Malcolm Fowler’s Blog

Dwayne Chambers is is proven cheat and should never be allowed to take part in athletics at any level for the rest of his life.

Do the apologists - those who tell us that he has served his time and should be allowed to start again with a clean slate - do they realise what damage he and his ilk have done to the track and field. Once the purest form of sporting activity, it has descended to a level at which each new achievement is greeted with suspicion about whether it has been chemically enhanced. Until it rids itself of those who have sullied its name it will cotinue to sink into the pits.

Forgive him by all means; we can forgive the bank clerk who has boosted his pay packet with a little creative accounting and been found out, but when he has served his time, he will not find the high street banks queueing up to offer him employment. This would be so even if he were the greatest bank clerk who ever lived.

Forgive Chambers, but never, never, never let him on a running track again.

There are two questions to answer. Firstly, having played a 5 day test match there a year ago, how has the Sir Viv Richards Stadium been allowed to deteriorate into nothing more than a beach since then?

Secondly, having had that year to prepare the ground for the second West Indies vs England test and failed dismally, what cause is there to believe that the authorities can now prepare a ramshackle football stadium for the re-scheduled match in just two days?

The way in which the whole thing has been handled is hugely disrepectful to the visitors; playing and spectating; and a gross insult to the name of one of the greatest batsman ever to play the game. All connected with the administration of West Indies cricket should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

Manchester City have, apparently, offered £108million for the signature of a Brazilian footballer by the name of Kaka. If they are successful in securing it, they propose to pay him £250,000 a week. We are told that Kaka will not be swayed by the amount of money on offer. He is a devout catholic and donates a large proportion of his salary to the Catholic Church. Whilst I am sure that he sincerely believes that such donations will benefit mankind, it is hard to think of a less worthy cause than that bunch of paedophiles.

Premiership football lost touch with reality long ago, and we should not be surprised that one of the richest men in the world has taken over one of our clubs and upped the ante to breathtaking levels.

On the other hand, before Rupert Murdoch came along and pumped huge sums into the Premiership, football clubs were bankrolled by wealthy local businessmen. Now that we live in a global village, what is so different about what Abramovic and Sheik Mansour are doing? And if it gives City a chance to eclipse that other, cynical, Manchester team, then it has to be a good thing.

I’m sure that we all wish Andrew Strauss well, but the ECB’s capacity for self -destruction beggars belief. If they had wanted a captain who would tolerate mediocrity they should not have appointed Pietersen in the first place. Now we are left in total disarray a few weeks before we attempt to regain the Ashes because he made a stand for excellence.

I am the first person to acknowledge that no one player is bigger than the team, but we have, in KP, one of the greatest batsmen who has ever played the game.  It is vital that he can work in an environment in which he can display his exceptional talents to the full if England are to have a chance.