TV View: The sight on Saturday of Darren Clarke curled up in a ball, a picture of misery, sitting on his bag at the 12th tee, sodden from the steady drizzle, having just bogeyed the 11th, prompted Peter Alliss to echo our very own thoughts: "Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear."

Clarke's face said, "What I am doing here?" - when he completed his round he confirmed it was what his mind was thinking too.

He has, of course, infinitely more significant matters than golf to occupy his thoughts these days, but it was for that precise reason you were willing the fella to win the British Masters to send him home in better spirits.

To add to it all he had a couple of tickets for the FA Cup final to watch his beloved Liverpool. He needed to miss the cut to make it to Cardiff.

"If I have an 80 tomorrow it won't be an accident," he told Maureen Madill on Thursday.

When he lined up his putt on the 18th on Friday we expected him to take out his driver and send the ball to the Millennium Stadium, where he'd collect it the following afternoon, having, um, missed the cut at the Belfry.

"Where does that leave your plans for the Millennium Stadium?" Madill asked him. "In pieces," he half-grinned, "I'm gutted."

But after 28 minutes in Cardiff we were glad Darren wasn't there: 2-0 to West Ham, game over. Surely? Well. You know yourself, Istanbulitis struck again. It struck Darren too, incidentally. After 10 minutes sitting slumped at the 12th tee he picked himself up and birdied three of the next four holes.

"Are you Stevie G in disguise?" they should have chanted from the gallery.

Any way, 'twas a sizzler of a cup final. And the BBC's coverage was - what's the word? - enlivened by Ian Wright's presence on its panel.

"I never thought Alan Pardew would become a manager because he was one of those guys who'd put lemon in his hair so it would go blonde and would pull his shorts up as high as they'd go," he shared with us. Never did Jack Charlton any harm.

We feared for West Ham when Marlon Harewood's first attempt on goal went out for a throw-in, but we feared even more for Liverpool when John Motson told us Harry Kewell had "injured himself in the tunnel". Sore thing.

But, as any Liverpool fan will tell you, the sight of Kewell limping off is a good omen, and, as any Liverpool fan will tell you, Steven Gerrard is other-worldly. As Motty put it in or around the time Stevie G made it 3-3, "Ooooooaaaaoooaooaoooohhh."

It wasn't the best of days, however, for Peter Crouch, even if he ended up with a winner's medal. Such, though, is the dog's abuse the poor fella has been getting this season, come the World Cup we're tempted to raise a banner that says something along the lines of "This Couch supports Crouch".

"If he is the answer, it's a bloody stupid question," that lovely former Tory creature David Mellor said last week when questioning the wisdom of those who believe the big lad could solve all Sven's World Cup attacking problems. On Sky's Jimmy Hill's Sunday Supplement yesterday Brian Woolnough maintained the theme.

"At this precise moment our strike-force is made up of Rooney, who's injured, Owen, who hasn't played since New Year's Eve, a 17-year-old Sven's never seen and a lamppost who can't play," he said. "And if you compare Crouch's performance yesterday with that of Dean Ashton, Ashton was the footballer, Crouch was the embarrassment."

Jimmy thought that was harsh and insisted Crouch would play a bigger role in the World Cup than young Theo Walcott. Indeed, he went so far as to offer Woolnough and his two other guests a 10p wager that Theo wouldn't feature at all in Germany.

And there was us thinking it was only Wayne Rooney who had a gambling problem.

If Saturday proved to be a heartbreaker for West Ham Sunday wasn't any less painful for Westmeath. Half-time versus Offaly: "I suppose the question for Westmeath is 'Why are we here, what's the point?'" as Joe Brolly put it.

"It's a dreadful game," said Colm O'Rourke.

"Ah, it's not that bad," said Joe.

"Well," said Colm, "if you went along to the nursing home and brought your granny out for the day she might enjoy it."

Granny, we'd guess, would prefer to watch Bon Jovi, who, Michael Lyster noted, were due in Croke Park any day soon.

"Bon Jovi would get his place on the Westmeath forward line if he was here, it's so bad," said Colm, who sort of concluded Westmeath were livin' on a prayer. They were too: the back door it is.