Compiled by PHILIP REID

Haitian interest at Sligo

ONE WONDERS how Edson Tavares will keep track of one of his men who will soon be flitting his way down the wings at League of Ireland grounds in the new season. Haitian international Pascal Milien’s move to Sligo Rovers – after a trial period, having previously played for Tampa Bay in the US – means that the Brazilian-born Tavares, the current manager of Haiti and with a travelled CV that also includes posts with Vietnam and Oman, will be keeping tabs on Milien’s form for the Bit O’ Red.

Kingdom have right designs in walking gallery of tattoos

THIS HASN’T been a good week or so for sporting role models, not that those boxing muppets by the names of Dereck Chisora and David Haye would ever have been high on the list of people you’d want your children to aspire to. Those two simply followed in a long list of villains from the ring – Mike Tyson’s ear-biting taking the biscuit, so to speak – that is at odds with the image of our own Katie Taylor. Now, there’s a role model to be proud of.

Nope. From the Chisora-Haye fisticuffs to Keegan Bradley’s incessant spitting as part of his pre-shot golfing routine to the stomach-churning array of tattoos soccer players – especially those in the English Premier League – insist on inflicting on us, this was not a good time for sporting role models.

At least those associated with the Kerry football team came out with their hands up after recent criticism that players were badgering referees too much. The news that manager Jack O’Connor had taken players to task on the issue is a sign of the man’s own integrity.

He knows youngsters watching, be it from the stand or on television, are liable to adopt the same approach themselves. It is not the example he would want them to set.

Indeed, I’m reminded of a stance taken by the British Psychological Society a number of years ago, where it was argued that “due to their success and prominence in the public domain, sports heroes are likely to act as role models to a wide range of individuals, from those who have only a casual interest in sports activities to those with aspirations to achieve greatness”.

In backing up this theory, the society cited as evidence the fact the volunteer rate in the US, among university students, to assist an Aids victim carry out a school project went from 0 to 83 per cent once basketball star Magic Johnson announced he was a victim of the disease.

Interestingly, in the same submission to a British parliamentary committee on the impact of sporting role models, it was also found that sporting conduct can also impact on the behaviour of young people.

It was claimed the attitude of elite and professional players to the rules, and to the referees, linesmen and umpires, was likely to influence the values and behaviour of younger spectators.

The then minister for sport in Britain told a committee that teachers told him “what happens on the football field on a Saturday afternoon is replicated in the playground on Monday morning, and some of it is not very desirable as far as sport is concerned”.

Clearly, those involved in the Kerry management set-up have taken a similar viewpoint, but without the need for any parliamentary inquiry to speed them on their way.

In the Kingdom, they’re well aware that those who don the Kerry jersey are more than just sporting role models, they are sporting icons.

Anyway, what are we to do with this trend of overpaid soccer players covering themselves with tattoos?

Personally, I’m with Werder Bremen, who have banned any of their players from getting such body art . . . not because they disapprove of the various designs, rather for fear players will be sidelined due to blood or skin infections.

Who to blame? Well, David Beckham – the man with the midas touch when it comes to self-marketing – is probably the source of the tattooing pandemic rampant in soccer clubs.

At the latest count, Goldenballs himself has a reputed nine tattoos, including a large guardian angel on his back and a winged cross on the back of his neck. He also has one in honour of his wife Victoria, although it seems the move to get her name penned in Hindu backfired when it was spelt incorrectly.

Diego Maradona is a fan of the old body art too, numbering Che Guevera and Fidel Castro in his collection. The list is a long one. Stephen Ireland. Wayne Rooney. Tim Cahill, on and on it goes, although the contest between Raul Meireles (in his time with Liverpool) with Daniel Agger and Martin Skrtel was one that took on a life of its own to the extent that the Portuguese has become a walking gallery of tattoos.

Still, when it comes to tattoos, the daddy of them all is Djibril Cisse.

As one of Katherine Lynch’s alter egos might put it, “the state of him”.

'The Greatest' echoes down the years

IT WAS on this exact day – February 25th – that Cassius Marcellus Clay jnr made his mark for the first time. “I don’t have a mark on my face and I upset Sonny Liston and I just turned 22 years old. I must be the greatest!” he told the world after upsetting the hotly favoured Liston to win the world heavyweight championship at a time when that meant something.

That was back in 1964, and in dethroning the reigning champion in the fight in Miami, Clay became the youngest man to win the heavyweight title. It would be a distinction he held for more than 20 years until a gentleman by the name of Mike Tyson came on to the scene.

Only four years earlier, Clay had won the gold medal in the light-heavyweight division at the Olympic Games in Rome, and he became the top contender for Liston’s title in a professional streak that brought 19 wins and no losses, 15 coming by way of knockout.

Clay became champion when Liston failed to answer the bell for the seventh round, giving the man known as the Louisville Lip victory. The following week, Clay, who had joined the Nation of Islam, would change his name to Muhammad Ali and successfully defend eight times before being stripped of the title and having his boxing licence suspended in 1967 for his refusal to serve in the US army during the Vietnam war.

That refusal to serve in the army resulted in a jury finding him guilty of a felony that was punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of $10,000. Ali lost three years of his boxing career as the appeals process took its slow course . . . but it was on this day, 48 years ago, that Clay first announced himself to the world as The Greatest.

Dual-player issues in Meath as Farrell tries to box clever

WHO ever thought we’d see the day when there would be ructions in Meath over dual players? Well, that time has come, with Meath hurling manager Cillian Farrell blocking members of his squad lining out for their clubs in scheduled league football matches last weekend.

It was a stance that caused disquiet at a county board meeting, with one delegate going so far as to wonder “if they have that Hitler-type rule in Offaly, it shouldn’t apply in Meath”.

Farrell, a native of Offaly, told the Meath Chronicle he had asked the players not to line out in club league matches as they prepared for the opening round of the NHL against Kildare.

“Last week was the only time I’ve ever requested players not to turn out for their clubs. We were down training at the Curragh, had a tough day and I asked the players not to play,” he revealed.

The Meath hurlers were in good company when venturing into enemy territory at the Curragh: the Irish Olympic boxing squad have been based there recently.

Nigeria on course with master plan

WITH THE number of new golf course developments in the Old World drying up – this week’s go-ahead for the resort near the Giant’s Causeway outside Bushmills being one very much against the head – it seems as if traditional course architects are having to look to new markets to maintain their design portfolios.

And one of the more interesting developments came with the announcement midweek that London-based architects Thomson Perrett Lobb – founded by five-time British Open champion Peter Thomson – had landed the contract to design a new course outside Calabar . . . in Nigeria! The project will cover over 400 hectares and the course will be part of a resort – developed by the Nigerian government – that also includes a hotel and hilltop housing. Explaining why work won’t begin until September, Tom Lobb said: “The tropical climate makes this a challenging place to build golf. We intend to start construction in September, after the rainy season, to minimise the potential for erosion damage, and we intend to keep tree clearance to a minimum.”

Although the most populous country in Africa, Nigeria has some way to go to catch up on golfing superpower South Africa. There is, nevertheless, a tradition of golf in the country: the Nigeria Open was one of the top events on the old Safari Tour (which got sucked into the European Challenge Tour) and numbers Major champions Sandy Lyle and Vijay Singh among its past champions.

The Nigerian authorities are hoping that, in time, some home-grown talent will emerge, and they have recently initiated a Young Masters Golf programme.