Today's other stories in brief

Give your shirt for Africa

Is your wardrobe overflowing with Bohemians, Barnsley or Barcelona shirts you've collected over the years? Well, dig out a few that you no longer wear, and get in touch with "Strip for Africa", the brainchild of Aidan Gallagher.

"Last year we were able to give full strips to over 700 schools, orphanages and homes for the aged in the Western Province," said Aidan, who's looking for more "old, clean football gear" to send to South Africa in December. Contact Aidan on 087-6474258 or at stripforafrica@yahoo.ie. This year's shipment goes out on December 7th, so start clearing out that wardrobe now.

Quotes of the week

"The FAI do their business in mysterious ways. It's smoke and mirrors stuff . . . the majority of them you wouldn't trust to mind your corner shop for 10 minutes."

- Brian Kerr pays tribute to his former employers.

"We need to get some top players coming through but having watched the (Irish) under-21s a few weeks ago I wouldn't get my hopes up too high."

- Roy Keane suspects it'll be a while yet before the Olé, Olé days return.

"Dave (O'Leary) was all right, yeah, not that he was a big mate of mine, nobody was."

- Keane again, this time talking about the only former Ireland player who seems to have less footballing friends than him.

"Coppell is Gaelic for horse."

- Reading manager Steve Capall stakes his claim for the Ireland job.

"Brain Kerr 66 to 1."

- If footballing intelligence is the quality you most want in the new Ireland manager then this fella, on Ladbrokes' list yesterday, could be the answer.

"A few of the new lads don't speak much English so I've been trying to learn Spanish to help communicate with them. Unfortunately I tried to speak to Cacapa in Spanish because I'd forgotten they speak Portuguese in Brazil. He just gave me a blank look. I don't think he was very impressed. It wasn't my finest moment."

- And if the new manager is Spanish at least Shay Given will be able to translate for us.

Wynalda sparks controversy

Former USA international Eric Wynalda has made quite a name for himself since becoming an analyst on ESPN, not least on the occasion he threatened fellow ESPN employee Jim Rome when he irked him with an anti-football rant:

"He should be very afraid, because I'm the kind of guy, if I get too many drinks in me, I will club his ass," he said. The rest of it was unrepeatable.

Alas, Wynalda's in trouble again. When Chicago Fire supporters set off flares at a match last week, giving the stand a glowing red look about it, he said: "Looks like California." Need it be said, there followed complete silence in the commentary box.

Holy goalie keeps the faith

Ever since he blessed himself at Ibrox in an Old Firm derby last year Artur Boruc is known affectionately as the "Holy Goalie" by Celtic supporters. He was, of course, in the news again last week for refusing to shake hands with Rangers players after the 3-0 defeat at Ibrox, and was less than apologetic about it all. "Why should I shake hands with any player? I don't like them, I don't like the club and I don't like the players - end of story. I don't have to love anyone," he said.

In time we hope Artur gets over these feelings of animosity towards Rangers. Who knows, he might even invite one or two of their supporters around to his place for a few beers one day, in a let-bygones-be-bygones kind of way.

More quotes of the week

"Pericard has forced his way free. It's the second time this week - he was released from Strangeways on Wednesday."

- ITV commentator John Champion on Stoke City's Vincent Pericard, who served time recently for perverting the course of justice (after falsely claiming his stepfather was driving his Mercedes when it was spotted doing 103mph).

"If we get a few results and he sees through Christmas, and then to the end of the season, I think he'll be here a long time."

- Paul Robinson confident that Martin Jol would survive at Spurs. He was sacked the next day.

"Maybe the only solution would be the return of Allardyce. But it is impossible. Or maybe the Messiah! We have to find a solution very quickly because we are sinking. Today we are going down and down. We defend, we defend but can't do it for 90 minutes and we are obliged to crack."

- Abdoulaye Meite, upbeat about Bolton's hopes this season.

"It's possible that some day I'll feel like talking about the whole issue but at the moment I'm just swallowing it all as part of the humiliation. That's something one has to take in. But I think - and this is aimed at my dear manager - one shouldn't humiliate players for too long."

- If we were Arsene Wenger we'd be afraid of Jens Lehmann. Very afraid.

"Newcastle is like Liverpool, football mad. Manchester is a bit metropolitan now. A bit la-di-da."

- Newcastle's Joey Barton, formerly of La-di-da City.

"I've been with Arsenal for nearly two years now and have been working really hard. Yes, it has been up and down, but that's gone now. It's in the past and it's all downhill from here."

- Theo Walcott, sounding unintentionally gloomy about his future.

Not much ado about Adu

So many players have been landed with the tag of "The New Pele" over the years we've lost count, and needless to say not one of them lived up to the hype. In more recent times Freddie Adu, who played his football in America until last summer, had to cope with these kind of expectations, the Ghanaian habitually linked with mega moves to monster clubs.

Well, he finally upped sticks to Europe in July, joining Benfica. Are his former team-mates back in America missing him? Well, judge for yourself - here's DC United defender Mark Burch speaking on Washington radio station WJFK:

"We don't really talk about him, and a lot of people are happy to be rid of him. He's a little bit of a cancer in the locker-room, we have good team chemistry right now, and I don't think anybody is really missing him. I don't really care too much about Freddy . . . I think his ego is a little bit bigger than he is, he's 5ft 1in and his ego makes him 7 feet tall . . . people like that, sometimes you can't stand them."

We'll take that as a very substantial "no".