During the morning, Dennis was followed by Wise Up and Tales of a Wise King.***Absence has not done much for Romario’s fondness for playing for Brazil. His on-off international career, interrupted in 1993 after he objected to being dropped for a friendly, is off again. This time he only grudgingly accepted a call to play in a friendly against Slovakia. He was persuaded to join the squad by his Flamengo club president, but on hearing of Romario’s indifference, the Brazilian federation told the national coach, Mario Zagalo, to drop the former Barcelona striker.***The women’s World Cup in June will be policed by women. Organisers say it will be the largest Swedish police task to be carried out by a women- only force.***Highbury always resounds to music as the Arsenal line-up is unveiled on the Jumbotron screens.

Last week the tune was “Pick Up the Pieces” by a group one Gunners fan referred to as The Below Average Red-and-white Band What comes next?Romance does odd things to people. They have ideas like Red Rosarios and even Sir Stanley A-Rouse-l. The Wild Turkey goes to Elaine Bisco, of Plymouth, for:ROMANTIC XI: NELSON and (Emma) HAMILTON, EDWARDS VIII and Mrs SIMPSON, (Rhett) BUTLER, (St) VALENTINE, (Liz) TAYLOR and (Richard) BARTON, (Celia) JOHNSON and (Trevor) HOWARD, PARRIS.Next week: a Poetic XI Entries to: Team Spirit, Football Diary, The Independent, 1 Canada Square, London E14 5DL.. It had been the main topic of conversation at that morning’s training, and so Les Ferdinand did not really feel like talking about Dublin any more But it was unavoidable. Ferdinand was among the England substitutes when the rioting broke out at Lansdowne Road on Wednesday night Like most of us, he was still trying to take it all in. Unlike most of us, however, he will today be a central figure in a match that is earmarked as a potential source of further trouble.
Ferdinand’s club, Queen’s Park Rangers, host Millwall in the FA Cup fifth round this afternoon. QPR have a good reputation for the behaviour of their supporters, but it is feared the match could be infiltrated by Chelsea fans, who attempted a pitch invasion when their club was knocked out by Millwall in the last round.

Chelsea do not have a game today.”We have heard rumours, but hope nothing comes of it,” Ferdinand said. “QPR has always been a family club where you can take your kids, and we would like it to remain that way I think what happened on Wednesday was organised I don’t really want to talk about it. I have made a point of not reading the papers or watching it because they did it to get publicity.”But inevitably the memories do not go away that easily, and he recalled: “We had just started warming up when they scored, and things started to rain down around us. We hastily retreated down the other end.”After the referee called us off, we just sat in the dressing-room. We were all geared up to carry on, but were not aware of what was going on outside. Then someone came in and said there was no way the game was going to carry on.”Fortunately, I did not have family there, the boys that did were naturally a bit panicky It was very quiet on the way back It just leaves you totally numb.