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Who said football had lost its soul? Just look at these fine exponents of the beautiful game; celebrating soccer's rich cultural heritage with a traditional bout of fisticuffs.

Our non-league round-ups, I must admit, have long been a guilty pleasure of mine; at worst worth a read and at best damn near hilarious.

One can really only marvel at the skill of the wordsmiths responsible for turning 90 minutes of unabashed aggression and sub-standard athleticism into something so readable; complete with (frankly) fanciful tales of stooping headers, flying saves and screaming drives.

Imagine my excitement, then, after stumbling across this photo on last week's back page.

In case you missed the Watford Sunday League Intermediate Cup semi final between the mighty Evergreen and the Fox and Hounds then you'll be heartened to know that the match will most likely be replayed after the referee was forced to cancel proceedings.

I, of course, condemn absolutely such behavior and offer up the following list of the most notorious sporting punch-ups of all time solely in the name of diligent journalistic research.

QPR Reserves v China Olympic Team (2007)

An astonishing dust-up including all 22 players, coaching staff and (eventually) the police.

Trouble apparently flared after some tough tackling "got a little out of hand". Just a little?

British Lions 99 call v South Africa (1974) A notorious series of brawls instigated by the Lions' tactic of "pre-emptive retaliation" signaled by a shout of "99" - a tactic whereby players would simply attack the nearest opposing player in order to stand up to the Springboks' "blatant thuggery".

Manchester United v Arsenal (2004) the Battle of Old Trafford

Another extraordinary brawl ending not only in FA fines totaling £275,000 but also in the home side, allegedly, being covered in slices of pizza.

Further suggestions to the letters pages please.

If you're struggling to sell your house then you may wish to give the following research based "advice" a damn good ignoring.

Apparently, according to property experts Bernard Marcus and gardening gurus PlantforLife, (Google them both if you care) a well kept front garden can add as much as £5,000 to the value of your home.

Quite what a filled to overflowing wheelie bin does for mine is a matter best left for the landlord. You may, however, wish to avoid leaving the following items laying around - all, we're told, genuine finds in the front gardens of Greater London.

Things to avoid: a phone box, a tank, coffins (open or closed), statues of Elvis, a fire engine, a WW2 submarine, an elephant (come again?), a full sized Dalek, or a Stonehenge Replica.

Quite what a body under the patio does for an estate agent's hairline was not explained.

And finally... It didn't take long for the century's biggest divorce battle thus far to become the subject of numerous chain emails and pub gags.

We were a little surprised, though, to see the acrimonious settlement played out in a press release by recruitment agency Adecco this week.

Number crunchers (with, presumably, nothing better to do) calculated, on the basis of the £24.3million settlement, that Ms Mills' monthly earnings' from the four year marriage had been £159,687.

According to the same research the average McDonald's worker would take a whopping 1,771 years of tireless burger flipping to earn the same amount.

Are we surprised? Errm, not really. Did we print the story? No - apart, of course, from here.

9:01am Friday 28th March 2008

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