Robert Shaw reports on how Flamengo seek to change history and become 1987 Copa União champions,  beating rivals São Paulo to five National Championships

Two popular Brazilian clubs, Flamengo and São Paulo, are at loggerheads over a title. Not this year’s national championship, which São Paulo won with four games to spare, but the Copa União of 1987. Official champions that year were Sport from Recife, but Flamengo argue that the title should go to them. São Paulo were recently given a special trophy for being the first team to win five national championships – this year’s title adding to those of 1977, 1986, 1991 and 2006 – while Flamengo are still on four, years after the disputed season. The commemoration of São Paulo’s penta (fifth) by the Brazilian federation (CBF) prompted an exchange of letters, a media campaign and a plague of rival T‑shirts. One São Paulo fan spent the equivalent of £1 million extolling his team on billboards in the capital Brasilia, while Flamengo legend Zico complained: “Everyone knows that the CBF did not recognise Flamengo’s title due to political disputes.”

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The only way appears to be down for Luton Town as they await an FA ruling, writes Neil Rose

It says much about lower-league football that the benefit in kind supposedly offered by Luton to encourage one player to re-sign was laying his patio and landscaping his garden at a cost of £7,000. It is also perhaps the only faintly amusing aspect of the FA’s record 55 charges over Luton’s transfer and loan dealings and contract renegotiations between 2004 and 2007. A bad week then got a lot worse when the club were put into administration for the third time in eight years.

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Armchair viewers are left bewildered as pundits get lost for words. Fortunately Simon Tyers isn't

It cannot be any more than coincidence that Rodney Marsh’s return to television on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! has come in the same month as the latest Sex Pistols reunion, but anyone who has seen Johnny Rotten interviewed in the last few years will appreciate the similarities between the public face both put on. There are uncanny similarities – the forced inertia, the garrulous body language, the belief that their headline comments are in any way meant to shake up our expectations of them, right down to how both have flown in from their American poolsides.

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A week of hopes and fears for Scotland and England led to double failure but contrasting reactions online, as Ian Plenderleith found out with the help of a folk singer and various dead writers

England’s and Scotland’s failure to qualify for Euro 2008 not only proved there is no longer a British team in the continent’s top ranks. The contrast in home reactions to that failure also showed us that, although the end result may be the same, an underdog country’s sporting patriots generally maintain a healthy perspective, while a Bulldog Nation’s repeat anticipation of glory only perpetuates its misery and ill-humour.

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The Bristol City manager is left red faced after giving Liam Fontaine the perfect motivation to score a peachy goal

By now Gary Johnson should have exposed his naked backside in a shop window in Bristol. Johnson promised to do so if Liam Fontaine scored this season, which Fontaine duly did against Wolves. However, despite talking about it in the press, as well as devoting a section of his post-match press conferences to discussing it, at the time of writing we still can’t be sure that Johnson has actually gone ahead and done so.

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