Just what exactly was Middlesbrough's fascination with some bagless vacuum cleaners? Dave Carter blows the story

I blame it all on my friend Mark. He is a guerrilla comper, a professional competition entrant who specialises in winning prizes without purchasing the products the competitions are designed to pro­mote. It is his fault that I arrived at the Riverside Stadium bleary-eyed at 9.45 on the morning of Middlesbrough’s clash with Charlton Athletic, to be photo­graph­ed standing alongside a purple, top-of-the-range turbo-suction Dyson vac­uum cleaner.

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Barry Kilby is a majority shareholder of Burnley FC and has revitalised the club. Jeremy Wilson endeavours to find out who is the man behind all the success

Distinguishing Features Tall, with a crop of red hair, Barry stands out in a crowd. In the early days of his reign he could be easily spotted from afar ensconced in a full-length 100 per cent llama hair coat. However, following merciless piss-taking of said garment on a supporters’ group website (Barry is known to check out a variety of sites on a regular basis) it failed to make another appearance on the Turf.

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Hull City are likely to be saved from extinction… again. But this is an all to common experience for the club, writes Craig Ellyard

There is little doubt that by the time you read this article Hull City will, once again, have been saved. A “my­s­­t­ery consortium” have asked the club’s creditors to accept 30p in the pound on their out­­­­­standing liabilities. If, as expected, agreement is reached, the consortium, hav­ing already lodged a ­substantial bond, will take over the running of the club. So, all’s well that ends well?

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Do England really need a new national stadium? And more specifically, does it have to be London?

The past month has seen two games which gave a tantalising hint of how things might have been if football had not got into such a mind-boggling mess over the reconstruction of Wembley.

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Saturday 3 Man Utd don’t manage a shot on target at home to Everton but still win with a deflected goal. Robbie Fowler’s revival continues with two in a 3-0 win over West Ham to take Liverpool up to third behind Arsenal, who win 1-0 at Coventry. Derby’s surprise 1-0 win over Sunderland takes them four points clear of the relegation zone, though they have three players booked in five minutes for disputing offside calls. Man City’s improved form continues with a 1-1 draw at the Riverside, though Joe Royle is furious that a Danny Tiatto goal is disallowed for offside: “The TV replay should embarrass the ref for the rest of his career.” Spurs’ goalless draw with Charlton is their fourth in a row: “We’ll just have to keep grinding our results until we get our strikers fit,” says George Graham with something approaching relish. In the First, Sheff Wed get another turn at the bottom after losing to Watford. “We have it all to do,” predicts Paul Jewell. Joe Kinnear moves one place up the Second Division table by becoming an “adviser” to second-bottom Luton.

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