PREMIERSHIP HELL
Football and the world of satanism were rocked yesterday by allegations that Premiership stars have sold their souls to the devil in return for soccer stardom. Officials have called for calm while police investigate recent scandals involving footballers named in gang rapes, drunken assaults, drug use and death by dangerous driving. The allegations of devil worship were made by a photographer who claims to have used infra-red lenses to capture this remarkable image of satanic minions defending a one goal lead against humans.

Allegations of black magic are not new in world football. Some African clubs have been known to employ witch doctors to cast spells on opposition playmakers and, in one instance, a goalkeeper for Zimbabwean Premier League team the Incorrigible Zebras was found to have draped entrails and other items from his goal net.

Such extremes are rare in the UK, but it is known that during season 1930/31 notorious satanist Aleister Crowley played at centre half for Middlesborough and that in 1966 England's World Cup winning team employed the services of a trackside hypnotist to mess with the mind of a linesman.

SCOTTISH FOOTBALL DEBT CRISIS
With Dundee FC the latest casualty in the debt crisis in Scottish football, auditors warn that it is only a matter of time before Scotland's national game is driven to extinction.
Sam Briggs of auditing specialists Sportswatch UK claims that within five years the Scottish Premier League will consist of only one full-time team and three others made up of amalgamated clubs using part- time players and ex-pros. Says Briggs, "Far from seeing the Old Firm head south to play in the English Premiership, we are more likely to see Scots football clubs en masse heading south to hang about outside London tube stations asking for money and growling at anyone in a suit."

The financial crisis is at odds with the perception among pundits and football writers that recent slight improvements in the national team's performances bode well for the Scottish game as a whole. With Motherwell and Dundee in administration and with Hearts, Hibs Livingston and Rangers (to name but four) struggling with millions of pounds of debt, one wonders where exactly it is that Scottish football is getting better. Quipped Oban man David Hamilton, "It's certainly not in the last third."