AS this column passed its third anniversary two months ago, and I am ranting no more now than I was at the start, I was a little surprised that a reader should suddenly suggest it should be renamed Wellock's Bitter and Twisted World.

He points out quite legitimately that the differences in behaviour between football and rugby players stem more from their educational backgrounds than their sports, but erroneously assumes that because I am appalled by much of what goes on in professional football I must be a public school product.

We all know you can't please all of the people all of the time and I've also heard recently from two of my old cricketing adversaries, Keith Hopper and Tony Eckels, broadly agreeing with my views.

Hopper, also a notable footballer, observed: "Cricket and rugby are played with the inside of the head, football with the outside," while Eckels, no mean spinner in his time, wrote in response to my questioning of Muttiah Muralitharan's action. "Never have I seen such a blatant case of an illegal action," he said.

As the father of a promising spinner who went to the Lord's groundstaff, Tony also knowingly observes: "A youngster would not get through our system with an action like that. He would be re-modelled then he wouldn't be the same bowler."

Two Australian umpires called Murali for throwing in the 90s, but the law was altered to accommodate him by allowing "flexing or rotating of the wrist in the delivery swing." The fact that his arm is clearly bent doesn't matter, but the degree to which he straightens it in delivery does.

Apparently the ICC allow ten degrees of straightening in a fast bowler, 7.5 in a medium pacer and five degrees in a spinner, so it's obvious that the next piece of technology which needs to be developed is something which will allow umpires to monitor this.

Meanwhile Murali will continue to leave Shane Warne behind in the race to be the first to take 600 Test wickets as the Australian serves his ban for taking a banned substance.

THE issue of drugs in sport is extremely murky. Warne insisted that the drug he'd taken was in a cold remedy given to him by his mother, but the Australian authorities acted swiftly to ban him. Yet Rio Ferdinand continues to play for Manchester United pending the ludicrously lengthy investigation into his failure to show up for a test.

An e-mail was circulating last week stating that an England rugby player had failed a drugs test and under rule six sub-section 2a of the world governing body's regulations the World Cup would be taken away from England and returned to Australia, the previous holders.

It was, of course, a joke. But as most, if not all, of the England squad will be on food supplements they could fall foul of some unknown contamination, as seems to have been the case with the sprinter Dwain Chambers.

Except that absolutely nothing is left to chance under the Clive Woodward regime, and if he has anti-bugging devices to make sure team talks are not overheard then it's a fair bet he has experts monitoring food supplements.

Athletes don't have that luxury. They are told they bear sole responsibility for checking whatever they are taking, and if it includes a banned substance they have no defence.

JONNY Wilkinson must be questioning his sanity in requesting to make his Newcastle Falcons comeback on Sunday in the second leg of a European tie they already lead 71-10.

Thankfully it must have been a forgiving tree he almost wrapped himself around near Leeming on his way back from parading past hundreds of banners in London saying "marry me, Jonny," "Wilko I want your babies" and even "Jedi Jonny, the Empire Strikes Back".

After a day's training at Kingston Park it was back to the palace for his MBE, and after Sunday's match he'll have to rush straight back to London to become the 50th winner of the Sports Personality of the Year award.

He will be the first rugby player to win it, which probably reflects the game's team ethic. But it is still surprising considering the list is replete with ice skaters and people who sit in racing cars, not to mention Princess Anne and Greg Rusedski.

In the voting to find the overall winner from the 50 years I expect Steve Redgrave, David Beckham, Ian Botham, Bobby Moore, Paul Gacoigne and Daley Thompson to feature strongly, but I would also like to see Mary Peters poll a few votes.

Partly because she wasn't a one-dimensional specialist - she set a world record points total in winning the Olympic pentathlon gold in 1972 - and also because in recent years she has done a lot of work in using sport to breach the religious divide in her native Northern Ireland

Published: 12/12/2003