ALL'S not lost in Leeds after all. Although still bottom of the table, the football team lost only 1-0 away to two promotion-chasing teams this week, and just when it seemed Headingley might become a ballroom Martyn Moxon rode to the rescue.

Appointing dancing king Darren Gough as captain of Yorkshire is akin to making Gazza manager of Newcastle. It smacks of a desperate hope that a daft-as-a-brush personality will prove inspirational, so in striking up a Barnsley-born partnership Moxon will at least bring some sanity to the madhouse.

He might even persuade Anthony McGrath to stay, although the man who ought to have been appointed captain even before the Chris Adams fiasco seems determined to leave at any price.

If McGrath still insists on going, and Younis Khan fails to live up to expectations, I still can't see the Barnsley brainstrust keeping Yorkshire in division one this season. The consolation for Moxon is that there is still enough talent coming out of the Broad Acres for him to orchestrate a revival, assuming he's allowed to get on with the job as he sees fit.

EVEN Barnsley are now seven points ahead of Leeds, who will be in the same division as Hartlepool, and possibly Darlington, next season. Perhaps Ken Bates, the ex-Chelsea chief now making an even bigger buffoon of himself at Leeds, will feel at home in the former Reynolds Arena and will fancy taking over the Quakers next.

In truth, how can Darlington compete when, despite their good run, they attracted 2,790 for their last home match, while Leeds still pull in 30,000 and Pools are comfortably topping 5,000? The Reynolds philosophy that a big, plush stadium would bring fans rushing out of the woodwork has proved predictably wide of the mark.

AT the end of a week when a fat lad from Wallsend has attracted so much publicity, Newcastle Falcons ought to send along their own version to show him there is another way. Prop Micky Ward hails from Wallsend, but instead of being 15st of blubber he has become 18st of turbo-charged professional rugby player.

Richard Caborn, who was recently hailed for surpassing Denis Howell's record for the longest unbroken run as Sports Minister, claims that his proudest achievement is to have got more people involved in sport. Yet we continue to hear of childhood obesity reaching record levels and the Prince of Wales lets slip his view that McDonald's should be banned.

The fact that Micky Ward is not a footballer but a rugby player who began at the bottom with Wallsend is all the more reason for him to be seen as a role model for fat lads everywhere.

WAS Caborn trying to be funny this week when he said he was hoping for "high-performance" levels from men of at least 6ft 3in and women of 5ft 11in invited to put themselves forward as potential Olympians for London 2012?

It is claimed the appeal, named Sporting Giants, is targeting rowing, volleyball and handball competitors, but in these politically correct times could the vertically challenged not claim discrimination?

In athletics Britain currently ranks 24th in the world and one of our most promising athletes is 21-year-old Jessica Ennis, who stands 5ft 5in. She won a bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games and takes part in the pentathlon at the European Indoor Championships starting in Birmingham today.

Britain has entered a team of 46 and Dave Collins, the UK Athletics performance director, has set a target of six medals. The best bet is 400m runner Nicola Sanders, who at 9st seems to provide further evidence to contradict Caborn's emphasis on size.

A FEW weeks ago I wrote that it would be too big a gamble to bring back Jonny Wilkinson against the resurgent Scots. I was wrong. The Scots' resurgence has hit the buffers with such a thud that subsequent results have proved they simply made England look far better than they really are.