BEING full of the festive spirit, we always yearn to write headlines like "Feast of Steven" or "Plum Duff" on Boxing night. But Damien Duff's comeback merely inspired a headline about the Magpies plumbing new depths and Steven Taylor was reported to have coped admirably, without threatening a feast.

Rather like a pantomime horse, the rear end of yesterday's paper was not a very comfortable place to be, dominated as it was by football's Boxing Day blues.

So it was quite uplifting to see sport featuring so prominently in the news pages.

The good bits stemmed from the joyous inclination to let off steam, as in those annual charity dips into the bracing North Sea, or riding to hounds. Then there was the Barnard Castle racing driver, Andrew Bentley, competing in a kart challenge to raise money for the British Heart Foundation.

Unfortunately, there was a downside, topped by the demise of Saltburn Gymnastics Club because the 78-year-old coach, Clive Lee, is retiring after 35 years. "It would be nice to have someone take it on," he said with a politeness masking the anger he must feel. He knows that any obstacle course he could construct featuring parallel bars, pommel horses and rings would pale alongside the regulations which deter potential coaches these days.

So, was it all festive fun for the dippers and riders? Sadly, not. Even those who had a laugh by venturing out in canoes at Seaton Carew found you can't have your kayak and eat it. Whereas around £40,000 had been raised by last year's dip, Hartlepool Lions expect only about £1,800 to come in this time and they're blaming the noon kick-off at Victoria Park, plus rumours of beach violence from Leeds fans.

Are we to believe this?

Could West Yorkshire football followers really sink so low as to disrupt fundraising fun on a Boxing Day morning? If I believed it for a moment I'd emigrate to Panama.

IN CASE anyone jumps to conclusions from my reference to riding to hounds, it's a subject on which I've always sat painlessly on the fence because I live in Zetland Hunt country and prefer a peaceful life.

While walking to the pub on Christmas Eve lunchtime I almost bumped into a fox as it emerged from the undergrowth intent on crossing the road. On realising I was almost upon it, it turned tail and dashed away like a bushy-tailed greyhound, pausing after a few seconds to look slyly back in that catch-me-if-you-can fashion.

He was in superb condition and I've no doubt he would have out-foxed and out-run any pack of hounds which picked up his scent on Wednesday. But I'm also well aware of the carnage he would inflict on the flocks of free-range chickens we would all prefer to see.

So while I try to remain indifferent to the fate of the fox, I am irritated by the prominence given by the media to Boxing Day hunts, claiming they are apparently more popular than before foxhunting was banned two years ago.

The League Against Cruel Sports like to think the new recruits have been attracted by the fact that foxes will not be hunted. I suspect it would be more accurate to surmise that, like Lady Chatterley's Lover and Last Tango in Paris, people are attracted by whatever is banned.

ROY Keane has my sympathy, which he never had during his days as a player snarling in the face of referees. Sometimes it must seem he is being made to pay for that as poor decisions go against his team, who will now do well to survive their relegation battle.

As Sunderland were never likely to get anything out of the visit of Manchester United, they needed something from the preceding two games, only to be denied by late errors by officials.

With millions of pounds at stake, it is unacceptable for a linesman, possibly seeking his 15 seconds of fame, mistakenly to decide the outcome of a match with a ruling which ought, by now, to be taken with the benefit of technology.

But it is not just in football where poor officiating is increasingly highlighted by television, as shown by the Test series in Sri Lanka, and even Ricky Hatton's fight against Floyd Mayweather.

The cricket and the boxing still arrived at the correct outcome, but the technology which proves that isn't always the case must be increasingly harnessed to prevent gross miscarriages of justice.

Otherwise we will continue down the vicious spiral of incompetence and abuse of officials fuelling each other.

In rugby, the Durham County disciplinary panel report a worrying increase in dissent and abuse, involving players, coaches and fans.

They should all remind themselves that without the referee there is no game, but in top-level professional sport the participants are entitled to the best decision-making which is humanly and technologically possible.