WELL, we've all been in stitches over the saga of Becks' brow. You could have knocked me down with a flying bootlace.

It's a sign that the two participants in this piece of slapstick have become far more famous than they deserve. Had the same thing happened in the Darlington dressing room it would not have merited a mention, but Ferguson v Beckham is suddenly the heavyweight championship of the world.

It's common parlance that what goes on in the dressing room is sacrosanct, yet this trivial little accident endangers yet another rain forest in the tons of newsprint it engulfs.

It seems an Arsenal player tipped off The Sun. So can we take it that had there been no leak Beckham would have continued to wear the shades which he is reportedly paid £1m to promote, and would have left his carefully-groomed locks dangling in his eyes?

I don't think so. Sweeping back his mane with a girly hair band, he seemed only too keen to give photographers full view of his pathetic little wound. And why is he swanning around in a glorified pick-up? Is he planning to take some sheep to market or collect a load of logs to help keep Victoria warm in their cosy Cheshire retreat?

The Beckhams would deserve sympathy for being constantly in the public glare and being the subject of a kidnap threat if they didn't do so much to bring it on themselves. For seeking sympathy for a grazed eyebrow, Goldenballs comes out of this looking worse than his manager. Fergie has done nothing we wouldn't expect of him, and in a week that underlined how Sir Bobby Robson is a wonderful and enduring ambassador for the game, Old Trafford's footballing knight confirmed that he is not.

SIR Bobby must have thought all his birthdays had come at once in those first 15 minutes at Leverkusen. It was a classic case of gaining strength from adversity as the absence of two suspended stars allowed Shola Ameobi and Lomana LuaLua to light up the stage. And how they shone.

The only pity of it was that Robson saw fit to send on Carl Cort for the last few minutes, but at least he came through apparently unscathed. With Shearer, Bellamy, Ameobi and LuaLua, plus the emerging Michael Chopra, Newcastle can surely afford to offload Cort and cut their losses on a player who has had more treatment than Michael Jackson.

THE technology debate rumbles on after Crystal Palace had a goal ruled out in their FA Cup tie against Leeds because neither the referee nor his linesmen realised the ball was two feet over the line.

There is a clear case for a camera in the goalpost to decide such issues, which are matters of fact, not opinion. It is ludicrous to oppose such an innovation on the grounds that it might have prevented England winning the World Cup when Geoff Hurst's second goal didn't cross the line. That was 37 years ago and things have moved on a little since then.

Perhaps the technology could be extended to rule on whether goalkeepers have moved prematurely in saving a penalty.

It was ridiculous that Thomas Sorensen's save for Sunderland against Watford was ruled out when he had moved no more than he did when making his saves in the penalty shoot-out in the previous round against Blackburn.

ANOTHER technology debate is rumbling in golf. A year after saying he felt improvements in equipment could go no further, Ernie Els is hitting the ball 25 yards further.

He has a new driver and a new type of ball, and by twice covering nine holes in 29 strokes last week he is making a mockery of testing courses.

Granted, the man known as the Big Easy has worked hard to ensure he fulfils his enormous potential when it seemed that by under-achieving he would leave the world without a challenger to Tiger Woods. But technology is taking too much skill out of the game, so that shot-makers like Lee Trevino have no chance of competing with those who reduce par fives to a drive and a flick.

THE real action in cricket's World Cup starts tomorrow for England, when they desperately need to bat first against Pakistan because they won't fancy facing Wasim, Waqar and Shoaib Akhtar under lights.

Given the number of Burgers in the Namibia team, it's surprising the ECB didn't seek legal advice about the threat of contracting CJD. But in the event D/L was their biggest worry.

Entusting Marcus Trescothick with the Duckworth/Lewis calculations out in the middle was a very risky move. You need first-class honours in algebraic formulae to work out the D/L permutations and it's not surprising that Trescothick got it wrong. Although he reckoned they were winning, had it rained between the 26th and 37th overs of Namibia's reply England would have lost. That really would have had the hosts in stitches.