WITH boring baseliners dominating Wimbledon and Teutonic efficiency carrying Germany to the World Cup final, there is a growing clamour to put the fun back into sport.

You'll get a taste of it if you tune into the Sport Relief programme on BBC1 tomorrow night and watch the return of Superstars after a 17-year absence.

The original Superstars is remembered for Kevin Keegan falling off his bike, Stan Bowles being absolutely hopeless and judo star Brian Jacks performing astonishing feats in the gym.

Although most of the contestants were fiercely competitive, Sir Steve Redgrave, who is in tomorrow night's line-up, remembers the fun they had. And it used to attract enormous audiences.

If tomorrow's relaunch proves as popular as hoped, the BBC are apparently considering a new series, in which we can hopefully look forward to Audley Harrison collapsing exhausted after running the 400 metres in under ten minutes and David Beckham ruining his hairstyle by capsizing his canoe.

Thankfully there were no mishaps when I did my bit for Sport Relief on Monday, completing four rounds of golf in one day at Barnard Castle.

It was great fun, but I'm not sure I'd do it again as I felt like the missing link the following day, unable to do any more than slouch around in a primeval posture.

Three others took part - Richard Naseby, who ran the first Great North Run with me in 1981 dressed as Superman, 16-year-old Lee Borrowdale, and Liam Caygill, who has just left Ramshaw Junior School and is only 5ft tall.

Having started at 5am, little Liam looked out on his feet after three rounds but was still going strong when we finished at 8pm, while Lee had five birdies in the final round.

With just a little more help we will raise £1,000 and would like to thank everyone who has contributed so far.

WHEN Barnard Castle stages the Durham v Cumbria golf match tomorrow the visitors will be without four of their top five because they have got through to final qualifying for the Open.

Northumberland are the only unaffected county in the northern group, while the best Durham could manage was three on the reserve list for Open qualifying in Barnard Castle's Rob Dinwiddie, Durham City's Ian Parnaby and Wearside's David Vest.

The only North-East player to come safely through the regional qualifiers was Middlesbrough's Jonathan Lupton with a level par 71 at Alwoodly, while most of the others opted for the far tougher test over the wild Cumbrian links at Silloth.

This again highlights the mysterious lack of top quality golfers emerging from the North-East, with Seaton Carew's David Whelan the only one to win a European Tour event in the last 25 years.

Although Slaley Hall is a wonderful course, its bid to stage the Ryder Cup was over-ambitious and appears to have done nothing to improve the region's image as a golfing backwater.

It would help enormously if the likes of Dinwiddie and Parnaby, who are on golf scholarships in the USA, could make that elusive leap to European Tour stardom.

AT least we couldn't mistake Dominic Negus for Arthur Negus in Wednesday night's scrap with Auntie Audrey Harrison.

Uncle Arthur used to present the antiques programme, Going for a Song, which might apply to Audrey's next batch of fights if the BBC finally admit they have paid way over the odds for his first ten.

The whole thing struck me as a ridiculous charade, treating the audience like idiots, and the only excitement came when the nasty Negus tried to butt Audrey for hitting him while he was down.

When Negus tried to shake Audrey's hand at the final bell, Harrison ignored him and turned, like the pathetic showman he is, to milk the applause of those misguided enough to offer any. He is improving, but to say afterwards that he has nothing to prove merely added to the mockery.

SO, El Tel the East End wide boy has not had enough of managing northern clubs, after all. He's a bit like Sir Bobby in that the gift of the gab might help him to hold down a well-paid television job, but the chance to manage a top club is irresistible.

He saved Boro from the drop, but he wasn't going to turn them into title contenders, while at Leeds he has every chance.

They would surely have gone close last season had it not been for the disruption of the trial, and if they can offload Lee Bowyer for £9m they can clean up their image as well as satisfying their plc masters.

All Tel needs to do then to become the plc's darling is to reduce his embarrassment of riches up front by persuading Robbie Keane to join Sunderland.

That's the sort of signing Peter Reid needs to appease disgruntled fans and persuade Kevin Phillips to stay. Without it Sunderland will only slip further into the Newcastle's shadow.

Published: 12/07/2002