IN these days of multi-million pound deals and players earning more in a week than many people earn in a year, it is easy for football to lose touch with reality.

So the plight of little Darwen FC -- faced with extinction over a brewery bill of a few thousand pounds -- should make everyone involved in the game stop and think.

Here is a club which helped found the Football League -- and, typical of the anguished nature of the game, is most famous for the number of games it lost in a row.

It was due to be in the High Court today after brewers Carlsberg-Tetley submitted a winding up application which could see the 128-year-old club forced out of business.

It said an outstanding debt owed to the company by Darwen Football and Social Club had been put into the hands of its solicitors.

But thankfully, the two parties have begun talks which have thrown a lifeline to the club.

Football is just as much about the players, officials and fans of Darwen FC as it is about the Champions League and telephone number wage bills.

Let's hope it stays that way -- the game would be poorer without them.