SO, the powers that be have yet again decided to mess about with the European competitions.

The perfectly good, knockout UEFA cup is to become a mini champions league, meaning that we could see Ipswich town playing Spartak Vladivarvodka, MFI Helsinki and Blowyanosai, who won the Portuguese version of the Worthington cup with a lucky 1-0 victory over the Benfica ladies team, home and away before going out ignominiously.

Meanwhile, the European Cup is kicking out teams from further afield to ensure more places for English, Spanish, German and Italian clubs.

Naturally, after all Aston Villa against VFB Stuttgart is bound to be better than Celtic against Galatasary.

The greed merchants who run European football (and their minions in the domestic game) will continue to produce football for Doritos, Budweiser and Playstation 2 instead of the fans until something stops them.

Perhaps if the Premiership aficionados get bored and wander down to watch their local teams play - to join the 984 at Morecambe and 353 at Lancaster on Saturday?

If the supporters put a spanner in the works of the greed is good brigade, then we've got a chance.

It won't do the Shrimps and the Dolly Blues any harm, especially with the latter now able to show the ambition off the field to match their growing reputation on the pitch.

I'm going to share an experience now which will, no doubt, resonate with anyone who works with a bunch of Manchester City fans.

We all know that football fans in general like to talk about their teams, and, generally, I' ll chat along with the best of them.

As such, I've had some seriously fascinating conversations about the intricacies of Gillingham's 4-3-3 systems or chewed the fat for hours about the glory of seeing Andy Flounders score for Scunthorpe.

However, since finding myself in the company of not one but two die hard Blues (of the Maine Road, rather than Giant Axe variety) , I've learnt when to get my head down and ignore them.

City, even if they win, are useless, hopeless, not fit to lace Colin Bell's boots etc.

They are never going to Maine Road again (if they have ever been before) and want Keegan/Royle/Coppell/Clark/Mercer out (or back, 'cause it was never this bad when they were in charge).

They still feel superior to Manchester United fans, however (this is one of their better traits.)

In recent weeks, they have been all a flutter, with talk of the mystical 'Ali B' anchoring their midfield as the remodelled side completes its irreversible, unstoppable march to Premiership glory and FA Cup heroics ('weren't we brilliant against Ipswich etc').

In fact even my boss, a man who walked out of the Wembley play off final two minutes before the end because 'City will never come back from 2-0 down' virtually ordered me to drop everything and watch their televised game against Wimbledon at the weekend.

Now, what's that saying about pride coming before a fall? Neil Shipperley, he's a good player...

This week's only good news (apart, of course, from the emergence of new striking talents at Christie Park and Giant Axe) is that Stevenage Borough's daft TV programme idea has finally been put out of its misery.

Which just shows that sometimes - not very often - common sense pokes its nose in front and edges out money.