COULD you imagine David Ginola holding a 'no scabs here' placard while warming his hands over a burner outside Villa Park?

Are you ready for the sight of David Beckham yelling 'the worker's united, will never be defeated' through a loudhailer while the Neville brother, Paul Scholes and Juan Veron link arms in a picket line?

Admittedly, the proposed PFA strike may not fit the caricature of the British industrial dispute, and, its worth mentioning that it isn't players' salaries that are being defended, but their union.

Ken Bates claims that in the days of million pound players the PFA is no longer needed. He believes they an afford their own lawyers, accountants and masseurs. Presumably that also applies to the 17 year old trainee at Rochdale who has just been told that he isn't good enough?

Well, Ken, I'm sure the players and supporters of Hull City could point out the error of your ways. When that club experienced its well documented financial troubles last season, the PFA stepped in to help maintain professional football in one of England's largest cities.

Being a footballer is not the worst job to have, but that doesn't mean it is without its insecurities. Literally hundreds of players who aren't on £1 million a year are discarded every year, with only the PFA left to turn to.

Where were Ken Bates and his Premiership colleagues? Possibly negotiating with the Government over how to blow £500million on a national stadium about which nobody is really bothered?

That money could have saved Hull, and every other club outside the Premiership. It may not have gone quite so far if part of it had been used to cut down the reported large debts of Chelsea FC.

Perhaps if Mr Bates wants to do something productive, he could scrap his dismal, ego-driven Chelsea TV service and put some of the money towards a trust fund for footballers who are forced to drop out of the game prematurely?

Or perhaps he could do us all a favour and buy Manchester United, that would be the end of them, and it is one of the few things I can think of that could possibly make either Bates or United less popular.

Does football need the PFA? Yes. Does football need Ken Bates? What do you think...?