'Lucky pants, are you having a laugh?'

He told the Peterborough Evening Telegraph: "I bought these pants seven years ago, and they've not failed me yet, so hopefully they'll continue to work this season.

John says one day he's going to frame them and present them to manager Barry Fry.

He said: "It's always the first thing he asks me when he sees me at a match - am I wearing my lucky pants?"

Presumably the answer is usually no - Peterborough currently lie 21st in Division Two.

Billiards gets banned

The future of billiards in Uzbekistan is in doubt after authorities banned it because they believe it is morally harmful.

Tashkent city spokesman Dilshod Nazirov says billiard halls are a public nuisance, where people take drugs and drink too much.

The country's Billiard Federation has also been abolished and its president Bakrom Sadykov, said: "We are frustrated. We have devoted all our lives to billiards.

"Why should real, professional billiards suffer because of breaches in some private clubs?"

Why don't they just take up snooker?

Hamilton's hypnotic help

Yorkshire all-rounder Gavin Hamilton took unusual measures to cure his miserable form following a succession of disastrous displays for the Tykes at the start of the summer.

After cricket coaches failed to rectify his bowling malaise, Hamilton turned to television hypnotist Paul McKenna.

'I feel like Steve Harmison'

"When I saw Paul he knew all about my problems and within 25 minutes I was a changed person.

"I was sceptical about things like that when I went in, but I was under for 20 minutes and didn't know a thing about it. From then on, things have just been so different."

Hamilton says he came out feeling like "a different person" - hopefully not Steve Harmison.