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55 shares 87 View comments There will be swathes of empty seats at Wembley Stadium today, thousands of them scattered around a monolithic arena that cost £800million to construct. The price the Football Association paid for this is all too apparent. It is FA Cup semi-final weekend, a compelling juncture in any season, and yet the image of the day presented to the world when Wigan face Millwall today threatens to be one of apathy and disinterest when it comes to the grand, old competition. The red, plastic spaces in the stands will shout out a message of decline. We will wonder again why the executive tiers are so sparsely occupied and how it takes people in the posh seats around the tunnel quite so long to make it back from their half-time nosebag to watch the game they are  supposedly there to see. Empty: The Wigan v Millwall FA Cup semi-final will have a number of empty seats on Saturday

0 shares 18 View comments There will be runners shifting anxiously from one foot to another under London’s clouds, feeling the flutter of a few more butterflies in the stomach than usual tomorrow. Not that they will admit it. There will be up to a million people gathered by the roadside, smiling and cheering the runners, even as they snatch a glance around them for an unattended bag or a suspicious figure among the crowd. But they will be there anyway. Black ribbons will be worn to show solidarity with everyone affected by the horrifying atrocity in Boston. There will be a silence to remember those innocent people caught up in the bomb and then the London Marathon will surge ahead with an almighty roar of defiance. Defiant: Around 37,000 people will pound the streets of London on Sunday     More from Des Kelly...  

0 shares 149 View comments We know David Cameron should be more concerned about a double dip  recession than a footballer having a double nip. The fact that Luis Suarez munched on a defender’s arm is hardly a subject worthy of a Prime Minster’s intervention and his attempts to play the concerned father moralising about the potential example set to his son would be more convincing if he wasn’t guilty on occasion of accidentally  leaving his child behind in a local boozer. It’s easy to bang on about football and role models. They are highly visible individuals. They attract headlines, adulation and envy in equal measure, while  providing plenty of opportunities for an indignant tut and shake of the head. Centre of attention: Luis Suarez has once again set the news agenda after his attack on Branislav Ivanovic     More from Des Kelly...

0 shares 12 View comments The war against drugs in sport is never-ending and the stakes are higher than ever. Unfortunately many of the participants are, too. The idea that governing bodies in charge of the games people play are genuinely serious about exposing performance-enhanced cheats is something of a myth. We have seen it in athletics, cycling and now horseracing. Organisations love to boast their sport is fair and honourable as they back-slap sponsors, right up to the precise moment when their faces are rubbed in the unholy chemical mess. Then a ‘clean-up’ reluctantly begins. But to avoid the impression their game was filthy all along, the miscreants are usually painted as evil rogues or sad aberrations. Busted: Doctor Eufemiano Fuentes was handed a suspended prison sentence     More from Des Kelly...   DES KELL

65 shares 57 View comments There is a phrase I’ve never quite been able to understand. It’s the one that claims ‘I hate to say I told you so, but...’ Because we all love to say I told you so while we nod sagely and tap the side of our nose. Being in the know is something to be proud of. When Sir Alex Ferguson retired, there were those who believed they had the inside track, but it was an event that was predicted in this column. Displaying the kind of prophetic power that would warrant a Pulitzer prize in many circumstances, I announced ‘the end was nigh’, adding it was high time the Manchester United board ‘pressed a gold watch into his palm and gently ushered Ferguson in the general direction of the executive lounge’. Time for change: Sir Alex Ferguson has got it spot on once again when it comes to the ticking of his clock   DM.has('rcp',"twitter");       Loading tweets... Eleven years later, they did. I turned out to

Kindergarten brawl: kindergarten brawl broke out at an Ohio school on May 31. According to NBC News , 8 people were arrested by police after a huge fight took place on the sidewalk outside the school after the kindergarten graduation. According to the report, the brawl started with two teenagers and was started by a "spilled cup of punch." "There were no guns, but one individual did pull out a club or a stick and one person did grab a hammer. Officers were able to separate the combatants," said Cleveland Police Commander Wayne Drummond. No one has been charged yet but that could change. The kindergarten brawl left one teenager and seven adults in police custody. No one was seriously injured despite the weapons brought out during the argument. Exactly what happened and why so many people felt the need to get involved is unknown. Obviously this was meant to be a special day for the graduating class but some people just couldn't keep it together. "It's ju

Planes collide : Two Planes collided in midair and crashed in phoenix city of Arizona resulted in four fatalities. Two single-engine planes collided in midair and crashed into barren desert terrain just north of Phoenix Friday morning, killing four unidentified people traveling in the small aircraft, according to fire officials. Fire officials who responded to the scene of the crash discovered two bodies onboard each of the planes -- one of which had caught fire and was consumed by flames while the other was only partially damaged, according to Phoenix Fire Department spokesman Capt. Larry Nunez. All four people were pronounced dead at the scene by responding paramedics, Nunez said. A pilot reportedly spotted the two small planes plow into each other just after 10 a.m. local time Friday morning, roughly 15 miles northwest of Deer Valley Airport in Phoenix, according to preliminary information from Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor. Authorities do not yet know what c