With tonight’s 2-2 draw at White Hart Lane, Seville have advanced to the UEFA Cup semi final via a 3-4 aggregate score over the two legs.   And a botched Spurs clearance provided the visitors with the margin of victory.

The Fiver’s Tom Lutz and Barry Glendenning
on UEFA’s words of warning to Manchester United’s traveling supporters.

Folk who are extremely fond of a sniff of the cork tend not to consider cutting back on the soup until they’ve hit rock bottom. “Gurgle, gurgle,” they might weep. “I’ve capsized my pedalo at 4am, sunk beneath the waves and hit the bottom, which is surprisingly rocky. From now on it’s a four-pint limit for me, then straight to bed after six or seven shorts.” But with the MU Rowdies currently flying higher in Big Cup than an astronaut on crack, it’s unlikely that many of their fans are wallowing in an alcohol-induced fug of self-loathing, pouring bottles of hard liquor down the sink while muttering “never again”.

It’s a crying shame, because today brandy-soaked Uefa suits asked Rowdies fans travelling to Milan for the big Big Cup semi-final next month to abstain from the hooch. “There has been a problem with drink and it would be nice if the supporters were advised not to do it,” declared Uefa suit William Gaillard, seemingly labouring under the delusion that it was excessive alcohol intake that caused Rowdies fans to wake up with sore heads the day after their trip to Roma, not over-zealous Italian policemen hitting them with their batons.