Ashley Cole’s snappily titled My Defence: Winning, Losing, Scandals & The Drama Of Germany 2006 may not win him a Pulitzer Prize, but if there was an award for Most Disgruntled Amazon Reviews By Cross Arsenal Fans he should hire his dinner jacket right now. The vitriol runs deep. He is described as everything from ‘bitter’ to ‘a chav’. ‘If brains were made of cotton wool he wouldn’t have enough to make a tampon for a canary,’ suggests Cheryl Greedy (possibly not her real name) from Barnet Mental Hospital (possibly not her real residence)

Theo misses out on Harry Potter film

The two most famous 17-year-olds in Britain are to be linked on celluloid when members of Theo Walcott’s family make a cameo appearance in the new Harry Potter film. The footballer’s father Don, his mother, Lynn, and Ashley, 19, his older brother, have just completed costume fittings for their parts in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth film from JK Rowling’s series of novels, due out in 2007. Walcott himself had also been due to appear in the movie but had to pull out because filming schedules clashed with his commitments for Arsenal and England Under-21s. ‘I can’t tell you what scene it’s going to be because that’s a secret, you’ll have to have to wait and see,’ said Don Walcott.

Smoking coach stubbed out

Michel Decastel ignited a storm when he lit up a cigarette while on the bench during the game between his club Al Ahli and Al Saad in the Qatar League. The Swiss, 50, was sent off and banned for one match by the Qatar Football Association — part of a global crackdown on football’s ‘drag artistes’

Zidane’s head for finance

Advertisers are scrambling to throw money at Zinedine Zidane after his sending-off for butting Italy’s Marco Materazzi during the World Cup final. Zidane earned about £6m in endorsements last year, but now he can look forward to pocketing even more, even though he has retired. Frederic Raillard, of the Marcel ad agency, says: ‘Zidane’s emotional charge is twice as big today as it was before the World Cup’

The world according to Diego, part 113

The sight of Diego Maradona in the stands puffing on a cigar or waving an Argentina shirt around his head became familiar during the World Cup, and now he’s switched his attention to tennis. Maradona turned up at his country’s Davis Cup semi-final against Australia in Buenos Aires and was soon into his shirt-waving routine. He then used a television interview to launch an attack on Lleyton Hewitt, who has been given beefed up security by Tennis Australia after several acrimonious disputes with Argentinian players. ‘What I have to say to Hewitt is that we are a civilised country,’ ranted Maradona. ‘He thought that here we live with bows and arrows. We have to ruin him, we have to bring him to justice on the court.’ Fingers crossed that his Wimbledon invite is in the post

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