Sheffield's five golden rings

The dash to lure Olympic teams to provincial training camps all over Britain for the 2012 Games could provide a huge cash boost for enterprising cities. More than 600 potential pre-Games bases, from Scotland to the South East, were listed yesterday by the London 2012 Organising Committee (Locog).

But authorities in Sheffield claim that they boast some of the best training facilities, which could find sponsors willing to plough in extra resources. Experts believe that Sheffield's five key sites may be able to attract up to £25million over the next ten years. Sports Impact, the sponsorship specialist, has already dipped a toe in the water and thinks that there is a market not only among British businesses but potentially with multinationals wanting to get involved in the fitness drive that seems certain to sweep the country in the run-up to the Games.

A sponsorship deal on that scale - which would cover the Don Valley athletics stadium, the Ponds Forge Sports Centre, the Sheffield Arena, the iceSheffield rink and the English Institute of Sport - would be unprecedented and delight Lord Coe, the London 2012 chairman, with Locog offering national Olympic committees up to £25,000 to base themselves in the UK.

Mills is caught short

The Pony Express arrives from the far North and our breathless messenger delivers a missive too bizarre to comprehend. Apparently, a Mr Iain Mills, widely credited with having kept Bury FC out of the financial mire, has resigned from the club's board. Why? Because the prawn sandwich brigade did not like the director's attire.

You see, Mills liked to wear shorts to matches at Gigg Lane but says that he suffered “an embarrassing number of complaints”, seemingly from the corporate boxes. What worries us is not Mills's lack of sartorial elegance, but how he could wear shorts in Lancashire in March.

Derby give fans a lift with personal touch

Robbie Savage earned a modicum of derision when he turned up at Derby County the other day in his gleaming new Mercedes CL AMG (which our man with the oily rag and tatty copy of Top Gear magazine informs us is a £160,000 supercar). But at least he is willing to share it.

Savage saw a father and his young daughter, dressed in her Derby shirt, waiting at a bus stop on Saturday and pulled over to offer them a lift and two tickets to the match against Sunderland at Pride Park. Marvellous. Or are desperate Derby just making sure they are getting fans to their games? Times are hard, you know.

Radcliffe rewarded

Amends were made yesterday for the gaffe that meant Paula Radcliffe was missed from the glittering Laureus World Sports Awards in St Petersburg last month. Radcliffe had been unable to attend the ceremony, but all mention of her winning the Comeback of the Year Award, for victory in the New York City Marathon after giving birth to her first child, embarrassingly slipped off the agenda. But Laureus officials delivered the award to New Mexico, where she is training for the Beijing Games in August.