ON THIS DAY

With debts of around £70m Portsmouth became the first Premier League club to enter administration and so later suffered a 9 point deduction. Pompey played in the 2010 FA Cup final as a Premier League club but after a succession of owners and two more points deductions because of financial problems by 2013 they were in League 2.

On February 26th 1999 Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson was caught by police driving his BMW on the hard shoulder of the M602 near Manchester. Wrong but not particularly newsworthy - well not particularly newsworthy until the matter went to court in October and Sir Alex gave his defence! He said that he was rushing to get to a toilet! Bury Magistrates Court was told that he was suffering from acute gastroenteritis and severe diarrhoea and needed the toilet so drove on the hard shoulder to get past a traffic jam. He had been too embarrassed to explain to the police the reason at the time so explaining to the Court, and the world, what the two options were on that day, must have been a tad difficult. He was let off!