Football: Cole breaks an ankle in reserve match

ALAN NIXON

Andy Cole, Manchester United's pounds 7m striker, will not play again for three months after breaking his right ankle in a tackle with Liverpool's Neil Ruddock.

Cole, 24, was injured in a shuddering challenge Ruddock during a reserve game at Anfield on Saturday. The injury is the latest setback for Cole who has yet to start a first-team game this season after a bout of pneumonia. His chances of regaining a regular place had also suffered because of the form of the new Norwegian arrival, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

Channel 4's fly-on-the-wall portrait of Paul Gascoigne is to be screened uncut tonight, despite the reservations of the England midfielder's club, Rangers. The hour-long programme, entitled Gazza's Coming Home, in the Cutting Edge series, will be shown at 9pm.

The Scottish champions had wanted changes after obtaining a copy of the film from the Scottish Football Association. Words followed between the club and the TV company, but the film will go out, warts and all. "Once they realised that they didn't have a legal leg to stand on, they backed down," a spokesman for Channel 4 said.

Rangers had originally welcomed Chrysalis Productions - responsible for the documentary on the former England manager Graham Taylor - with open arms to follow Gazza's progress over a crucial year on his return to Britain after three unhappy years with Lazio.

The club's record pounds 4.3m signing allowed unprecedented access and the film-makers believe the highly-personal portrait is about fame - its rewards and intrusions as well as the pressure.

Gascoigne accepts this in the right spirit, saying in the film: "I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me. I just want them to know what it's like."

Injury has forced the Derby County defender Igor Stimac to withdraw from Croatia's World Cup Group One qualifier against Bosnia in Bologna tomorrow.

Keith Curle, who has played only 10 minutes' first-team football since joining Wolves from Manchester City during the summer, will be sidelined for at least another six weeks. Curle, a pounds 650,000 signing, needs an operation on an Achilles problem.

The Football Association are waiting for the referee's report before deciding whether to take action over the pitch invasion during the closing stages of Hull City's 2-0 home defeat by Third Division rivals Scunthorpe.