Football Diary: Lalas' offbeat top 10

With so many complaints about the treatment of away fans, it is heartening to hear that Wycombe Wanderers have followed through on the Endsleigh League's National Family Day by offering all children, whether home or away fans, admission to the Adams Park terraces for pounds 1 for their Second Division game against York City today. 'We hope to attract new people and get others to bring their friends, with our Quid-a-Kid initiative,' Mark Austin, the Chairboys' marketing manager, said. Goodies will be spread among home and visiting fans, but then Wycombe never discriminate. Away supporters always pay the same admission prices as Wycombe followers.

*** Here's another one for the beleagured Commons Committee on Members' Interests. John Major, Chelsea's most famous fan, today becomes the first Prime Minister to have a column published in a club programme when his homage to Johnny Haynes appears in the edition for Fulham's game against Carlisle. Haynes, the former Fulham and England captain who recently turned 60, was one of the PM's boyhood heroes. It seems David Mellor was not the only True Blue to transfer his allegiance from Craven Cottage to the ritzier environs of Stamford Bridge.

*** Alexi Lalas, the US international centre-back, has become a cult figure with Padova and the Italian club's fans raised him to hero status for scoring against Milan. That is not half as strange as the list of 10 favourite things the carrot- topped rocker revealed recently to an Italian newspaper.

Top was his guitar ('I'm lost without it'); No 2 was women (for the same reason); third was music and fourth came food ('I love pasta. It's so good here I've forgotten about fast food'). Football sneaked in at No 5 just ahead of snow ('I was always enchanted by it') and his hair. At No 8 came sex (wasn't that covered by No 2) and then wine. At No 10 was . . . prison vans? ('I can't stand them, I want to shoot them up]') Next stop the red hair brigade?

*** Life at Aston Villa is like a soap opera. Will the Atkinsons, Ron and Dalian, patch up their feud? What trauma lies behind Mark Bosnich's switch from surfer's mop-top to convict's crew-cut? And is Kevin Richardson the long lost son of Meg? So Villa Park seemed a logical venue for tomorrow's charity match, organised by the Variety Club of Great Britain, featuring actors from Brookside, EastEnders, Coronation Street and The Bill. In a nice touch, the squads are being put up in the Sutton Coldfield hotel that was the model for the late, lamented Crossroads Motel. Ticket details: 021-327-5353.

The lifting of sanctions on Yugoslavia means that Red Star Belgrade can expect to collect the dollars 16m (nearly pounds 11m) they are due from various Italian clubs. In the time since the contracts were agreed in dollars, the lira has slipped considerably against the American currency, so now Milan, for example, will have to pay the equivalent of dollars 2m-worth of lira extra for Savicevic.

Selecting a Right-Wing XI was clearly a sleazy task for the winner of the Wild Turkey bourbon, Andre Renaudo, of Gillingham, Dorset, for: RIGHT-WING XI: MARTIN Bormann (Blackpool), Senator Joe McCARTHY (Brighton), The YOUNG Conservatives (Wimbledon), The MUNDEE Club (Brentford), Reichs MARSHALL Goering (Brentford), Essex MANN (Hull), A Free McATEER (Bolton), A Klu Klux KLINSMANN (Spurs), MAGHEE Thatcher (Reading), The BLACK Shirts (Nottingham Forest). Substitutes: The Adam SMITH Institute (Arsenal), The John BIRCH Society (Wolves), Jean Marie LE PENNEY (Swansea).

Next entries: A soap opera XI. Entries to Sports Dairy, Independent, 40 City Road, London EC1 2DB.