WINNER of the Man of the Match trophy, Todmorden cricketer Duncan Parker may have played a key role in his side winning the Worsley Cup for the first time since 1982.

But was his elation any excuse for the praise he gave to Tod fans singing "football" songs at the game or his being amused by the two male streakers who invaded the pitch during opponents Haslingden's innings?

Those of us who prefer the game to retain a civilised character think not. Otherwise we would join the drunken vulgarians now blighting county grounds and the yobs chanting obscenities at soccer stadiums.

At least, let the Lancashire League remain immune to such coarseness. It's really not cricket.

HOW touching it was that 87-year-old hero John Walsh, of Great Harwood, was finally united last week with Edna Skellern whom he rescued from drowning in the canal at Rishton when she was a little girl 63 years ago. How kind it was, too, of the new devolved Great Harwood area council to honour his bravery so long afterwards.

And how grand it would be if John's old boss could be similarly tracked down. Then, the miserable beggar might be shamed into undoing his callous skinflintedness of docking the hero's pay by an hour and a half because he went home to change into dry clothes.

NOW that Chancellor Gordon Brown has got wed at last, might those of us yearning for official support for marriage and the family hope at least for the restoration of the married couple's tax allowance?

It may be the Browns, worth around £200,000 a year between them, do not need the £197 its return would add to their income, but the nation's moral tone, eroded by cohabitation and illegitimacy, could use the encouraging example it would set.