So what's a decent bloke like him doing in the seedy, greedy world of soccer agents?

I know it's wrong to pigeon-hole people but the image of soccer's agents is one of scum of the earth, get-rich quick opportunists who would be willing to kill the game for the sake of a quick buck.

It looks like I'm going to have to think again because Dean is the complete opposite of that description. I've no doubt he'll look after his players with the same care with which he looked after the Wanderers' kids when he was Reebok youth coach and that he will go about his business with the dignity and devotion that he showed as player, captain, coach and scout over 13 years with the Wanderers.

Wanderers will be all the poorer for losing him while the world - and image - of soccer agents will be a deal richer. IF football is supposed to be a funny old game then cricket is just plain mad.

Any sport in which a cup final at the highest professional level doesn't even need to be finished to find a winner is obviously run by lunatics.

Then there's that lbw rule which you have to be a rocket scientist to understand.

The gist of the latter is that you're not just out if the umpire thinks the ball was going to hit the wicket had it not hit the pad first. No that would be too easy.

Apparently you can't be out if the ball pitches outside the line of the wicket on the leg side but you can if it pitches outside the line on the off side.

Somewhere in all the confusion it matters if you are trying to play a shot, although in some cases it doesn't. Then there's apparently one rule for leg spinners and another for off-spinners while if you're standing on your head singing God Save The Queen you can't be out - or is it the other way round?

So I suppose it's only in keeping with all this cricketing madness that every Englishman with any interest in the sport appears to have been showered with happy dust after England completed their first Test series victory over the West Indies for 31 years.

Rather than join in the celebrations just yet I prefer to heed the old adage that pride comes before a fall.

Sure it's great to win a Test Series - it's much better than losing one. Nasser Hussain is a good captain and the players are adding steely determination to their undoubted - albeit inconsistently produced - ability.

But the Windies were the worst of two bad sides - very much like when the poor England soccer team beat the hopeless Germans in Euro 2000 - and I prefer to reserve judgement until after we have pitted our wits against good teams like Pakistan and Australia over the next 12 months.

MANCHESTER City fans on limited incomes could be excused for wondering if two successive promotions was all worthwhile after this week.

A win at Leeds might have left them full of confidence but it certainly emptied their pockets with prices at £24 and £16 for kids and pensioners.

And they had better get plenty of overtime in before going to Liverpool on Saturday where the programme price alone will cost them - wait for it, £3.99.

Trips to Colchester, Macclesfield and Chesterfield might not have had quite the same ring but at least you didn't have to take a mortgage out to take the family. UNLESS you support the Manchester Uniteds, Arsenals and Liverpools of this world, prepare for the beginning of the end of football.

The European politicians' decision to end transfer fees means every club outside the Premiership - and some within it - is going to get smaller and smaller and worse and worse with a great many forced into going part-time, totally amateur or out of business.

Just think, Bury have stayed alive in the last five years by selling one player a season for £1m. If those players had been allowed to join bigger clubs for nothing, Bury would today be run like an amateur club with crowds and quality of football to match.

For Bury read Rochdale, Swindon, Bournemouth, Peterborough and the dozens of other clubs who need to sell to survive.

What will happen to Bolton when they have to pay a big wage bill just out of what they take through the turnstiles and make from merchandising without any help from transfer sales which this summer brought in £8m?

Sam Allardyce says he is very worried. So am I and so should every football fan who loves his club because the quality of club and the quality of play at every club except the top dozen or so will be rubbish compared to what it is today.

The European Commission says transfer fees should be ended and players allowed to move freely from club to club as often as they like to bring football into line with every other industry. It believes football is no different to any other business and the people who play the game should be treated like those who do any other job.

They are talking rubbish. Football is not like every other industry. The players are not the employees of the business they are the products of the business which is why

clubs have to pay VAT on them when they sign them.

Just like a farmer fattens up his cows before he sells them, clubs develop their players in order to make money on them. It has been the way of the world of football for a hundred years and you don't hear the players complaining.

The Premier League, FA, Football League and every other sector of football is getting together with the Government to try and stop the European Commission from going ahead with finishing with transfer fees.

The clever money is on them failing and on soccer as we know it being doomed. Mind you, if the Government does want to do something constructive, it could stop pouring good Lottery money after bad into the Dome and give it to football which would save the game at a stroke.