HARTY: On Joe Calzaghe and 3D football

A SAD day at the weekend, not only for British sport, but for Joe Calzaghe himself.

The boxing history books will tell us that he retired an undefeated multiple world champion, just three victories away from Rocky Marciano's all-time 49-fight unbeaten record. But now there will always be that footnote that the memory of the excellent career was blighted after Calzaghe's retirement, when he was exposed by a tabloid newspaper for taking a class A drug.

Calzaghe cites boredom and a vacuum left by finishing fighting as the reasons for his dabbling with cocaine. Unfortunately, it is a serious situation.

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If he had found solace in the company of call girls or even the demon drink, a degree of tut-tutting would have come from certain quarters, but ultimately his reputation would have been relatively unscathed.

But, then again, is this another classic case of how we build our sports stars up, only to eventually knock them down?

Calzaghe came from a working-class background, worked hard and excelled at his chosen sport. With that came mega riches. When it all ends and you basically have a boy from the Valleys living the life of a Hollywood A-lister, will there always be the possibility of the obligatory fall from grace?

A different Calzaghe from the one who started out in the gym wrongly chose to put that stuff up his nose. But did the system play a big part in driving him to it?

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Time was when armchair football fans only had three live games a season to watch, the FA Cup, the European Cup final and England versus Scotland.

But when ITV showed the first live league game back in October, 1983, between Spurs and Forest, did anybody really think it would reach the saturation point it has?

Another chapter is opened this weekend when, after an initial experiment earlier in the season, Sky will show the top-of-the-table Premiership clash between Manchester United and Chelsea in 3D format.

The Thomas-A-Becket in Rectory Road, managed by Ryan Mayo, brother of Albion legend, Kerry, is becoming one of the first pubs locally to show football in this format. No doubt, his hostelry will be packed to the rafters at lunchtime on Saturday but, hopefully, some of those people, having enjoyed the TV spectacle, will make the short trip down to Woodside Road on Saturday afternoon as the Rebels try to get their own promotion bandwagon back on track with a top-of-the-table clash with Croydon Athletic.

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Basically, if we all sit in the pub, or at home, instead of watching any kind of football live, will it, or even can it, survive at the current level?

Clearly, state of the art 3D highlights changes patterns, as does the fact that this is the first Easter Saturday ever, since I've been watching football, that I can remember the Albion not playing.

The Seagulls, attractive Easter Saturday home fixture against Southampton was moved to this evening (Thursday). One of the reasons being Sussex Police's reluctance to police the influx of some 800 Saints fans in Brighton and Hove on Easter Saturday.

A far cry from the corresponding Saturday in 1982, when some 4,000 Arsenal fans arrived in the resort for the game at the Goldstone.

As Bob Dylan once sang, the times are indeed a' changin.

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