Sporting Miscellanies

News of an infiltrator at the Palace. No, not that one - this time, it's Crystal Palace and a mischievous fan who decided to set up a Facebook page, purporting to represent Shaun Derry, in the hope that the club skipper's team-mates would become friends and divulge lots of juicy, Selhurst Park-related gossip. Lo and behold, a string of gullible Eagles began poking away before Derry became aware of the scam and informed the authorities. The site was duly closed down, although the midfielder fears the damage may already have been done. "What if Sir Alex Ferguson had looked at the site and decided not to sign me because of what he saw?" he told this column. That might be a touch optimistic, Shaun - there's probably more chance of Sarah Ferguson making a bid for you at this stage - but we get the point.

It's hard to write off Arshavin's scribbles

On the subject of Facebook, we were shocked to learn that the Met have now delegated an officer simply to monitor dodgy accounts. Derry is one footballer to have suffered at the hands of cyber identity theft but we suspect Andrey Arshavin might be another, unless the Arsenal midfielder really did write this rebuke to rumour-mongers on his site last summer: "If you keep talking about new castle arsenal chelsea or whatever i ll simply delete ur words all. shut up u ppl never aware of how awesome zenit st. petersburg is!!"

Aussies taking heed of Wogan's wise words

It wasn't just Leicester's lack of tourist attractions that had Australia quaking following their Twenty20 flop. The Aussies have bad memories of the east midlands: it was in a Leicester nightclub in 2001 that Shane Warne's hopes of captaining his country went up in smoke after he sent saucy texts to a local gal; then, in the 2005 Ashes, Michael Clarke had his kit bag stolen in the city. Still, maybe Ricky Ponting and Co's views will change. "Several years ago, Sir Terry Wogan made a similar comment before he'd visited," revealed Martin Peters, head of tourism company Leicester Shire promotions. "Now he brings his annual fan club convention here every year." We're not sure which is more disturbing: multiple visits to the National Space Museum or bumping into Terry Wogan's official fan club.

No cash from Mittal? Well that's a bit rich

Kudos to Queens Park Rangers vice-chairman Amit Bhatia for raising £21,000 for the club's Community Trust through a Triathlon this week. Then again, it helps when you can call on some of London's richest and best connected people for sponsorship. Formula One boss and Rangers chairman Flavio Briatore and blue-bloods Ben and Zac Goldsmith were among those who contributed via Bhatia's justgiving page, although one name missing was that of his father-in-law and world's eighth-richest man, Lakshmi Mittal. Maybe the cheque's in the post.