A road trip and Ricky

Well here it is - a letter I have just popped off to the Coventry City press office.

Dear Sir/ Madam,My name is John Baker and I am a reporter for the Lincolnshire Free Press/ Spalding Guardian. I am planning a charity trek in the summer (July 10) with two colleagues from the newspaper, Adam Uren and Andrew Brookes, and would like your help.

We are aiming to visit all 44 club grounds from teams in the top two divisions in England, within 48 hours. This journey of around 1,600 miles will be done in a small van with a mattress in the back for four charities- Liverpool's official charity (Adam's team), Nott'm Forest's official charity (Andrew's), a local charity as yet undecided, and NSPCC, the official charity of my team - Coventry. (as a bit of background, I was born in Coventry, all my relatives are from the city and I went to University at Warwick)The reason we have chosen July 10 is that it is not during the season and is not a weekend when any of us will be working.

We will be asking all 44 clubs for any donations they might choose to make, and also a piece of merchandise of their choice - be it a badge, pennant, shirt, poster etc. The merchandise will be put together into a giant pot at the end and orphaned off, with proceeds going to the charities.

This is the first time any of us have ever done anything like this and will need a lot of planning and support from people and organisations. We aim to go to radio and TV stations, Hold the front page, and other media outlets.


End of email. We will be putting more on here as and when.

A few words on Hatton now the dust has settled.

No-one expected such an easy night. As you will know if you read my last blog I fancied Pacquiao, but did at least expect a few rounds or points. What I didn't know was the Hatton would steam in in such a naive and foolish manner. The way to beat Pacman was to utilise head movement, push him against the ropes and use body shots, tire him, wait until the handspeed dropped, and take him out late.

Instead Hatton tried to engage him in a wild shootout. Arguably the biggest pound-for-pound puncher in the world, and the Hitman engages him in a ballsy brawl. It was doomed to fail. What was more worrying was that he couldn't change it, even when he endured the worst first round of his career. He sat on his stool and just said "fucking hell". Quite.

Quite clearly Mayweather was of limited value. We forget that during the Malignaggi fight Ricky was caught quite a few times - it's just that Malignaggi only has five knockouts to his name. This time there was no room for complacency. I expect the truth of whatever happened in the gym will be revealed in the next few weeks, and there will be nothing but contempt for Floyd snr. Was the fact that his son is returning to the ring on his mind...?

My gut feeling is that Hatton won't retire yet. He's only 30, he could still beat virtually every other junior welter in the world, a fight with Amir Khan or Oscar De La Hoya would be a massive Wembley sellout, and most of all, he doesn't want everyone to remember him lying in the middle of the canvas with his eyes spinning wildly while his family wept at ringside.