No way to cement a friendship

Leicester City have been struck by a major problem ahead of next Saturday's home game with Crystal Palace - the rugby posts erected for today's Heineken Cup quarter-final against Bath have been concreted into the Walkers ground by pranksters.

Said a Leicester City spokesman: 'It's true. And it is something of an own goal because we did guard against mischief and it has backfired on us.

'People we engaged to provide special security were part of the team that did the dirty.

'Furthermore they have done such an effective job it is not going to be easy to correct.

I don't want to give too much detail about how they did it but they facilitated access to the ground for, first, a digger and then a concrete mixer and have so embedded the posts that it will be a major operation to put things right.

'It doesn't help the argument of those who favour a ground-sharing arrangement because it wasn't the only prank...

'All our footballs have been replaced with rugby balls.

'There is no truth in the suggestion that, because of this heavyweight striker Mark De Vries is being recalled because of his ability to win the lineouts but altogether, while we see the funny side, it has gone beyond a joke.'

'Furthermore our response was delayed. Because it is April 1, no-one believed a word when we were first alerted and the problems were only confirmed when full-time staff saw rugby ball stickers posted over the top of footballs in our gallery of famous photographs approaching the restaurant.

'We've been turned over good and proper and it isn't funny.'

'We've always known there were a few hard cases among Tigers ranks but we didn't think, for a moment there'd be concrete ones.'

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