Remember the name of that bloke who won Olympic gold when Ben Johnson was belatedly revealed to contain more chemicals than an ICI plant? I hope you remember, because I don't.

The good guy may win the wholesome girl but the spiv with the cheroot and the black hat is much more memorable. And sexy. When people talk about season 2000/01 they will remember only the disappearing computers of Derbyshire, the duplicated players' contracts, the delayed cheques and the deleted spectators.

The rebirth of an almost-dead South Coast football club will pass by almost unnoticed.

A shame, but we cannot complain. After all, when the highly-publicised shennanigans at the Albion culminated in that heroic last stand at Hereford, another football club was quietly accepting the Division Three championship and moving on to better things.

Remember who they were without looking up Rothmans? Nor do I.

And what of Chesterfield's punishment? The rumours of what the Football League committee had decided to mete out started long before they actually met. I heard talk of a 55-point deduction three weeks ago.

I repackaged it as 60 and sent it on its way. By Thursday morning I was getting definite confirmation that it was 50 points and duly told the whole of IPC and a printing works in Poynings.

From the point of my personal credibility the nine-point deduction was therefore far too gentle. However, I cannot be sure of that because I don't really know the details and unlike a Daily Mail columnist I just can't work up an instant lather about the leniency of judges and the invidious influence of the namby-pamby social worker mentality. It sure looks that way though.

According to the League, the club indulged in forgery to obtain the services of the player who went on to become their leading scorer. The League's elder statesmen, many of whom are very elderly indeed, must have felt that Luke Becket's goals affected the odd result here or there which is presumably where the nine point deduction came from.

One can only assume that money accruing from the fiddling of gate receipts, which the club is not disputing, went straight out of the door without affecting the strength of the team and was therefore, according to the strange remittances of football morality, a Good Thing.

Most of us have enjoyed this comic opera, pubescent chairman, brown envelopes, unplugged PCs and all.

Trouble is, it has not been a victim-free crime. The level of suffering endured by Chesterfield's competitors has varied according to when they played them. For most of the season Chesterfield have been a pretty tough team to play. Over the last few weeks, apparently devoid of the will to live, they have been easy.

For the rest of the season, fighting to make a point, they will be impossible.

That isn't fair and if I was chairman of the relegated team I would spend the first weekend of May in discussions with my lawyer.

Oh, and if I was a Brighton & Hove Albion player I would have a really good crack at finishing more than nine points ahead of the crooked Spireites.