MAYBE it's my fully paid up membership of the Northern camp in the North-South divide debate coming out in me, but I can't help smiling when I see London making an almighty pig's ear of things.

The development of a new national stadium to replace Wembley would be well on the way right now if they decided to put it somewhere logical like Milton Keynes with acres of open space and perfect road and rail links.

Instead they insist on placing it on the grounds of its grand old predecessor which, albeit in a position of historic significance, is a nightmare to get to and from as well as posing a host of planning problems.

A multitude of previously unforeseen problems means that there are grave doubts that the stadium will be built on schedule.

Still, that's their problem. The way they invited other cities to compete for building the new national stadium when they had clearly decided all along that it was going to be in London was pathetic.

They deserve all the problems they are encountering with Wembley and also with the new national athletics stadium which is due to stage the 2005 World Championships.

Now the way they refused to allow that stadium out of the London boundaries really did give a two-finger salute to the rest of the country.

London might be the capital and the centre of attraction for tourists and in that respect you can understand them wanting to place the more important sporting stadiums there. But all of them?

The North East is the hotbed of track and field and deserved to host the biggest athletics events on the biggest stage. If not there then Birmingham should have got it before London.

But everything's got to go in London even though there's already no room to swing a cat. Every time one London venue was seen to be unfit, another one was found, and another and another until Pickett's Lock (wherever the heck that is) was settled on.

Now senior Sport England officials have admitted that the 2005 World Championships might not even go ahead because of problems with the Pickett's Lock site.

Between £1.3m and £2.7m is going to be spent to see if the site is suitable and if not then UK Athletics who run the sport in this country will probably have to pay the new Wembley stadium to stage the events. But Wembley might not be built by then because of all its problems.

Don't you just feel like banging their heads together and telling them life does actually exist outside London?