Football Notebook

Donning our Sherlock Holmes cap and lighting our pipe, Notebook has attempted to solve the Strange Mystery of Jeff Winter's orange skin.

The portly Cleveland-born referee seemed to be sporting a comical fake tan when he officiated at Chelsea v Leeds last week and Notebook was intrigued.

Rather like the previous Emyln Hughes hairpiece puzzle - synthetic or just sad - we wondered whether Jeff has been soaking up the rays or splashing on the tan.

We looked first for enlightenment on the wonderfully mundane 'Jeff's Column' on the BBC's website but, alas, the article 'Winter Owns Up' was about one of his refereeing errors rather than revelations about applying San Tropez Auto Bronzant self tan.

Don't be too alarmed, though. Even if Jeff has started using fake-tan products, he won't necessarily end up looking like dog-loving Magda in the film There's Something About Mary. Jeff may get that unevenly-bronzed, wrinkly look, but the latest products include

Aloe Vera bases and have a tint of green in for mulations to prevent users turning orange.

It could, of course, be natural. The Premier League say referees can go away when they want providing they complete their 135 days a year and the holiday dates are okayed by referees' officer Phillip Don. Jeff has been on holiday, but doesn't want to talk about it and won't say where he went.

It's elementary ... Jeff must have been taking it easy in Tanzania.

There's no fooling Becks

David Beckham was greatly amused to see television footage on Sky Sports supposedly of Leeds supporters annoyed at the sale of Jonathan Woodgate. How did he know it was actually stock footage of Manchester United fans? "That's my dad!" he yelled, seeing avid United fan Ted on the screen.

Danny digs himself into a ditch with this lame excuse

Hats off to West Brom's Daniel Dichio. No sooner had the final whistle blown on their FA Cup defeat at Watford than he was spouting the usual post-defeat cliche.

He said: "The only blessing about going out of the cup is that we can now concentrate solely on the league. This Wednesday we play Charlton Athletic in what is a very, very big game for the club."

Cue the 1-0 defeat.

Baseball Wives can't manage a home run on TV

Perhaps there is just no American equivalent of Essex women dancing round handbags, having their breasts set on fire and sleeping with as many team-mates as possible, but the US baseball version of Footballers' Wives has failed to take off. Michelle Liotta - wife of Hollywood star Ray - was the executive producer and there was a pilot done of Baseball Wives for HBO, but American sources say that it is not a "going concern" at the moment.

Get yourself a real job, Rob

Robert Pires's new autobiography, serialised in the Standard, is out this week (Yellow Jersey Press, £12).

Like many sportsmen, Pires had a tale about a teacher pouring cold water on a career in sport. He recalled: "In a French lesson we were given two hours to write an essay; 'What do you want to do when you're older?'

"I wrote that I wanted to be a professional footballer. Two weeks later the teacher gave me back the paper she'd marked. 'Robert, do you really consider being a professional footballer a proper job?' she asked.

'Yes, I think so,' I said. 'Well, it's not,' she replied."

You can email us at notebook@standard.co.uk