ILLEGAL approaches have been in the news recently and real football people will be amused.

Tapping, as it has always been called, has been in the game since time immemorial.

Nowadays it is even more prevalent and I suppose much easier with the arrival of our friends the agents.

With transfers only taking place in August and January, they certainly are not idle during the months in between.

They're not only trying to place the players they represent, but are more often than not acting on instructions from managers and some chairmen to find out the availability of other players.

And it's not only players that move around.

How often, for instance, is a manager relieved of his job one day and, low and behold, his replacement appears the next? Quite obviously some talks have been held with the replacement before the incumbent is given the chop.

One of the best examples I remember in my own time at Southampton was reading in the national press a comment by a new director at Chelsea Football Club, the late Matthew Harding.

In his first interview, he talked about his love for the game, how he was a supporter who was happy to mix in the pub before the game or even stand on terraces wearing the blue shirt with pride.

He spoke about his love of good footballers and singled out our own Matthew Le Tissier as someone he would love to see at Stamford Bridge and who would be worth £7m of anybody's money, bearing in mind this was a number of years ago.

This was taken with a pinch of salt but coincidentally a few weeks later, I found myself next to Matthew in a queue going into the London Hilton for a charity function.

I tapped him on the shoulder and introduced myself, saying: "If you are to become part of the business, there are certain rules and regulations

to abide by, one being you do not tap up other club's players particularly in the public manner which he had chosen."

It was done tongue in cheek, of course, and while he was still trying to work out if it was a real telling off I was giving him, I said: "If you like Mattie so much, why don't you come down to Southampton, give us the £7m and you can come up to the training ground every day, watch him train and have a cup of tea with him."

He laughed and said: "If I did that, Lawrie, we would have to rename the club Chelsea-on-Sea."

We went off to our respective tables but a couple of hours later, when the function was coming to an end, there was a tap on my shoulder and he leaned over and put a cheque in my hand for £7m made out to Chelsea-on-Sea!"

I met him on many occasions after that and actually made sure our hospitality room for visiting directors always had a few bottles of his favourite Guinness. I once said: "By the way, Matthew, I'm going to open a company called Chelsea-on-Sea so that I can put your cheque in. He laughingly replied: "Don't worry, it will be covered."

I still have the cheque, but sadly football no longer has this bubbly young character, who loved the game as much as any supporter even though he was rich enough to have a stand named after him.

He tragically died in a helicopter accident after watching his team play an evening game in the north.

I remember on one visit to Stamford Bridge he produced his wallet to prove how much he admired Le Tissier, pulling out a photo which he

always carried with him.

In return I took him down to the dressing room to meet his hero, which really made his day.

Strangely Chelsea never made any formal bid to my knowledge.