FOOTBALL’S madcap market – also known as the transfer window – has pulled down the blinds, packed away its stalls and locked its doors for another five months.

They flew in from Basel and Barcelona, from Madrid and Monchengladbach, many of them carrying passports bearing names we can hardly pronounce and have great difficulty in knowing how to spell.

Papastathopoulas (Arsenal) or Jahanbakash (Brighton) were just two of the 69 overseas players who signed during the summer, while many rushed in to beat the dreaded deadline of 5pm last Thursday to book their places on the new Premier League register.

Sky Sports love every minute of transfer deadline day, sending reporters to grounds all over the country breathlessly announcing the imminent arrival of players from such clubs as Lorient, PAOK Salonika or Jonkopings Sodra.

It is all such a phony marketplace. Clubs with bucket loads of cash and all summer in which to spend it, suddenly find themselves running around like some Sunday League manager trying to raise a team to turn out at the local rec.

Spurs didn’t buy anybody and were happy. Manchester United signed three and their manager Jose Mourinho was very unhappy.

Newcastle manager Rafa Benitez, meanwhile, was not exactly overjoyed by the restraints of the purse strings at St James’ Park, while promoted Fulham lashed out on almost an entire team which, by this time next year, could just as easily be dismantled to make was for another batch of incomers.

Some clubs will not even bother to wait until then. Remember, there is another transfer window in January.

Meanwhile, the window is still open for European clubs who are free to move in on Premier League players they have been eyeing up for months. Eden Hazard for Real Madrid anyone?

One man who would hardly have been able to contain his delight at the influx of overseas players – 56 per cent of the summer transfers into the Premier League - is Gareth Southgate. The way things are going, his England team will soon be able to pick itself.

So now can we all get on with the game?

Well, not if your name is Claude Puel. According to one report the Leicester City manager, who incidentally has just been allowed to spent £107m on seven new players, is on the brink of losing his job. After one match – a 2-1 defeat at Old Trafford.

Welcome back the mad world of Premier League football.

GOLF fans, regularly spoiled by blanket TV coverage of just about every competition across the world, might be feeling just a bit peeved this morning. It is highly likely that they missed Tiger Woods stirring attempt at winning his 15th Major title on Sunday.

The US PGA Championship is clearly the poor relation of the others – The Open, US Masters and US Open – but to have its coverage over here reduced to laptop viewing suggests that its status is not all the Americans like to crack it up to be.

Sky decided that the asking price of £7.5 million was too high and so did the BBC, who showed it last year. Which left new boys Eleven Sports, founded by Andrea Radrizzani – owner of Leeds United – and fellow businessman Marc Watson.

Eleven Sports available on line at a cost of £5.99 per month, but not many people know that. So Woods finished two shots behind winner Brooks Koepka on 14 under par on the Missouri course in an almost complete blackout.

And that is no fair way to treat a legend of the game.

MOST of us have a soft spot for the underdog, but how far can devotion and loyalty to a losing cause stretch?

Take the case of West Wales Raiders, a rugby league club in its first year as members of the bottom tier of the semi-professional ranks.

The Llanelli-based Raiders have played 21 games – all lost – and on Saturday they were beaten at home by York City nights 130-0, marginally better than the last time the two teams met when York won 144-0.

The Raiders only managed to raise 13 players for Saturday’s game – although they did have five away on international duty in the European Under-19 championships – and were watched by a crowd estimated at between 80 and the official figure of 196.

They have conceded an average of 80 points a game, but full credit to their chairman Andrew Thorne who insists that the club will stick at it and eventually grow the game in the area.

And if he needs any advice on stickability, he should give those in charge of Fort William Football Club a call. While Raiders are novices at surviving hard times, the men from the base of Ben Nevis can claim to be experts.

Currently bottom of the Highland League – where else? – the Fort suffered their third double figure defeat on Saturday when they were thumped 10-0 at home by Turriff United. That followed two 11-1 hammerings and a much motr respectable 6-0 defeat by Huntly.

Played four, lost four, goals for two, goals against 38.

Not an unfamiliar position for the club, who have trouble recruiting local players in a town where Shinty is the game of choice. Since joining the Highland League in 1985, they have known hard times and in the 18 seasons since 2000 they have finished bottom 13 times. A year ago they almost ceased to exist when the six directors all stood down.

But they are still in there scrapping so West Wales Raiders, despite all their trials and tribulations, can look to the far north for encouragement on how to survive through the thinnest of thin times.

One underdog who almost pulled off a weekend shock was snooker player David Gilbert. The little-known Englishman led World Champion Mark Williams 9-5 in the World Open in China, but eventually went down 10-9.