George Gandy has denied speculation that "an increasing tension" between his three assistant coaches is ruining preparations for the new season. The guru, who was en route to the Commonwealth Games in Delhi (subject to change), denied that he had had to separate Alasdair Donaldson and John Nutall in an argument over who should be named 'Acting Director and Guru-in-Waiting' whilst Gandy is away. "That's nonsense, total rubbish" thundered Gandy from his private plane, "it's just tabloid speculation and we can do without it." Gandy revealed that his post would be "shared" between the three assistants while he was away. "I will still be running things from the Blackberry," said the guru, "there will be strict instructions as to what to do in an emergency."
Reports in yesterday's papers told of how the unease between Donaldson, Nutall and the 'third man' David Howe was "all consuming". It is believed to have started when Howe insisted that he sit at Gandy's desk on a "trial basis" and escalated when Donaldson used his twitter account to slam "nobody Howe" and "yesterday's Nutall". Meanwhile the debate over who should do the infamous 'Welcome Talk' for first year students is also hotting up. With Bill Foster throwing his hat into the ring and George Gandy refusing to back any candidate, it looks as if what should be a friendly introduction will turn into a four-way brawl. Foster told the Echo that his results should speak for themselves: "I'm not interested in taking over from George," said Loughborough's most successful coach of all time "but if you look at it logically, you can see that [the other coaches] are a joke. David's athletes nearly get lapped, Alasdair's barely out of nappies and John is from Preston".
Elsewhere, Howe has been forced to apologise after adding "everyone on Facebook" except for one of his leading stars. The athlete in question - who is believed to focus on longer distances - told the Sun that he was "deeply hurt" by the snub. "It keeps cropping up on my news feed: 'David Howe is friends with....' and yet it's never me," said the anonymous African Violet "it makes me wonder whether it's worth committing my future to this club". Keen to play down the incident, a spokesman for the Canadian said that the matter "was being looked into" and apologised for any upset the "misunderstanding" could have caused.