Sales: £5.1m.1998 Everton bt Blackburn 5-3 on aggEVERTON: In Premiership: F Jeffers (Arsenal), R Dunne (Manchester City) In First Division: D Cadamarteri (Bradford City) Sales: £11.15m.BLACKBURN: In squad: D Dunn, M Taylor. Sales: £50,000.1999 West Ham bt Coventry 9-0 on aggWEST HAM: In squad: M Carrick, J Cole, S Bywater. Sales: None as yet.COVENTRY: In squad: G McSheffrey, C Davenport, C Pead In Premiership: C Kirkland (Liverpool). Sales: £6m.2000 Arsenal bt Coventry 5-1 on aggARSENAL: In squad: J Pennant, M Volz. In First Division: J Bothroyd (Coventry), G Barrett (on loan to Brighton). Sales: £1m.COVENTRY: In squad: G McSheffrey, G Montgomery, C Davenport, C Pead.2001 Arsenal bt Blackburn 6-3 on aggARSENAL: In squad: J Pennant, J Aliadi?, R Garry, S Svard, M Volz, C Holloway.

In First Division: S Sidwell (Reading), B Chorley (Wimbledon). Sales: £250,000BLACKBURN: In squad: N Danns, R Robinson.2002 Aston Villa bt Everton 4-2 on aggASTON VILLA: In squad: S Moore, L Moore, L Ridgewell, W Henderson.EVERTON: In squad: W Rooney. In First Division: A Pettinger (Grimsby).* Only players who appeared in either leg of the final have been considered.THE MANCHESTER UNITED PRODUCTION LINEUNITED YOUTH XI (4-4-2)Rachubka (now Charlton); G Neville, Brown, O’Shea, P Neville; Beckham, Butt, Scholes, Giggs; Macken (Manchester City), Johnson (Nottingham Forest). Significant frees: Wallwork (West Bromwich), Savage (Crewe, now Birmingham), Johnson (?ury, now Nottingham Forest).TOTAL FEES £10,945,000, plus sell-on percentages.* estimate: sold with Jonathan Greening for £3.5m.includes clause ensuring cut of future transfers. As sure as the sun is rising over the pines and the red earth here, the Tiger will be back It is a matter of talent and character and genius. Also, something which is indispensable in the make-up of a champion.

It is that honesty which ultimately shapes everything that a great performer is able to produce at the highest level – an honesty which, above all, does not permit excuses. Few things, we know, are as pernicious as the half-truth and this is perhaps a classic case.What Woods said quite deliberately was that Williams had indeed argued the case for accepting the bait of Augusta National’s advanced tee position and attempting to drive the green. “I wanted to get the ball down to the bottom of the hill, and earlier in the week I’d had problems holding up the ball in the wind. “But in the end it is the player’s call and I made a mistake. Also, I didn’t make a good swing.”Part of the problem was that at the previous par-five hole, which was birdied, he had produced two wonderful swings, which combined elegance and power, and made you feel that the Tiger’s target of 65 – the score of the jobbing pro Len Mattiace, which carried him on a tide of ill-founded hope into the play-off with the magnificently committed new champion, Mike Weir – was, if not a formality, something which could be reasonably anticipated as the bouquet of an expensive Burgundy.Unfortunately, this wasn’t vintage Woods This was a guy confronting his own human condition. Some days you call up the gods and they are not in the office.