During today’s fantastic win for Unsworth U14B Juniors at home to Whitworth in the NBJFL Main Cup; I was shocked to see a bill that had recently arrived from Bury Council to the tune of nearly £600.

From 2008 it became a legal requirement for regular water safety checks to be carried out, to check for fatal conditions such as legionnaire’s disease. Bury Council previously carried out these water safety checks free of charge, but have now introduced an annual charge of £585.52

As a club, we have been told that if we do not pay it within 21 days, legal action will be taken to recover the cost and the club will be shut down. Further, the letter accompanying the “invoice” threatens our chairman with a CCJ if the bill remains unpaid.

Tory-controlled Bury Council’s callous attitude is revealed in this week’s Prestwich & Whitefield Guide, where Tory council leader Councillor Bob Bibby said “These self-managed centres cannot have everything their own way. If they want to self-manage their affairs, that includes taking on board financial commitments. It is up to them to put money aside for things like this, even if the notice period is short.”

Just like businesses and other organisations that have ongoing costs, our Unsworth Junior Football Club has a committee which meets monthly and one of our tasks is to budget for the year ahead. We take into account all costs (such as rates, utility bills, equipment, security, league fees and winter training costs to name but a few) when we set our player subscription costs.

Separate from our day-to-day running costs, we also have a development fund (ring-fenced from our main running costs) which is earmarked to refurbish our dilapidated clubhouse. For the last year, Unsworth Junior Football Club has been on a fundraising drive, led by my sister, Denise Middleton. It now seems that Bury Council expect us to spend our development cost on this on-the-spot water tax.

What should we say to all those children that gave up their Sunday afternoon last month and raised nearly £900 from a Sainsbury’s bag packing day? Sorry chaps, you worked so hard to raise money for a new roof for your clubhouse, but now Bury Council wants to steal most of it back.

No other Council in the Greater Manchester area charges for these essential water safety checks (which cannot be done by anyone other than the council) – this includes Salford Council, who I am regularly critical of.

It may be a co-incidence, but this decision by Bury Council to charge Unsworth Junior Football Club and nearly 30 other volunteer-run sites across the borough for water safety checks that were previously free, follows hot on the heels of a landmark employment case which Bury Council lost in August. Bury Council lost over £600,000 after losing an equal pay ruling which proved that women workers were paid less than their male counterparts. Cynically, it seems the Tory-controlled Council intends to recoup the money from volunteer organisations such as Unsworth Junior Football Club

I’ll be calling on Cllr Bob Bibby to reverse this decision at Bury’s full Council session at the end of this month, as I will be able to attend. Unlike Salford Council’s session, Bury’s is held at a family-friendly time of 7pm.

As a side-note, Bury Council’s further destruction of their local community continues with the news that they are about to agree to submitted ‘development’ plans that will see Prestwich & Radcliffe community venues such as The Longfield Suite and Radcliffe Civic Centre demolished.

It is times like these I am glad I live In Salford. We have learned to value our community and see the benefit community involvement gives back to our society as a whole. Perhaps, for once, Bury could look across the border towards Salford as a great example of how community facilities such as civic centres and sports facilities genuinely improves the lives of it’s citizens.

While reading The Daily Mail the other day I was disturbed to read that Britain’s Information Commissioner (Richard Thomas) has said he has serious concerns about a system being launched in October for the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA).

The database will record criminal convictions of the 11 million adults who work with children, but also any so-called “soft intelligence” on individuals – which could include unfounded allegations, rumours or gossip passed to the police or social services.

The ISA computer will contain detailed files on all the adults who work with children, whether professionally or as volunteers. That includes me, as for the past two years I have been manager of an Under-13s Junior Football Team, Unsworth Dragons.

In the past few years I have been CRB-checked twice, an Enhanced Disclosure in order that I can volunteer with Unsworth Junior Football Club and a basic disclosure for my work as a Heatseeker Surveyor (working with the elderly and vulnerable, in their homes). Further in to the dim and distant past, I had to endure a positive vetting process, as part of the UK’s  security clearance system – so I feel that I am eminently qualified to discuss the merits and drawbacks of the need for background checks.

Nobody can deny the need to ensure that the people who work with our children (either in a professional or voluntary capacity) must be properly checked to ensure that we provide a safe and secure environment for our kids to learn and compete – however, there are problems with the time it takes to perform some CRB checks and real concerns about the data that might be used to make a decision.

The Information Commissioner has said the database would contain ‘allegations, some rumour, some speculation’.

He added: ‘If (officials) start making wrong decisions or allows the data to get into the wrong hands the scope for damage to be done both to individuals and the system as a whole is quite considerable.’

Mr Thomas said the combination of treating rumours as relevant and the power to ban an individual from a job had the capacity to damage an innocent person in their ‘career, financially and socially’

Once an application is made, an official working for the ISA will look at all the “information” on file and then decide whether or not someone is fit to work with children – without that person knowing what he or she is accused of.

Michael Barnes, national secretary for Falsely Accused Carers and Teachers (Fact) said, following the Soham murders, more information was now disclosed on CRB checks.

“Issues that previously wouldn’t have appeared on an enhanced CRB now routinely do appear because of the Huntley situation at Soham,” he told the cross-party committee of MPs.

“There needs to be some sort of appeals process against information that is put on the CRB, because, at the present time, it is entirely a matter for the chief constable.”

Amanda Brown, head of Employment, Conditions and Rights at the National Union of Teachers said teachers often did not know that details of a previous minor incident, where no blame was found, were on their records until they applied for a new job.

She said: “We have absolutely no objection to employers seeing convictions, what we have a real objection to is the soft, unproven, malicious – potentially – allegation which have been made… being disclosed.”

Paul Kaufman, partner at law firm Wiseman Lee LLP, said teachers who applied for a new job several years after an allegation was made could have difficultly in exonerating themselves to a new employer, because solicitors files can be destroyed after seven years and court transcripts may also be destroyed.

Obviously the safety and well being of children and young people is absolutely paramount but the Criminal Records Bureau, which will provide intelligence to ISA, makes thousands of mistakes every year, with only about 5% of complaints found to be true.

Additional problems with the system lies around the matter of security of the data held, since the HMRC lost the details of 25million people little over a year ago, there have been 500 further significant data losses – two-thirds of them by the public sector. The NHS is the worst offender.

We need a fair, open and transparent system that works and can be trusted by both sides but serious concerns about projects such as the CRB system, National ID cards and the continued loss of sensitive personal data by both the public and private sectors does not help instil confidence in any Big Brother-like system.

The ISA database must only contain accurate information and individuals should be able to view their file at any time, with a system in place to challenge incorrect information – very similar to the way a person’s credit file can be checked and updated.

And so it came to pass. Christian Ronaldo has left Manchester United to join Real Madrid, in  a record signing. Despite Sir Alex’s protestations, it was always going to be impossible to hang on to the services of the world’s best player – but we got six great seasons out of Ronny and £80m is not to be sniffed at when the original purchase price was only £12m. Even when you add in all of Ronaldo’s wages from 2003 to 2009, and the fact he helped Man U achieve three premiership titles, one FA cup, two league cups, one community shield, a world club cup and who can forget that magnificent champions league title last year – surely the club still made a profit out of him.

When the petulant teenager first took to the field for Man U, I must admit to being sceptical as he tried one to many step-overs in a vein attempt to get past some of the world’s best defenders. It wasn’t always pretty, but as 2003 became 2004, I was starting to believe. The rest, as they say, is history.

Ronaldo delivered 118 goals from 292 appearances – most of them spectacular. Not quite the complete player, but still up there with the best of the best. I wish Ronaldo well and hope that his insurance premiums recover after that disastrous manouvre under the runway tunnel of Manchester Airport, that totalled his Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano.

We might forget the red cards, the “spoilt brat” behaviour, knocking England out of the 2006 World Cup and all those embarrasing dives; but we’ll never forget that manbag (see picture).

Thanks and farwell Cristiano Ronaldo. Thanks for the memories, goals and best of all £80m