Maybe Behavior Such as This Is in Their Jeans

English soccer fans are rarely at a loss for creative ways to express dissatisfaction with the local side.

But disgruntled Reading supporters clearly have time on their hands. The second-division team has an 18 December Pants Day committee, which is planning to protest the club’s poor play by tossing pants onto the field.

The Observer of London reported organizers have even suggested where the fans should go to purchase pants.

The official Reading club store. Of course.

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Trivia time: Who was the Heisman Trophy winner nominated for sainthood?

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Love match: England and Germany can’t keep meeting this way.

In the span of one week, the longtime and bitter rivals were put in the same group in qualifying for the 2002 World Cup as well as the European Championships next summer.

“Germany vs. England again, that could be the beginning of a love affair,” former German captain and coach Franz Beckenbauer said. “We are getting closer and closer to each other.”

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Be afraid, very afraid: The vaunted Al Macinnis slap shot still carries a potent sting after all these years.

“One time Al hit me on the end of my thumb and it was like somebody had grabbed my bare hand and slammed the car door on it--over and over,” goalie Bill Ranford told the Edmonton Journal.

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Movie man: Chicago Tribune columnist Skip Bayless, on Notre Dame Coach Bob Davie: “He is the coach from ‘Dogma,’ sent to bedevil those who believe in Notre Dame football. He could have dropped right out of the movie that pokes fun at the Catholic faith. Bob Davie, another of God’s bad little jokes.”

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Double play: Washington football Coach Rick Neuheisel actually encouraged one of his players to try out for another team on campus.

His quarterback, no less.

“Actually, it was kind of his idea,” first-year quarterback Marques Tuiasosopo said. “We were at a [Washington] baseball game last year and he said, ‘Why aren’t you out there?’

“I was like, ‘I just want to concentrate on one sport.’ And he said, ‘Man, John Elway did it. Let’s talk about it.’ ”

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Readers react: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution asked for response about the controversial officiating in the Georgia Tech-Georgia football game, and more than 600 fans responded.

“The only way this could have been more of a robbery would be if the refs had worn ski masks and carried AK-47s. It’s a damned shame we don’t have instant replay in college football, as this was the worst call I’ve seen in over 45 years of watching the game,” wrote Robert L. Hall of Starke, Fla.

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Trivia answer: Bruce Smith, the 1941 winner from the University of Minnesota, was nominated for his work with cancer patients.

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And finally: International Olympic Committee member Fidel Mendoza of Colombia, on the debate about member visits to potential Olympic cities: “When a representative of a city that has something to do with the Olympic movement calls, the reaction in my house is as though a Mafioso or a drug trafficker were calling--they’re no longer respectable people for my family, it’s as if they were lepers.’