When the World Championships gets under way in Sheffield later this month, there will be a separate tournament taking place to try out a new, compact format in an attempt to revitalise the sport and attract greater audiences. The changes are simple: instead of playing with the standard fifteen reds, there will only be six. Hence the provisional title – Super6s.

It’s hardly earth-shattering (it’s not as if John Virgo and Jim Davidson are going to spring out of an alcove and start offering a holiday in Mallorca if the players can pull off a trickshot that involves bouncing the white along the length of two cues, flipping a coin into a pint glass and potting the black all in one. Pity though) but this suggestion still threatens to create a rift between camps of traditionalist players and those such as Ronnie O’Sullivan who feel that snooker needs to change if it is to survive.

I say give it a go – maybe it could exist in the same sphere as Twenty20 cricket - but don’t you dare get rid of snooker as we know it. The world just wouldn’t be the same.

On a lighter note,  here are a few ideas for other briefer versions of sometimes dull sports:

Ten pin bowling: the pro’s make it look too easy so here are the new rules. You must order, collect and eat at least two burgers during the match – any delay this causes to the game will be penalised by 1 point every 30 seconds. You must wear shoes that are one size too large, and bonus points for successful moonwalking inbetween shots. Finally, every six turns, the players will not be able to use the ball they want because the guys on the next lane have nicked it.

Swimming: it’s boring, admit it. Like running, but slower. So here’s what we need: All races to be conducted up a rocky mountain stream. First one to reach the top and lay their eggs wins. Swimmers must avoid bears, rapids and fishermen. Bonus points (which can be redeemed by taking ten seconds off your time) for leaping gracefully from the water.

Long Jump/High Jump/Any jump really: Simple this. Replace the sand with broken glass and hot coals - starting at three metres and extending by one metre every heat.

One final thing: these are the rules for a new form of pool invented in the Nobody Inn, Newington Green;

A game for two, three or four. Players play individually, always, and are free to pot any ball on the table, red or yellow. The winner is the first one to pot the black. Standard pool rules apply regarding fouls. No chip shots. The appeal of the game lies in the striking a balance between potting as many balls as you can at one sitting, and avoiding leaving your opponents easy opportunities to clear up. It’s nearly impossible to play a snooker, as all balls apart from the black are fair game. Early confidence and strong potting can be detrimental, especially in a three or four player game, as it leaves fewer balls for the others to contend with.

Next time on ‘Britsport’s New Rules’ – Kitchen Cricket and Hunt the Aerobie

Murray triumphed over Novak Djokovic in straight sets (6-2, 7-5) to give further credit to the possibility of overtaking him in the world rankings before the grass court season starts. Trouble is, that plays havoc with my strong desire to see a Murray-Nadal final at Wimbledon, as you’d expect the third and first seeds to play on the same side of the draw. Might be a thunder-stealing semi-final instead…

Button’s win in Malaysia was one of the stranger episodes of Formula 1: the race was ended after 31 laps due to a torrential downpour. After waiting nearly an hour, race director Charlie Whiting decided there was no chance of resuming the race and awarded victory to Button. But, as less than three-quarters of the race had taken place, only half points were awarded. Nick Heidfeld and Timo Glock made up the podium finishes, with Lewis Hamilton picking up a point for his seventh-place finish.

In other news: Manchester United came from behind to beat Aston Villa in one of the season’s most exciting matches so far. With so much riding on the game – renewed pressure to compete with Liverpool after Yossi Benayoun’s last-minute goal against Fulham yesterday, as well as the desire to avoid three consecutive league defeats (something that hasn’t happened since 2001) – United were left in the debt of reserve team sensation Federico “Kiko” Macheda as the 17-year old scored an astonishing injury-time goal to complete a 3-2 win. The Quintuple dreams live on!

England will win 3-1 (1-0 at half time)

Gerrard, Agbonlahor and Rooney will score – perhaps even in that order. At least one Beckham assist (that’s right, another cap for Becks)

Fate-tempter: Shevchenko WON’T score

And…oh, I don’t know…3 yellow cards for each team, at least one shot will hit the woodwork and the commentators will make a terrible April Fool’s joke within the first three minutes, possibly combined with a remark about England’s new kit.

How wrong can I be? Post your own predictions below:

Typical Geordie madness. Appoint an exalted, nay, legendary ex-player with no experience of premier league management to get them out of the colossal mess they’ve landed in after the St. James circus (starring top clowns Dennis ‘Un’ Wise, Mike ‘red nose’ Ashley, Kevin Keegan, ‘Big’ Sam, Joey Barton, Micheal Owen [injured due to custard pie accident] and the whole back four from the past six seasons) has SOMEHOW landed the team in the relegation zone.

Ever since he retired, Newcastle fans have wanted Alan Shearer to try his hand at managing the magpies. In the same masochistic way that they demanded King Kev’s return, they won’t be happy until it happens, burdening him and themselves with unrealistic expectations and unneccesary pressure. When he fails – and fail he will – I’ve no idea which folk hero they’ll drag up next season to replace him.

I don’t know how much Shearer knows about management, but if his appearances (I nearly said contributions) on Match of The Day are anything to go by, we’re in for some of the dullest relegation run-in quotes ever. Shearer talks as if he swallowed a dictionary of football clichés AFTER Andy Townsend, Mark Lawrenson and Jamie Redknapp took out all the best ones.

But it was BORING, and not just because Schumacher used to win all the time. I’m not averse to teams in red dominating sports for years at a time (Man U fan, remember?), but it was all a bit too scientific and methodical. Somehow, the bigwigs at the FIA had taken the concept of twenty men slotted into half-tonne cars travelling at 200mph and made it all rev0lve around fuel consumption and other niggly little details. The system was so polished and familiar that the teams were fighting over milliseconds, millimetres and milligrams.

Thankfully, they’ve shaken it up a bit. It still sounds ridiculously nerdy, and it had to be engineered by a group of people called the Overtaking Working Group,  but what all that talk of rear diffusers and downforce and kinetic energy recovery systems (Kers) actually means is that it’s now a lot more like a computer game, and that can only mean one thing: more fun. More fun for the drivers and more fun to watch. The KERS is the best bit, giving drivers a boost function that they can use for up to six seconds per lap. How PS3 is that? Brilliant – and you can see Hamilton using it to overtake Nelson Piquet here (at about 1.30).

It’s also great that Brawn GP were able to turn up late, with the best looking car, an interpretation of the rules that put the big teams’ noses out of joint, and wipe the Australian floor with them. The race wasn’t a classic – safety car out for the finish – but plenty of exciting crashes and, yes, overtaking. As an aside, speaking of crashes: F1 is keen to cut costs and impress the environmentalist lobby the credit crunch doommongers actually I’m not sure who, because the whole thing is still about as green and lean as the Large Hadron Collider, but anyway, impress with energy saving methods, BUT, my point is, surely all this ‘more exciting racing’ means more crashing, and more crashing means more money spent on new cars. How anyone working for a small team has any hair left after they see their fragile, sleek g0-karts crumpled into a wall is beyond me.

But I digress. Brawn: good. New rules: a step in the right direction. How about a couple of shortcuts that open up halfway through the race? Or allow the winner of the previous race to upgrade their car, but start them from the back of the grid? More Need For Speed, less Highway Code.

Sepp Blatter has “concerns” over the Premier League’s strength, apparently. One of his main concerns is that it is not competitive enough, claiming that “two-thirds or three-quarters of the participants in the league play not to be first, but not to be relegated”. Well Sepp, if it’s domination of top flight leagues by a handful of clubs that concerns you, let’s not stop at the Premier League.

How about La Liga? Over the past 16 seasons (comparing foreign leagues since the inception of the PL), there have been 5 different winners and 8 runners-up. Of those 5, Barcelona and Real Madrid account for 12 wins between them, with two for Valencia and one each for Deportivo La Coruna and Atletico Madrid.  This stunning diversity is barely boosted at second place: Real, Barca and Depor account for 12 second place spots, Atletico Bilbao, Real Sociedad, Villareal and Valencia making up the last four. In only two seasons have Real and Barca both been absent from the top two.

Maybe Italy will be different. Oh, no.  In Serie A, there have been 5 league winners. AC Milan (5), Juventus (5), Internazionale (3), Lazio (1) and Roma (1). At second place we can only add Parma to the list, with one appearance in the top two. The bright-eyed among you will notice that that only adds up to 15 – in 2005 no champions or runners-up were officially registered, due the to the match-fixing scandal.

Germany tells a similar tale. Bayern Munich dominate the table, with 9 league wins. Borussia Dortmund (3), Werder Bremen (2), FC Kasierslauten (1) and VfB Stuttgart (1) make up the 16. At runner-up level, we can add Schalke 04 and Bayer Leverkeusen to the list, with 3 and 4 appearances respectively. Bayern have 4, Bremen 3, Kaiserslauten and VfB 1 each.

So how does this compare to Sepp’s favourite punchbag, the Barclays Premier League? Over the last 16 seasons, 4 clubs have won the league. Manchester United 10 times, Arsenal thrice, Chelsea twice and Blackburn Rovers once. In addition to those four, who have 12 runner-up spots between them,  Newcastle (twice), Aston Villa (once), and Liverpool (once) have finished second.

Perhaps Sepp prefers the old first division (come on old boy, stretch those memory cells). In the 16 seasons previous to 1992, Liverpool finished either first or second 14 times. That’s domination for you.

My point is this: the Premier League, in terms of competition, is barely distinguishable from the other first-class European leagues.  Sepp Blatter needs to realise that being head of Fifa doesn’t mean you don’t have to do your homework before getting on your high horse. Some would say a basic acquaintance with modern football would be a requirement for heading up its world governing body, but I gave up on expecting that from Mr Blatter a long time ago.  Stop bashing the EPL just because it’s English Sepp.