A CCORDING to one newspaper this week it was revealed how drivers who transgress by illegally parking their cars on the school run can be given the option by a Yorkshire council of being fined or...writing out lines.

You read that correctly – lines. Remember them? I do.

Back in my senior school – senior for chrissakes – there was a system of doing lines as a punishment for various minor misdemeanours. It was a wrist-wrenching, digit-deadening discipline imposed on me several times, though it was infinitely more preferable to one teacher’s strap which had been split several times at the end so that one thwack actually replicated five or six.

Back to the lines then. What a bore. What a chore. But what’s the score in this column warbling on about some penalty dished out in bygone schooldays and now advocated as a fitting punishment for errant school-run drivers?

Well if anyone was in need of spending time at the blackboard in chalking repetitive lines of one sentence surely has to be Master Wayne Rooney.

It was the sort of mundane punishment that would be most apt for the boorish behaviour of the one-time English wunderkind who, if not checked, could turn out to be another waster of supreme talent.

Premiership football’s Bart Simpson, minus the laughs, you will recall, was storming back to the dressing-room at Fulham’s Craven Cottage ground after referee, or headteacher, Phil Dowd had brandished a second yellow card, and subsequent red, for Rooney chucking the ball angrily back to the centre-circle. Whether it was aimed at the official or not, it was a tad foolish thing to do especially as he had not long before been cautioned for the first time before his suspect bowling action.

After the expected wild-eyed protests of some his Manchester United team-mates Rooney bounced off and just as he reached a corner flag he delivered a heavyweight punch that sent the stick almost out of the ground.

My first thought was if only the corner post had jack-knifed back and walloped its assailant back in the mush with a rippling regularity as if suddenly the Red Devil had been transposed to Toontown.

Second response, however, was to hope that somehow such petulance would not escape punishment. Yet it did.

So I propose that Rooney and other schoolboy sinners should be made to write out lines.

The Toxteth-born terror could have been given: “I must not take it out on a poor defenceless corner flag” or “Craven Cottage is not the place for angry pugilistic swipes”.

There should be a room at the FA’s headquarters where there is live televised coverage of the offending player shuffling across a blackboard, squeaking chalk in well-manicured hand, completing his drill.

“Right now after that thrilling 5-5 draw between West Brom and Liverpool, surely their title hopes have vanished now, we go to Soho Square and join Jim Rosenthal for our live telecast of our new weekly chalk show. Take it away Jim.”

Rooney’s Fulham offence was certainly worth a minimum 100 lines, possibly 200. And what of other prime candidates?

His flouncing Old Trafford team-mate Ronaldo would have to learn step-overs with his hand rather than having them almost permanently outstretched in vain pursuit of having officials deem every player breathing five yards within his royal personage should be booked and also hauled away from the field, flogged, quartered and their four limbs cast to the less elite leagues of Europe.

Chelsea have several bad boys, though there might have to be a special room for Ashley Cole as he could be virtually a permanent resident of such a line-tracing scenario.

Steven Gerrard could even be meted out 50 lines simply for just not lightening up.

And what of managers? For Sir Alex: “All watches tell the same time if they’ve been set at the same time.” Jose Mourinho: “Me, myself, I, personally should think of others first.” Arsene Wenger: “Sometimes my Arsenal players DO commit fouls.” Rafa Benitez: “There’s no-one else to blame here now.”

So come on FA. During the current enforced break from domestic action, buy a box of dusters, break out the chalk – you can get some in club colours if need be – and let’s get those offenders outside the head’s office awaiting their punishment.

SPEAKING of punishment, the new Formula 1 season starts tomorrow in New Zealand. Is that the revving of engines I hear or simply zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Enough said.