There was no need for that carry on Jimbo

Jimbo Gannon, as they call him around Edgeley Park, doesn't apparently have too much time for social graces. That meant, last weekend, he chose to ignore the game's accepted post-match etiquette. He pointedly didn't shake hands with his rival manager at the Memorial Stadium.

Paul Trollope did his best to follow the civilised ritual. But Gannon was having none of it. Maybe he was simply bored by Stockport County's negligible sum total of creative moves and was lost for any words and polite gestures to the opposition. The intimates say it goes deeper than that.

However you look at it, this was a needlessly petty reaction, compounded when he failed to turn up at the customary press conference later. That conflicted with the counsel and instruction given by the game's authorities to managers.

Gannon is hardly the favourite team boss on the circuit. Some of his own supporters are a good deal less than pleased at the opinions he has intrepidly expressed. Only the other week he seemed on the point of leaving Lancashire for Brighton. The managerial switch was almost completed but he had second thoughts

Among the more modest clubs, which operate on a shoestring budget and often feel hard done by, his is a colourful and outspoken presence. He will turn his ire on the FA and referees. And he certainly bridled when Manchester City and Liverpool signed young players who were being nurtured by Stockport.

His own record as a player shouldn't be forgotten. He made just under 480 appearances for County, nicknamed The Ghost for the way he materialised suddenly to meet the centres. Rovers will no doubt argue that he was unnecessarily ghostly last Saturday. He still simmers, we can only conclude, over what he saw as Rovers' failure to clear the water from their pitch on a previous meeting of the two clubs. He was sweepingly critical of the Bristol club and the referee when that fixture was postponed.

Last month, when Wasps played London Irish in a tense match, the mercurial Danny Cipriani failed to shake hands with his far more experienced opposite number, Mike Catt. It was no way for an extrovert 21-year-old to behave to a fly-half coming up to 38.

That kind of snub, whatever the frustrations and England selection politics facing Cipriani, is a rugby rarity. And so, in soccer, was Gannon's calculated slight. Famous managers like Bill Shankly and Brian Clough would both inexplicably sulk at the end of a game at Ashton Gate and keep us waiting for their biased words of wisdom. But, as far as I know, they always shook hands with Alan Dicks.

What are we to make of Kevin Pietersen? He may be on a poor run and in dark days at the moment but we know all about his ability as a batsman. When his attitude is right, he is a glowing match-winner. We shall desperately need him when it is time for the Ashes

Yet he has too demandingly made his own rules. It would have been unthinkable if he had been allowed to take a few days off to see his wife. What would a few generations of cricketers have made of that?

Pietersen wants by nature too much authority. He relished the England captaincy – and it was totally wrong for him. He praised Peter Moores and then helped to get rid of him. He likes talking contentiously on the record, though he knows he had too much to say this week about his personal fatigue and homesickness. Now he has gone to pains – maybe with advice from friends and public relations experts – to imply it wasn't so bad after all.

English cricket acutely needs a fillip. We aren't quite sure how much genuine warm support Pietersen has within the dressing room. How fit is Andrew Flintoff as he attempts to emerge from the shadows? Does Andrew Strauss, as the new skipper, have quite as much backing as he deserves. The questions don't go away.