Portsmouth goalkeeper David James has revealed how a mole inside the West Ham United dressing room influenced their relegation.

Discussing football's relationship with the media in his column for the Observer, James revealed: "At West Ham, the year we went down, we had a mole who kept shooting his mouth off to the press. It put everyone on edge, looking round the changing room, trying to figure out who it was.

"One afternoon we all sat together on the training field and one of the senior players stood up and made a lengthy speech about how we should root out the mole and expose him. It was moving stuff. Little did we know that he was the mole. It still makes me chuckle thinking about what a good performance he put on."