The event had been passing peacefully until guest speaker Fergus Gibson took to the platform. Gibson suggested that Denis Irwin (Scorpio) may “precipitate some of the issues indicated by the current run-in between the volatile Mars and Pluto.” He appeared to be saying that Irwin would be leaving Manchester United to go to a First Division club when his contract expires at the end of the season. This prompted jeering from a group of sceptical weathermen, who had sneaked into the conference dressed as gypsies.

“Suddenly, all hell broke lose,” said a camp and frightened Grand Druid Russell Grant, the convention's organiser. Uri Geller leapt to Gibson’s defence, focusing a mind beam at the raucous weathermen. 

“Chairs were flung and punches were thrown, but what hurt the most was the name calling,” said Grant. “We should have known this was going to happen. There’s trouble here every year." 

One attendee sustained a crystal ball injury to his hip, while others are being treated for shock.

The events have even been linked to an earthquake in Ecuador. “The ground started shaking and things fell from the shelves,” said one resident of an Esmeraldas suburb. “We were very frightened, the gods were angry.”

Police soon arrived at the scene and took Geller away in a paddy wagon. 

“At the moment, we are just questioning Geller,” said Sergeant Mills, among the first policemen to arrive at the fracas. 

“No charges have been brought," he went on, "although we will review the situation after we have examined some crystals we found at the scene. We are also looking into claims by John Kettely that Geller seized the mechanism in his Citizen C11 timepiece." 

"It was waterproof up to 100 metres,” claimed an angry Kettely. 

Geller has not commented directly, but indicated through his publicist Max Clifford that “no prison can hold him.”

The tension between the weathermen and the mystics seems to stem back to claims made by John Nettles in January when he fed Irwin’s Opta Statistics into the Kray weather computer. 

“It basic maths,” spewed Nettles. “Put number in and computer tell you big future. Me know it works,” he added. 

The Met Office maintains the results accurately forecast a player’s future for up to four days, but after that, it’s pure chance. Gibson rubbished the results, joking that it’s impossible to represent a player’s future in terms of millibars.

There has been trouble at previous conventions, casting a shadow over the future of the event at the NEC. Last year, Geller was accused of “peeking” after he predicted special guest Patsy Palmer had drawn a house with a chimney on a piece of paper. Palmer claims she’s had headaches ever since. Benson and Hedges is said to be reviewing its position as sponsor for the event.

Meanwhile, speculation over Irwin’s future is still rife. In a statement from his club, Irwin maintained he hopes his future will be at Manchester United but will await the full moon to make his final decision.