Singular or plural verb for collective noun is another option — &, despite what is said above, always has been, at least since before the publication of the original Fowler. Specialist writing like sports pages &c has nothing to do with the matter.

I still urge the anything-goes-so-long-as-you're-happy brigade, led on here by Sweeney, to beware of too much obeisance to relativism, which can be as great a menace as the pedantic over-prescriptiveness it is supposed to conflict with - represented here, so Sweeney alleges, by Gervase; who however seems to me to express himself with tolerable moderation.

Those who know me know that I am not a keep-the-peace-at-all-costs compromiser: but this is one instance where the truth seems to me genuinelty to lie between the extremes. Knowing which mode of discourse is appropriate to which situation is the skill all should endeavour to master.