MY NOBBY PLAN FOR A NEW ERA OF GREATNESS

Okay, so I’m no Russell Grant – thank Christ – but I did get the right result. Spain’s 1-0 win over Germany in the final of Euro 2008 was every bit as comprehensive, if not more so, than the 4-2 I predicted. With a tad more Spanish accuracy it could have been 6-0.

This entry is all sport, by the way. So you non-sporting ladies, and suspect chaps, needn’t read any further. Unless you just want to enjoy the purple prose.

We now know that the German national team is second-rate – no better than England. It was only typical Teutonic luck and muscle (not to mention a cheat’s goal from Michael Ballack) that took Germany to the final.

But Spain’s stylish victory did at least leave England with one title. We have now inherited from them the position of Number One Perennial Underachievers of world football.

Add this to our woes in cricket, motor racing (sorry, Lewis, I foresee another disaster at the weekend), and tennis (the gangly one’s a SCOT!), and we are in a dire way.

Oscar Wilde once said, and here I may be paraphrasing slightly because I can’t be arsed to track down the exact quote, ‘The English invent all the best sports and then invent another one when they are surpassed.’

So I propose a national forum on Time To Invent A New Sport That Will Grip The World. I will donate my 1966 Nobby Stiles Left Contact Lens, which must be worth, ooh, quite a lot, as the main prize.

It isn’t monogrammed but I have a letter of provenance from its finder, a groundsman who worked at the old Wembley Stadium briefly in the winter of 1966 and found the ‘unmistakable’ lens on the edge of the penalty area England were defending when the World Cup Final ended. Old film footage clearly shows Nobby sinking to his knees at that exact spot, weeping, and then feeling through the grass for something small and elusive – before Bobby Charlton dragged him away to join the celebrations.

That was the first and last time our national team won a trophy. Oh for a new Nobby now. Even a half-blind one would do. Now, there’s an idea for my competition: Football For Contact Lens Wearers, Without Their Lenses. I could play in goal …

Mmm. Am I veering towards the realms of fantasy now?