Football, not rugby, is now the gentleman’s game

Most British sports fans are familiar with the maxim that ‘football is a game for gentlemen played by hooligans, and rugby union is a game for hooligans played by gentlemen’. It was coined more than half a century ago by Arthur Tedder, then chancellor of Cambridge University, and for decades the saying stood the test of time: George Best and Gareth Edwards, Paul Gascoigne and Gavin Hastings, John Terry and Jonny Wilkinson. I rest my case.

But something strange has happened in the past season or two. This current crop of footballers, particularly the ones wearing England shirts, are polite and presentable. Not only that, but their enthusiasm for their sport is infectious and it says much about their wholesome image that the most the tabloids can reproach them for is the odd indiscreet tattoo. Yet beneath the amiable exterior is a tough inner core, as they showed when they won the penalty shootout against Colombia.