When England won the rugby union World Cup in 2003 there was a prediction that millions of kids would now take up the sport because they wanted to be Jonny Wilkinson.
It didn’t happen. Possibly because England played a very boring sport in a very boring way.
There have now been predictable calls that womens’ football will take off in England as a result of a glorious World Cup run.
Unless there are a flood of budding youngsters who realise that being a useless goalkeeper doesn’t harm the chance of an international call-up this won’t happen either.
There’s no money in it and there’s no interest in it because, in the absence of national pride, ladies playing football is a pretty lousy spectacle, no matter what the BBC cheerleaders try and say.
