CLAUDIA Schiffer versus Garth Crooks.

Remind me exactly why England were rated as a bigger no hopers than Tyson's next opponent when the World Cup bid was announced today.

The chances of England success were about as good as Phil Neville timing a tackle.

And the final pushes of the respective campaign teams summed up the whole pointless exercise.

Germany rolled out their finest supermodel, the personification of precision engineering.

South Africa played the emotional trump card in Nelson Mandella, a symbol of a progressive nation desperate for a break on the world stage. We paraded our prize geek Garth Crooks. Mind you, he was in good company. While Sir Bobby Charlton has worldwide respect for his achievements on the field, he is no ambassador.

That role requires drive and persuasion. It took Bobby Charlton 30 years to persuade his barber to chop off that ridiculous strand of brushover hair.

It was clear he needed to be backed by some political muscle. So we called on Tony Banks, who is still trying to activate the muscle which takes his foot out of his mouth.

Then there was Geoff Hurst. Some people thought he was on a sales pitch -- they think it's all over now.

Finally, there's the big chief Alec McGiven. Although I enjoyed his recent TV series, and especially enjoyed his impressions of Becks and Posh, was this really a suitable choice?

I actually think that someone, somewhere has been really crafty in assembling this bunch of comedians.

They realised that the last thing this country wanted was to give our scum supporters the chance to throw a giant house party.

The second last thing we wanted was to draw attention to the fact that our football team is now on a par with the Solomon Islands.

So now we know what Kevin Keegan has spent the last year doing.