You don’t spend many hours in front of American TV shows without picking up one or two invaluable life skills; notably the ability to stage, when a suitable crisis point dawns, an intervention.

Last Saturday at the Emirates, when Theo Walcott twanged his hammer against Chelsea, he simply walked off the pitch, ignoring the football at his feet.

A touch overambitious last week, wasn’t I, setting twin targets for Mark Allen — a world title and a place in our hearts. On both counts, I was quickly tucked up behind the yellow.

We wondered if Guardiola had moulded the perfect football template

Already new GAA president Liam O’Neill is in exalted company. Not only does he stride in the footsteps of luminaries such as Maurice Davin, Con Murphy and Seán Kelly. But men like Matt Barrett, Gerald Ratner and David Shepherd can also now call him one of their own.

So different are our two men at the snooker this week, it’s a wonder one of them doesn’t pull cheese from his waistcoat pocket. One is outgoing, charming, universally liked. Stick ‘Ken’ on an envelope and it will find him.

First, a window into the bright new future we want to give our children and our children’s children.

Trenton Oldfield had a different type of elitism in mind when he risked a clatter across his own boat race from a flying oar on the Thames last Saturday, but we’ll heed his protests all the same.

How many sports columns could have been written at any time over the past 100 years?

Forget the midweek sideshows that only tease the blue half of Manchester with cruel hope; we now know that Roberto Mancini is doomed to failure at City.