There ain’t no cure for England’s summertime blues

England 1 Italy 2

From a wealth of hard-earned and sometimes even absurd experience, black humour comes easily to our neighbouring football journalists, although the only freakish thing about this latest of many World Cup reversals for the Three Lions was that the team’s physio was hospitalised with a dislocated ankle having landed on a water bottle while celebrating Daniel Sturridge’s equalising goal.

As Con Houlihan used to say when, uncharacteristically, all other words had failed him: oh dear, dear, dear.