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Last Tuesday, to discuss the state of the scrum, that once proud edifice that too often nowadays resembles a steaming heap of rubble.

The scrum, at the highest level at least, is nothing short of a bad joke: currently, 60% of all scrums collapse in top-level internationals and 40% of scrums have to be reset. In addition, the average time to complete a scrum is just under a minute, which adds up to an awful lot of watching 16 huge men in a pile on the floor.

England coach Martin Johnson called at Murrayfield "a game of rugby trying to break out between scrums". And when , a former hooker who won 64 international caps, is so often moved to admit he hasn't got a clue what's going on at scrum-time, you know you've got a problem.

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My dad tells a story of the time he saw standing on a crowded Tube platform after a game, firing off autographs for a group of young fans before bidding a hearty farewell and boarding his train. Bentley, bear in mind, was the club's star striker and would skipper them to their only a couple of years later, in 1954-55.

I tell you this not because I thought you might fancy a whimsical skip down Memory Lane but because it is revealing in two ways: first, it demonstrates there was a time when our sporting gods lived among us, not in behind 12-foot gates; second, while the gods of yesteryear were revered and adored, those who revered and adored them kept a dignified distance.

You are more likely to bump into doing her big shop in Lidl than you are to see current Chelsea captain  riding the 1730 from Fulham Broadway, so other-worldly have today's sporting stars become: buffered by media men and agents, over-marketed and over-branded, and this is where comes in.

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