Visiting friends last night I ended up doing something that I haven’t done for years: watched football on the telly. It’s the same old game but two things impressed me. Firstly, I realised that they only show key parts of the game, so you don’t have to sit through 90 minutes which mainly consist of passes and tackles as the ball works around the middle of the field. Secondly, they now have some very impressive graphics facilities, which make it much easier to see the strategic elements of a game such as, in one match, how a group of three strikers worked tightly together to form an effective sub-unit, almost always linked by a small but flexible triangle.

Ah, so it has strategy and isn’t just booting a ball about!