They're coming home, they're coming...

Look, on the bright side at least we have avoided having to play Argentina in the quarter-finals.

I watched yesterday's Germany game on a small portable TV with bad reception by the boundary edge of the Coldharbour cricket ground in Surrey. It was the annual Times over-40s v under-40s match and because of the football we decided to take an extra-long tea interval between 3 and 5.

Except that once Germany scored their fourth goal there was very little reason to carry on watching the football and so the cricket resumed with 20 minutes left in Bloemfontein. That's how desperate England were.

But just because our football team are crap, there is no reason to feel gloomy. Here are a few signs that all is right with the world:

• Andy Murray is still in Wimbledon (this will hold for at least another five hours as he is third on Centre Court today
• England have just beaten Australia 3-0 in a one-day cricket series. True it is a money-spinning exercise not pegged to an Ashes summer and hardly anyone cares about it, but a win is a win
• Our golfers are dominating America, which is always good in Ryder Cup year. Graeme McDowell won the US Open and other Brit winners on US soil this year include Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Rory McIlroy and Paul Casey
• Despite never seemingly winning a grand prix, the top two drivers in the Formula One table this season are British: Lewisham Ilton and Jenson Button
• We won five gold medals and six other coloured medals at the rowing World Cup the weekend before last
• Er... we must still be quite good at cycling and canoeing and diving and swimming and Paralympic sports and quoits and quidditch and backgammon and snooker and darts and conkers and Boggle.

So who cares if there is one sport that we are unremittingly cruddy at? We rule the world at everything that matters