For as long as I can remember, the fortunes of the England football team have polarised journalistic opinion.   They’ve been either about to win the World Cup or are no-hopers managed by a root vegetable, with no points in-between. In more recent times, coverage has had a little bit more perspective.   Fabio Capello’s side have been impressive in qualifying. But only when they destroyed Croatia home and away did the coverage suggest that England had a chance of winning in South Africa. And that was surely fair enough, after beating Croatia 9-2 on aggregate.

England are among the tournament favourites, alongside at least eight other nations in an open competition to be held in weather which doesn’t mitigate too strongly against any Northern Hemisphere visitors to the south of the planet. And the poor service Darren Bent got on Saturday in Qatar changes that not one jot.

Yet one reserve team defeat against the tournament favourites and, as the Independent headline declared, it was “Lions roar to a lamb’s lament.” What vegetable, you start to wonder, will Capello be mocked up as if England don’t win the thing this time.

As a neutral – my national allegiances are green, which was the colour my face turned when Thierry Henry slam-dunked the ball to William Gallas – I don’t understand any of this.

David Beckham inspires the same extremes. Steve McLaren dropped him when his form wasn’t worthy of a place in the England squad. And, one year later, picked him again when his form was good enough. Yet forests were laid waste by the coverage it received.

Likewise, Beckham’s man-of-the-match award against Belarus. An odd choice, perhaps. But indicative of a morally-vacuous, celebrity-obsessed football culture, as many columnists suggested? No. The truth is that England have been quite good for most of my 36 years as a football fan.

And they now have a manager whose combination of strong discipline and emphasis on a player’s club form is turning them into a good side, with a chance of ultimate victory next South African winter.