WELL you could have floored me with a feather. Following the week of the F-word - Ferguson, Fabien, Fowler and the Phoenix League - England were drawn in Group F in the World Cup, along with our former Falklands foes.

Then we'll face the other favourites, France, in the last 16, so if we reach the quarter-finals we will already have left our best performances behind. Italy, meanwhile, will have cruised past Ecuador, Croatia and Mexico, then Poland in the second stage, before arriving at a well-timed peak.

It looks like a stroll for the Germans, as well, against Ireland, Saudi Arabia and Cameroon, although getting past Paraguay in the last 16 might prove troublesome.

The Group of Death, as group F was quickly dubbed, was out of the hat when I emerged from the pain of defeat on the 18th green into the warmth of the clubhouse on Saturday morning.

The tortures on the golf course had, however, been a stroll in the park by all accounts compared with the two hours of tedium on the box.

The draw for anything, even the World Cup, ought to be a five-minute job. But nowadays such events have to rival the Royal Variety Performance, although at least the World Cup draw had one big advantage over the RVP - it didn't feature Vinnie Jones.

It did, however, feature FIFA president Sepp Blatter, whose interminable speech included the words: "Football can bring a better understanding in a very painful moment."

Perhaps he was referring to Jones squeezing Gazza in the unmentionables, or perhaps to some more worldly matter, in which case why should football have the exclusive rights? Had he forgotten during all the pomp and circumstance that there are a few other sports which can lay a similar claim?

THE World Cup 2002 anthem was written by Vangelis, who also wrote the music for Chariots of Fire, a film which reminded us of a more innocent age when athletes didn't take drugs and couldn't even contemplate the possibility of gene therapy.

I raised this frightening subject here a year ago and was interested to note some of the findings of a recent conference in London entitled Genes in Sport.

Apparently the 500,000 thoroughbred racehorses in the world originated from four horses selected in Britain in the mid-18th century, and it has now been shown that 35 per cent of a horse's performance is down to its genes.

While the other 65 per cent will keep trainers in business, 35 is a fair old chunk and if something similar applies to humans there will obviously be temptations to tamper with genetic make-up in order to boost performance.

The London conference was warned of the potential for genetic doping. This can be done either through injections, in which case it can probably be detected, or through implanting a virus containing the required genes, which will be untraceable.

There are still risks involved in the latter, but it is predicted that the solution is only ten years away, and who's to say that within that time someone will not experiment with it in racehorses?

AS the festive season approaches, we are assailed by the usual signs such as sportsmen's autobiographies on the bookshop shelves and invititations to cast our votes for BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

The latter is a foregone conclusion. Although I would vote for Paula Radcliffe because of her stand against drugs, and a case can be made out for Jonathan Edwards, jockey Tony McCoy and yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur, the inevitable winner is Golden Balls.

From being the villain when we played Argentina in the last World Cup, David Beckham is now the nation's darling and is on course to become as big a superstar as Vinnie Jones.

It beggars belief that My Life: Vinnie Jones is one of those books hoping to cash in on the Christmas market, as is Audley Harrison: Realising The Dream.

These two volumes must have more padding than the televising of the World Cup draw, so far better to turn to Tanni Grey-Thompson's Seize The Day.

Not only is Tanni one of the best and bravest of disabled athletes, but she has a lively mind and is not afraid to express her opinions.

I'll give Angie Best's George and Me a very wide berth, preferring instead George's own effort, Blessed: My Autobiography.

He was blessed, of course, with a rich talent, which is more than we can say for Vinnie.

ASKED to identify the richest sporting talent in the world today, I'd go for Brian Lara ahead of Tiger Woods.

Yet here's another wayward soul, who after several years in the relative doldrums is now trying single-handedly to keep West Indies cricket afloat.

It takes some believing that he scored 221 and 130 in the third Test against Sri Lanka - about 54 per cent of West Indies' runs - yet the hosts needed only 26 runs to win by ten wickets.

Published: 07/12/01