Recent events in the sporting calendar have forced us to question Britain’s role within the world as a nation of sport.
I’m not trying to say all British teams are rubbish, but certain results in certain sports in particular have left me confused about the ability of our home sides.
Most notably, the Great Britain Davis Cup tennis team crashing out in a tie against Lithuania that should have been a formality.
It was the fifth consecutive Davis Cup defeat for Team GB, captained by former Wimbledon mixed doubles champion John Lloyd, and a humiliating eye-opener for fans of the sport.
The result means that GB will now be at its lowest point in the modern era, despite the fact that Andy Murray, the best British player since the 1930s, has reached two Grand Slam finals in the last year.
What is especially odd is the fact that the British Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) has an annual budget of around £50million plus, whereas Lithuania spends £90,000 a year.
Britain has hundreds of ranked players, Lithuania has three.
Why did Britain lose then? It’s mystifying.
Of course, other sports in Britain are flourishing: athletes are winning gold, like Dwain Chambers and Sheffield-girl Jessica Ennis, who just last weekend hauled in more medals, and I do not want to take anything away from their achievements.
The GB cyclists are still living the high life after dominating Beijing 2008 and the England hockey team did quite well in the Hockey World Cup.
But it is the failings that are often highlighted rather than the victories.
Let’s face it, not many people knew that England were in the semi-final of the Hockey World Cup, and even athletics is a somewhat acquired taste, especially out of the summer months.
It should be noted that England threw away a 3-1 lead in the Hockey third-place playoff to lose 4-3. This can hardly be described as a success, can it?
Even the England football team lost some of their credentials that the World Cup qualifiers brought after a decent enough 3-1 win over Egypt on March 3, but a lack of skill and flair was clearly evident.
The much-documented moral matters off the pitch regarding John Terry’s extra-marital activities have also taken away from England’s sterling performances in the qualifying period.
I’m not the first to say that a national team captain should probably have considered the outcomes of using bodily organs other than his brain to make decisions.
Hopefully the result of the World Cup in the summer will ensure that his mistakes will be forgotten by the general public.
The recent Winter Olympics will have also left a sour taste in the powers that be in British sport. A solitary medal was probably not what Team GB had hoped to earn.
Like the Davis Cup, British Winter Sports must justify their results against the funding they receive. Understandably Britain has little in the way of alpine terrain, but surely using foreign bases to train athletes should lead to more than one medal at Vancouver.
The England Rugby team, too, is hardly the once dominant side it was earlier in the decade, with questionable results against Italy and Scotland in the Six Nations.
Teams do have peaks and troughs, obviously that happens everywhere in the world, but it rarely seems that a peak in sport in Britain lasts very long, or even results in a major victory, and it is a great shame.
I hope the upcoming sporting fixtures in 2010 will prove me wrong.
Chris Rogan