Yellows 2 Barnet 1

I’d love to go to a World Cup, but this is looking increasingly unlikely as time goes on. A lack of time and money and growing responsibilities dictate it so.

And because FIFA is corrupt, of course. You don’t need a Panorama programme to tell you that, they admit it themselves. But it was evident on Thursday as England; who could evidently deliver an excellent platform for a great World Cup, were done for by the dark arts of bribery and/or a deluded self-importance that FIFA Council have the ability to change the world. Financially or mentally, FIFA are plainly corrupted.

Of course with global communications, and FIFA’s obsessive branding the location of a World Cup is largely irrelevant. South Africa 2010 looked exactly like Germany 2006 except for a couple of wide eyed smiling black children and some 'ethnic' daubing.

This is the World Cup's central narrative; it relieves the poor of their problems and FIFA have a responsibility to divest its magical powers in places that have previously not had their fairly dust sprinkled on them. Like poor deprived Russia and Qatar, obviously.

It’s evident that a World Cup doesn’t change peoples' lives. Neither USA ’94 nor Japan and Korea 2002 witnessed any significant change in either their footballing or national fortunes as a result of hosting the tournament. It’s too early to say definitively whether South Africa will benefit from its month in the limelight. I suspect that violent townships and AIDS will still be dominant factors of South African life when we watch Qatar being dumped out of their own tournament by a Group Of Death featuring Sweden, Burkino Faso and the newly formed Peoples’ Republic of Newbury.

I actually believe in the restorative powers of football. It is truly remarkable that people, who otherwise want to kill each other, will observe a set of anachronistic rules for the singular objective of playing a game.

The World Cup is a summers’ entertainment not a vehicle of hope and regeneration. As if to illustrate this, on Saturday, the turnstile seemed to have an extra reassuring thunk as I walked through it. The sleet was cold and there was a hazy gloom. People shivered holding cups of hot chocolate with their hats dragged down over their ears. It was a reassuringly British scene that has not fundamentally changed in 30 years or more.

The game was a classic lower league mid-season war of attrition. Whatever uncertainty and change we face in our lives, this offers continuity and a baseline. Whatever turmoil you face, you can still go to a game on Saturday afternoon and, quite regardless of its quality, know pretty much what you're going to get. This shared experience is what counts. With James Constable's heroic return to form, it was football at its life affirming best. Better this than a month with Planet FIFA any day.