THERE is a school of thought doing the rounds suggesting Australia need to win the Third Test currently under way at Old Trafford for the Ashes series to continue to grip the nation’s sporting interest.

Trailing 2-0 after defeats at Trent Bridge and Lord’s, the argument runs that the Ashes will become a mere sideshow if England seal the series over the next three days, especially with another domestic football season about to break out.

Well, to borrow the nickname of York City’s first opposition of 2013/14 – cobblers.

Such a notion should be anathema to any sporting son, and daughter, of England, especially when minds are cast not that far back to the 1990s.

Remember that decade. Never mind the greed and the grab it all of ‘that woman’s’ England, it was also a time in cricket when the green and gold of Australia ruled not just the home country but the entire cricketing world. And strewth, did we know it.

I cannot recall any Australian ever being reticent about broadcasting their cricket supremacy, their mastery of bat and ball, their domination of the middle.

To be Australia fair, I cannot remember any Australian being shy of regaling the globe with how fair dinkum they were.

During that decade, and more, of wiping the floor with all-comers England were hardly the most exacting of opposition, but there will be few on these shores that will forget pleas from the press down under wondering why they should persist with having to play five Tests against the mother country when she was as lame as an arthritic dingo.

Since then fortunes have turned around, but if not completely on their axis, England are now in the ascendancy while their arch-enemies have toiled in the unlikely scorch of an English summer.

Yet there is still this feeling that a triumph for the down under underdogs would be a good thing.

Those in favour argue that for the series to be clinched at Old Trafford would reduce the age-old enmity to a sideshow, relegated to less national coverage because the outcome was no longer in doubt, and then potentially swallowed by the return of football, especially with the all-engulfing maw of the Premier League yet to open its jaws.

What those good sports are forgetting is that there is another Ashes series to come across the cusp of 2014 down in the southern hemisphere.

What better preparation for Alistair Cook’s men than to head down there clutching a 5-0 victory in their mitts.

There is no room for sentiment in sport and especially as far as besting the Aussies is concerned.

Never mind letting them back in.

Never mind keeping the series alive. Let’s just grind them down in the dust of the middle.

Let’s go 3-0 up, 4-0 up then wrap up a memorable “five-for” and repay the insults, jibes, taunts and boasts of the 1990s right down green and golden throats.

 

UNLESS you are a Sheffield United or Notts County follower – they played last night – or a supporter of the 20 elite top-flight clubs, today is the day when football fans occupy the most rarefied state.

Even if your club has not mortgaged its busiest kiosk to land a new merchant of goals menace; even if a flurry of summer recruits have about as much credence as Lord Howell taking charge of the North-East Tourist Board, the first day of the campaign is one marked by optimism.

It may be rampant, it may be cautious, it may even hinge on welcome knowledge that you will not suffer from relegation jitters, but before a ball is booted there is hope, Del Boy hope that “this time next year, Rodney…”

Here at Walmgate Heights, the club nearest us harbouring high hopes are York City.

Canny manager Nigel Worthington orchestrated the great escape from relegation peril three months ago.

Like his predecessor Gary Mills he starts the new campaign in credit thanks to the endeavours of the previous campaign.

But as a manager of international and top-flight clubs, Worthington is only too aware that credit can rapidly evaporate should promise and potential not be realised.

What Worthington and his new Minstermen army deserve is time and patience and not to be saddled with unsubstantiated expectation.

Bring it on.