Growing up in a house dominated by the idea that sport was essential and fun.

My dad had been president of the Athletics Union and while he was a student, a decent rugby player,

but he also inculcated on me and my brothers that you could find inspiration and greatness in sport.

And given my age, which I'm not actually quite as young as I seem, but you'd twigged,

you'd worked that out for yourselves, had you?

I grew up a little bit fascinated by two things, many things, but these two work today.

Blinkers on horses, and pace setters.

It was long before my time, but when the four minute mile was first broken, it was by

Roger Bannister and he had two pace setters who were Chris Chatterway and Chris Brasher,

Chris Brasher went on to fund the London Marathon.

Interviewed him once, very strange man, eccentric man, let's say. And the pace setters were there

to run two-thirds of the race to ensure that the guy who had the speed and the stamina to make

it was going at the right pace.

There was a challenge. He knew that they were there. They were there for a specific purpose,

but it helped mentally. At the weekend, dramatically, Sevilla, were pace-setters.

Pace-setters for the night against Aleti and

pacetters for telling Atletti, you can win this title.

I talked to you recently about Aleti and my groundhog fears, ground dog day fears,

as soon as I tip them, Tolo Somioni would start to do something with his Chris Brasher style personality, extremely

jumpy, influenced by things outside his learning and his knowledge.

A guy with little premonitions and fears in his head, I feared that he would screw things up.

When the Metropolitan match kicked off the last football in Spain on Sunday night,

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