Let's have more winners and losers

Another Great British sporting disappointment has engulfed the nation. And yes, I know it was the English soccer team that sank, but don’t worry, if you’re Irish, Scots or Welsh, your turn will doubtless come round again.

To my eyes, it seemed as though the team expected it right from the start and didn’t much care when the campaign came to an end. Remember the distraught player who had to be helped up and then, blinded by his own tears, led away from the scene of his team’s destruction? No, I don’t mean that poor Italian chap a couple of days ago but our own beloved Gazza in a previous English World Cup expedition. Where was the passion this time?

Actually, heretical though it may sound, something good is beginning to emerge from the usual post-failure collective navel gazing.

There are rumblings that the educational approach of “everyone’s equal”, “prizes for all” and a general doing away with competition is thoroughly and disastrously flawed. Why? Because life is competitive. Every single living thing on this planet is here solely because countless millions of its ancestors had the edge on finding shelter, food and a mate over its fellow creatures. And one of the things that has bred in all of us is the need to compete. And win. Knock that out of a species and it will become extinct.

Imagine if we applied the “no winners, no losers” theory to the medical profession, “ah, he wants to be a surgeon, bless him, so let him, never mind about the exams and so what if he keeps dropping the scalpel?” Actually I want the best there is please. Or the entertainment industry: would you go to a concert given by a mediocre musician?

So let there be league tables, and prizes for the best, and pass and fail, and medals with applause for the winners. Start it early and hammer it home. Long live Simon Cowell’s big X of “Britain’s got talent” and Lord Sugar’s “you’re fired!” even though the recipients might have been trying their hardest.

One thing is for sure, although wanting to win won’t bring success, the lack of wanting is a guarantee of failure.