Finding fun on and off course amid the fear and fretting

If Mick Channon had been a horse, they'd probably have shot him by now. Twenty seasons as a footballer, from Southampton to Finn Harps via Man City, have left him a little pottery in his slower paces and better off in a 4x4, but at least his knees are standing up well to the rigours of life as a hard-grafting 67-year-old racehorse trainer.

"Yeah, my knees are all right these days, but my feet aren't so good," he reports, with the resignation of the man in the joke, whose teeth are fine although his gums will have to come out. "I've got a bit of arthritis, too, in my hands. Jack Berry told me I should enjoy it because it'll be a hell of a lot worse next year!"

The flesh may be a little weaker than when he scored 21 goals in 46 games for England in the mid 1970s, and the luxuriant sideburns sorely missed, but the joyous spirit is clearly still fully intact and, it has to be said, he's looking passably lean for a man who enjoys life to the full.