I wonder how many of England’s World Cup wallies watched the European Athletic Championships last week end and hung their heads in shame?

Certainly not Wayne Rooney who, if you believe what you read in The Sun (and actually, sometimes you can) was otherwise preoccupied carousing into the early hours peeing, in the street and puffing a fag. 

The way Britain’s athletes went about their task reminded me of that line from the Punch and Judy shows that were so popular before the pc brigade outlawed Mr Punch’s antics, "That’s the way to do it".

Indeed it was. The golden headlines of Barcelona were splashed across the front pages of most weekend sport sections, and rightly so. The success of Jessica Ennis even led the front page of my own paper, the Independent on Sunday.

But had all this happened in just over a week’s time when the Premier League kicks off, would the exploits of our athletes still have got the same treatment?  Unlikely. After all Rooney might have stubbed his big toe - which at least would make a change from stubbing out a roll-up. There was even less chance that the footy flops would have been shame-faced when reading about the achievements in Barcelona - that is if they ever read anything other than the club programme notes and their own match reports. 

I’d hate to be a football journalist these days - it would depress me. Try setting up an interview with even a player of modest talent and you have to go through a network of managers, agents, lawyers and press officers - and then you usually find he wants "copy approval". That is, to vet the interview before it goes into print and additiopnally he will probably insist on a tag line crediting the latest product he is endorsing. Oh for those times some of us can happily remember when we had the likes of Bobby Moore’s home number, could ring him up and arrange to meet him in his local hostelry for a chat and a beer (or two).

But enough wishful thinking. Back to Barcelona. What happened there underscored that Britain really does have sporting talent, even if it really shows itself when it matters on the football pitch. These past few weeks have seen a spell-binding performance from several of the young group of acrobatic gymnastics geniuses known as Spelbound, who followed up their Britain's Got Talent telly triumph by swinging and swirling their way to the World Championship in the sport which surely deserves to become an Olympic discipline. This followed the performances by British gymnasts led by the redoubtable Beth Tweddle in the European Championships where they won 15 medals, an accomplishment on a par with that of the athletes.

Gymnastics is by no means alone in registering international glory this year. Recently fencing, modern pentathlon, boxing, taekwondo, triathlon and archery have also seen young Brits climbing on to the world or European podium, yet their successes, like that of the phenomenal Chrissie (Iron Woman) Wellington, who has set a new world long distance triathlon record seemed to have slipped under the sporting radar while England’s footballers were skulking their way to ignominy in the World Cup.

While Fabio Capello’s crew may have thought they could walk on water before they were forced to walk the plank one squad who proved they actually can are Britain’s consistently prolific water-skiers who have dominated the sport for some years and have now cleaned up in the World wake-board championships, winning men’s, women’s, girls’, boys’ and team titles in Germany. 

How refreshing it was too, to hear the delightful Ennis articulate about her victory, a contrast to the formulaic, often monosyllabic responses from the majority of the over-paid and over-valued football fraternity when ever a microphone is thrust in front of them. 

And what is it that GB head coach, Charles Van Commonee has got that Capello hasn’t? For a start he has athletes working under him who seem intrinsically proud to be representing their country and do not regard taking part in a major competition as an irritating chore. Steven Gerrard and his not so merry men looked as if they could not get away quick enough to play beach football rather than the real thing. 

In some ways, the Dutchman reminds me more of Sir Alf Ramsey than Capello in the way he commands the respect of his athletes. 

Mind you, dear old Sir H’Alf would never have bollocked anyone within earshot of the media - or the public as van Commonee has been known to do. 

Both have got results because of discipline and mutual trust. The way Van Commonee has helped British athletics pick itself up after a dismal spell is quite heartening. 

Of course, counting chickens is not yet an Olympic pursuit so we must hope that the track and field scribes do not fall into the same craven trap as their football correspondent counterparts and start hanging Olympic medals around the necks of the athletes on the strength of what happened in Barcelona’s Euros.

My one time colleague, Neil Wilson got it bang on in the Daily Mail when he reminded us not to get ahead of ourselves, pointing out that despite the shed-load of European medals, only heptathlete Ennis and triple jumper Phillips Odowu can be pencilled in now as favourites for the 2012 podium. It is still a sobering thought that hurdler Dai Greene was the only track athlete in Barcelona whose performance ranks him in this years top six - at sixth. 

As Wilson wrote, "the cold shower of reality will hit us when the Africans, Americans and Aussies come out to play in the World Championships and Olympics." Double gold medallist distance runner Mo Farrah, delightful bloke and formidable athlete that he is, will need to beat a whole string of Kenyans and Ethiopians if he is to be anything other than just a contender in London. 

A final thought on the advancing football season (not that it ever seems to have gone away): Wembley is likely to be less than half full, even with cut-price tickets for the forthcoming meaningless international against Hungary. Presumably it was intended as an occasion to celebrate an England homecoming after a triumphant or even half decent performance in South Africa. 

Instead it is now a more of a mournful wake, an opportunity for the frustrated fans to vent their disappointment - even disgust is not too strong a word  - at the way their fallen idols have let them down. The best thing the FA could have done is to let the public in free as a penance for that woeful World Cup showing. They might also invite the heroes and heroines of Barcelona to do a lap of honour and insist Capello and co stand, watch and learn.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Olympics and 10 Commonwealth Games