(And it was across the fields of Lilleshall that a small number of that party, including Jimmy Greaves and Jack Charlton, sneaked away to the nearest pub for a couple of swift pints to relieve the monotony of training, card games and training. Ramsey got to hear of it. It only happened the once.)

More recently, footballers including Michael Owen, Jermain Defoe, Joe Cole, Sol Campbell and Scott Parker were shaped and prepared at the FA School of Excellence based on the premises from 1984-1999 before all the Premier League clubs decided they wanted to run the whole academy thing for themselves, thank you very much.

But for the competitors working steadily in Lilleshall's lofty King George VI hall in preparation for last month's European Championships, it was immediate history that was more relevant – specifically the last five years, during which British gymnastics has transformed itself into a serious contender for Olympic and world medals in both the men's and women's events.

With just over 15 months to go until London 2012, these male and female gymnasts had their immediate gaze fixed upon Berlin, which turned out to offer encouraging evidence of potential for their Olympic ambitions as Beth Tweddle retained her uneven bars title before having to settle for fourth place in the floor exercises because of a calf injury, and Daniel Purvis (pictured), the 20-year-old from Ashton, Liverpool, earned Britain's second medal with a bronze in the all-around event.


Purvis, who will take part in the World Cup event in Moscow this weekend in his speciality of the floor exercises, built on his European success with victory in last month's World Cup in Glasgow.

"I was very pleased to get a European medal, "he told insidethegames. "But I had a fall in the floor exercise which was very frustrating. So I was really made up to win in Glasgow, where I managed to put it all together. No falls that time!"

In doing so, Purvis defeated the German who had taken the European title in Berlin, Phillip Boy.

But what was of more enduring encouragement to him was the way in which he successfully incorporated a series of additions to his routines designed to raise his level of performance with London 2012 in mind.

"I've got a few new moves in the all-around," he said. "I'm looking to beef up my scores a bit more."

While Purvis had to do all the routines in Glasgow, his task in Moscow will be relatively straightforward as it is one of a select number of this year's World Cups which will showcase a single discipline – in this case, his favourite, the floor exercise.

"I used to work on a value of 5.7 for the floor, but recently it has gone up to 6.5. So I will be looking to do the same thing in Moscow as I did in Glasgow. "

By the time of the World Championships in Tokyo from October 7-16, which will serve as the first opportunity to qualify for the Olympics, Purvis hopes to have his new moves nailed down in time for the following year's big event in the O2 Arena. As indeed do all his colleagues.

The British team had gathered impressive momentum before travelling to Berlin.

The proximity of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi and the World Championships in Rotterdam meant that a "B" team was sent to the former event – a "B" team that excelled itself in the men's and women's competitions by taking silver behind Australia, which had sent its top selection.

At the subsequent World Championships the women finished seventh in the team event and the men seventh after qualifying fourth for the final, and while Tweddle collected a third individual title on the bars, Louis Smith took silver on the pommel horse and Purvis bronze in the floor exercises.

In the words of Tim Jones, the sport's performance director, "we have reached a kind of critical mass."

Before the Europeans got underway, he assessed the opportunities thus: "It's at a point in the competitive cycle where we will be able to bring in some new routines. It's almost a tactical game. You have to be able to test out new routines without giving your opponents too much of a chance to accommodate to them."

The clear target is to secure a place in London at the first opportunity by ensuring their men's and women's team finish in the top eight at the Worlds, although there is a second chance to earn qualification in the next year's Test event, where a further four places will be up for grabs.

Tweddle (pictured), Britain's most successful gymnast ever, stood with a slight frown on her face in the cavernous Lilleshall gym as she looked at the leotards for the Europeans which had just been brought in. It appeared to be an item with no more than a tasteful amount of sparkle about it – but perhaps her tastes are changing with age. At 26, she is very much the veteran.


Britain's first world champion gymnast planned to up the ante in Berlin by presenting a brand new routine on the bars – on which she has won two of her three world titles. The tariff of 6.8 with which she went into last year's World Championships was increased to 7.1 – which put her in the same territory as her two main Chinese rivals, both of whom failed to execute their ambitious routines properly at those championships in Rotterdam.

It was a challenge to which she manifestly rose, although a subsequent problem with her calf prevented her demonstrating her full capability in the floor exercise, which also featured new moves, and new music for her.

"Normally I go into competitions with the mindset of 'I want to come home with a medal,' she says. Whereas the mindset for Berlin was to go and try these routines, see what the reaction is, if it works, it works. If it doesn't, I've still got another 15 months to consolidate them.

"The bars routine is a lot more difficult than the routine last year. It's gone up by three tenths – doesn't sound a lot but it does mean a lot in technical terms. Obviously it's up there now with the Chinese, so the routine won't change much now leading in to London.

"This was the competition to try it. Had I left it for the Worlds, obviously the team's relying on me to go clean for qualification for the Olympics, and if I leave it until London obviously it's too late to put stuff in there. So I need to put it in now.

"The thing is, with my old routine, every time I was getting up on the bars the judges had seen it 20, 30 times. So they knew where the faulting parts were.

"This time some of them will know that I've got a new routine because I tried part of it at the English Championships this year and was on YouTube within a couple of hours. My coach Amanda [Redding] went to America a week later and everyone was saying 'oh my God, we've seen Beth's new bars.' So maybe the judges have only seen half of it, but they haven't seen the finished article yet."

Berlin offered a convincing glimpse of that article.

Sam Oldham would not describe himself as the finished article as a gymnast, being a modest lad, but at the age of 18 he is set fair to emulate the level of performance already established by the likes of Tweddle, Smith – who earned Britain's first Olympic gymnastics medal in more than 100 years with his bronze in Beijing –and Daniel Keatings, now recovering from injury, who won the European pommel horse gold two years ago.

While several of his younger colleagues went out to Delhi, Oldham, the European junior all around champion and winner of the high bar at the Youth Olympics, travelled to the World Championships as a reserve. Two years earlier he had been taken to the Beijing Games in order to observe at first hand what the Olympic experience was like. Now he is on the brink of his senior international championship debut.

"It was an amazing achievement for Louis to get the first gymnastics medal we had won in 100 years," Oldham says. "I think it was a key stepping stone, and it marked the start of our preparation towards 2012.

"It was also a great experience to be at last year's Worlds – to get out there, see what it's like being with the seniors. It's a lot different to the juniors. Hopefully that will really help me at the Europeans."

Oldham's expectations were met in Berlin, as he narrowly missed out on a medal in his first major senior final, being belatedly pushed down to fourth place in the high bars.

His rapid rise in the sport has followed a difficult decision, as Oldham might have had a career in football. He was on a four-year contract with Notts County – for whom his grandfather, Arthur, played - by the time he was 12 having previously been on the books at Nottingham Forest – for whom his father Bob played during the Brian Clough years.

Oldham's progress has been viewed with approval by the man who has operated as the men's technical coach since 2006, Eddie Van Hoof, a member of the British team which finished ninth at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

National coach between 1985-1997, he returned to the sport as the men's technical director in 2006, at which point funding had been cut back following poor competitive returns.

"We put together a performance plan in January 2007, and since then we have progressed quicker than I expected to the point where we now have a sustainable squad. I don't think you can overestimate the value of Louis's achievement at the 2008 Games of winning our first Olympic gymnastics medal for 100 years. It made his fellow team members realise that medals – and not even world medals, but Olympic medals – were attainable.

"We would love to get our Olympic qualification all done and dusted this year, and the Europeans will be a big step towards that.

"I think the playing field has levelled in this sport. Twenty years ago those other nations were fully funded and we were always the poor relations.

"Japan, China, Russia and the eastern European nations always used to be the powerhouses of the sport. But now we are on a par with the majority of them.

"We have earned the respect of the other nations whom we always used to look up to."

The events of the last month have done nothing other than to increase that respect as London 2012 draws closer.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames