There is a lovely old song by Roy Harper called When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease, which is not only a marvellous evocation of the delights of an English summer's day - warm beer, cricket on the village green, stout midwives cycling down country lanes, and so on - but also quite touchingly appreciative of the gifts bestowed upon us by sportsmen in the twilight of their career.
Or, to put it a little less poetically, a good old 'un often has as much to offer as a fresh-faced young 'un. This is an argument I have unsurprisingly found more attractive the older I have got, and one that recent events in the football world have tended to reinforce. Take Newcastle United's appointment of 61-year-old Joe Kinnear as interim manager. The conventional wisdom that the old geezer would be out of touch with the modern game seemed to be confirmed by his press conference when a torrent of intemperate abuse hit unsuspecting journalists, who, being the typically gentle sensitive souls this profession is full of, were shocked.
My opinion is that the wily old silver fox of a manager knew exactly what he was doing. The famous siege mentality that worked so well for Joe's fairly prosaic players at Wimbledon - and for other managers of less stellar squads at teams like Millwall and Bolton Wanderers - was clearly Kinnear's emergency strategy. Nobody likes us and we don't care, the press is out to get us; these will be the kind of messages the gaffer - as managers of Kinnear's generation are invariably called - will have conveyed to his players ahead of the match at Everton on Sunday, where the Geordies duly ended a run of four defeats with a draw.
Little surprise, then, that another of the Premier League's crisis clubs, Tottenham Hotspur, are reportedly thinking of appointing Terry Venables as director of football. Whether that happens or not, the folly of disregarding those no longer in the first flush of youth is vividly illustrated by the career arc of Wigan's Emile Heskey, dropped from the England squad nearly four years ago, but brought back as a 30-year-old for the 2010 World Cup qualifiers, and now once more a seemingly indispensable member of the set-up.
If you want further evidence that the oldies are back - if the recall to the UK Government of old trooper Peter Mandelson to help steer us through choppy financial waters were not evidence enough - you might want to look in on the Masters Football Cup 2008 tonight at the Dubai Tennis Stadium, featuring former Premier League and SPL stars including John Barnes, Steve McManaman, and Frank McAvennie.
Do not expect a gentle kick about. There may be some fooling around on the sidelines, but once on the court you can expect the fierce competitiveness that somehow never leaves professional sportsmen. In the early '80s, when I was a radio disc jockey, I played in quite a few charity matches, and after the first one, when former Burnley and Huddersfield Town player Steve Kindon ended one of my mazy runs down the wing by clattering me into the advertising hoardings, I never again made the mistake of assuming that any former pro footballer straps on his shin pads just for fun. I played in one match with the great John Charles, who was 56 at the time and more than a little overweight - pretty well spherical, in truth - yet still he was a joy to watch, which is about all the rest of us got a chance to do.
I thought at the time of Roy Harper's words, as you may when you see some of the legends at the Masters tonight: "And the clock turns back to reflect, On the years of grace, as those footsteps trace, For the last time out of the act." In the case of the Masters though, one hopes it will not be for the last time. @Email:martin.kelner@yahoo.co.uk