Charlie Methven

If the Battle of Waterloo was won on Eton’s playing fields – as Wellington allegedly said – might Xi Jinping’s 21st-century ambitions for China end up being pushed there too? A picture of the list of next year’s King’s Scholars, currently doing the rounds of Old Etonians, shows that of 14 places awarded for September 2026, ten are going to pupils with Chinese names. ‘Yet another nail in the coffin,’ grumbled the OE who sent me the picture the other day. The scholarships were established by Henry VI for ‘poor, scholarly boys’ in his kingdom. These days, with the upper-middle-class English increasingly priced out of paying the £65,000-a-year fees, they are more sought after than ever – and bitterly resented when they go elsewhere.

The World Cup has never been just a football tournament. Even if we don’t realise it at the time, it tends to reveal something about us. In Germany 2006, it was all about Baden-Baden and the WAGs: the shallowest point of that celebrity-obsessed age. For more romance and happier memories, go back to Italia 90. Pavarotti bellowing ‘Nessun dorma’, Gazza blubbing, Maradona weaving his magic, Roger Milla hip-wiggling the corner flag. Italia 90 was the last gasp of the old order: modestly paid players with mullets and perms; heaving terraces; the USSR, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia playing their last tournaments.