In the nickname stakes, One-Pint Willy has nothing on 3-60 Geoffrey Cow

Having suffered many a duff sobriquet, Will Gore thinks the newer generation might have hit a creative streak

Is this a sculpture of William Shakespeare or William Gore? Either way, it is a perfect resting spot for Mr Pigeon (Getty)

As nicknames go, One-Pint Willy just about scrapes a C for effort. The moniker conferred on Prince William by Mike Tindall speaks cheekily to an apparently amusing fact about the future king’s inability to hold his drink, and it rolls nicely and alliteratively off the tongue. Old One-Pint can probably see the funny side of it – especially after a couple – but Tindall nonetheless apologised for letting it slip.

Really, though, Tindall ought to be sorry for not having come up with something more imaginative. True, it’s better than Walesy, which is what our next monarch might have been called if he was in a cricket team, or The Willy King (football bants), but only by a bit.

In fairness, most nicknames are pretty dumb, often a product of men’s emotional immaturity or general inability to respect anyone else sufficiently to use their actual name. So ingrained are they in the male sporting psyche, that nicknames are more or less a prerequisite in certain arenas – think darts (Luke the Nuke) or snooker (Rocket Ronnie). But that doesn’t usually make them any better.