England triumph at world footie!

England are world champions. To the great joy of their supporters, they duly lifted the World Toe-Wrestling Championship amid frenzied scenes in a Staffordshire pub yesterday. In doing so they proved for once and for all that the Brazilians do not have a monopoly on fancy footwork.

England are world champions. To the great joy of their supporters, they duly lifted the World Toe-Wrestling Championship amid frenzied scenes in a Staffordshire pub yesterday. In doing so they proved for once and for all that the Brazilians do not have a monopoly on fancy footwork.

There are many reasons for this English victory, but the main one is this: no foreigners competed.

So today, on this glorious new dawn for national sport, the heroes whose names will be remembered as long as toes are flexed, are Alan "Nasty" Nash from Stoke-on-Trent, who won the men's event, and women's winner Karen "Kamikaze" Davies from Sheffield.

The tournament, held beyond the gaze of the world's media and even local nosey parkers, was in the atmospheric Ye Olde Royal Oak Inn, Wetton. Its founder, ex-landlord George Burgess, said: "It was dreamed up in the pub by walkers who lamented England not winning anything."

Olympic status has been applied for (and refused). There were no arrests.