Ken Jones: Sven and Nancy move in at No 10... now that would be a good story

I can imagine no sports story that doesn't fall into one of three categories, although some overlap. Sunderland dismiss Peter Reid. Hard news. England footballers visit Downing Street. Soft. England coach's lover shows off striking form. Gossip that could work its way up to hard news with the publication of a book by Ulrika Jonsson, who had a fling with Sven Goran Eriksson shortly before the World Cup finals.

"What is sports news?" is a question that prompts almost as many answers as, "What is truth?" A pragmatic conclusion is that sports news is what newspaper and television editors decide it is. Their judgements are inexact, subject to whim, demands for circulation and ratings, personal preference, and other events of the day.

News itself is inexact. There is no one formula. Often, minor stories (the Daily Mail carried a titillating photograph of Eriksson's lover, Nancy Dell'Olio, on its front page yesterday), are wildly overplayed. Sometimes, good sports stories go unreported because journalists don't find out about them or don't recognise the good story that has just bitten their backside.

Once in a while, although not very often, a good story is passed over because the journalist decides that printing it is not worth hurting all the people who would be wounded. Occasionally, sports stories are invented.

Gossip is something else. The poet Robert Frost said that his abiding interests were poetry, teaching, farming, and gossip. Gossip is commercial, and people love it without always wanting to admit they love it. This isn't necessarily a sign of the times. More overt sexual stuff appears now, but the philandering of public figures was news in the 19th century.

It is a personal prejudice, but I am not much interested in what Eriksson gets up to in his spare time, nor did it strike me that his visit to Downing Street was important to anyone but Tony Blair, who clearly has a sharp eye for populist opportunity. I was once invited to Downing Street myself. Not alone you understand. It was shortly before Bobby Robson took England off to the 1988 European Championship finals in West Germany, and Margaret Thatcher, who doesn't know the difference between a corner kick and a corner flag, had been persuaded to wish Robson and his players well. Much good it did them. Played three, lost three.

For some unaccountable reason – I was into my fifth decade – Denis Thatcher reached the flattering conclusion that I was a member of the squad. "Play well," he said. There didn't appear to be much point in trying to enlighten him. On the other hand he may have been thinking about some other area of activity, not necessarily sporting. Anyway, I made an excuse and left. Outside No 10, I saw a fellow toiler unlocking his bicycle from the railings.

No one can tell me for sure but I guess this sort of thing began when Harold Wilson hogged the limelight after England defeated West Germany in the 1966 World Cup final. Appearing with Alf Ramsey and the England players on the balcony of the Royal Garden Hotel, the Prime Minister of the day joined in the community singing. "You'd think Harold, not Geoff Hurst scored the hat-trick," somebody said. And that was before spin doctors.

It is this sort of thing that led a prominent American political columnist in 1976 to offer some pointed advice to Jimmy Carter, who was about to begin his first term as President. Most of 20 numbered tips for the new President had to do with political prudency in office. But the last three were about sport. "Don't," he urged, "use football lingo by way of encouraging your party. Don't talk about team play, or coming through in the last quarter, or giving it that old one, two. Don't invite athletes to the White House for dinner. Don't invite athletes ever. Have the courage to decide with Harry Truman that 'Sports is a lot of damn nonsense'."

I once heard it said, somewhere, sometime, that politics is like coaching football. You have to be smart enough to understand the game and dumb enough to think it's important.