Whatever happened to the art of losing graciously?

Had Wenger accepted defeat equably his reputation this morning would be enhanced

Bisque, Consomme, Chowder, Broth, Vichyssoise, Gumbo, Bouillabaisse, Borscht, Potage, Gazpacho and Minestrone. Until a couple of days ago, that was conceivably the reserve XI Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger was thinking of fielding for the forthcoming Carling Cup clash against Manchester City, probably in a 4-4-2 formation, with the Spanish prodigy Gazpacho linking up for the first time in attack with Minestrone, the £15m teenager signed in the summer from Inter Milan.

Bisque, Consomme, Chowder, Broth, Vichyssoise, Gumbo, Bouillabaisse, Borscht, Potage, Gazpacho and Minestrone. Until a couple of days ago, that was conceivably the reserve XI Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger was thinking of fielding for the forthcoming Carling Cup clash against Manchester City, probably in a 4-4-2 formation, with the Spanish prodigy Gazpacho linking up for the first time in attack with Minestrone, the £15m teenager signed in the summer from Inter Milan.

Instead, they are some of the names being bandied around in the continuing debate about what exactly went on in the tunnel at Old Trafford on Sunday, following Arsenal's 2-0 defeat by Manchester United, which ended their remarkable 49-game unbeaten run. It is said that an Arsenal player, furious at being beaten in controversial circumstances, flung soup at the United manager Sir Alex Ferguson. Some reporters have spent the last 24 hours trying to find out the identity of the player. I want to know the identity of the soup.

I also want to know what happened to the art of losing graciously? It used to be something we did superbly in this country, like shipbuilding. But something has gone dreadfully awry. On Saturday, the manager of Tottenham Hotspur, Jacques Santini, stormed away from the 0-1 home defeat by Bolton Wanderers, refusing to talk to the media. Significantly, this fit of petulance occurred just hours after the death of Bill Nicholson, Tottenham's most successful manager and a man who embodied quaint old-world character traits such as not throwing a hissy fit in the wake of a disappointing result.

Santini is French but the disease is English. And although Wenger, unlike his compatriot, did not shirk his media responsibilities on Sunday, he was reported to be furious with the United team, with Ferguson, and with the referee. With everyone, indeed, except himself and his players. The culture of losing ungraciously is wrapped up with the blame culture that so bedevils modern Britain: it's not my fault we lost, and if it's not my fault, I'm damned if I'm going to be a gracious loser.

This phenomenon extends way beyond football. Paula Radcliffe, the nation's blue-eyed girl until the Athens Olympics, fell precipitously from grace not because she failed to win the marathon, but because she failed to lose graciously. Had she trailed in ages behind the winner, waving ruefully to the crowd, she would have remained on the podium of our estimation. By falling hysterically by the wayside once she knew she couldn't win, she blew it. Oddly enough, one arena in which this growing phenomenon is less easy to find, is politics. The rehabilitation of the widely-reviled Michael Portillo began in 1997, at the moment he stood on the dais at Enfield & Southgate and took his electoral humiliation with such polish. Similarly, Conservative leader William Hague was impressively gracious, good-humoured even, when the Tories were hammered in the last general election.

Absolutely no soup was thrown. At least, not publicly. And it was the reins of the country up for grabs then, not three measly Premiership points. But then in politics, the ungraciousness comes before the decisive event, not afterwards. And that's nowhere truer than in the United States. President George Bush and Senator John Kerry are energetically flinging all kinds of ordure at one another, yet it will almost certainly stop a week today when one of them loses. In sport, by contrast, it is after one side has secured victory and the other has been defeated that the ordure starts really gathering steam.

Had Wenger, a cultured and eloquent man, accepted Sunday's defeat equably, refused to debate the disputed penalty with which United took the lead, and left it to the media to chew over the fact that the same referee, Mike Riley, had previously awarded United a string of penalties at Old Trafford, his reputation this morning would be enhanced. As it yet might be if he decides to throw the book at whoever threw the soup. In the meantime, his whingeing diminishes him and his club, and sets a terrible example to young football fans who should be learning, in sport as in life, to be not only magnanimous in victory, but also gracious in defeat.

We have, alas, lost the former art as well. Last November, when England's rugby union players were being driven back to their Sydney hotel after beating Australia to win the World Cup, they spotted a large group of Aussie fans standing disconsolately at a bus stop. Expecting some unpleasant abuse to be hurled their way, they decided to get in their retaliation first. So England's finest stood at the window of the coach loudly singing "I shagged Matilda". And were promptly shamed by the despondent Australians who began to applaud them warmly for the immense sporting feat they had just pulled off.

It has come to something when, in matters of decorum after a sporting encounter, England must start to take lessons from Australia. And if we can't even win nicely, then what chance have we got to reclaim our rightful position as the world's most gallant losers?

b.viner@independent.co.uk