What follows is an overview of some of the sporting incidents over the last fortnight.

In terms of school sports, for example, I was NOT enamoured by the view of those schools who have decided that they don’t want to make an issue out of school sports because they are too competitive. For normally competition means that for everyone who wins a prize, there’s always someone who finishes last or next to last.

So, because of this, one school I know doesn’t give prizes for those who finish first, second or third on sports day, but instead gives a rosette to everyone who crosses the finishing line.

I was told this by a teacher who, frustrated by this policy, said that if this was the case in real life, everyone who applies for a job will get it.

Real life is competitive. And if it isn’t. what’s the point of training to be the best you can in the first place?

Then there is the sad case of Island football losing virtually all of its sponsors. Despite our successes at the Island Games in Aland I know full well that some of the players are unhappy with the amount they’ve had to pay to fly to Aland to represent the Island.

Whoever steps into the breach and take over the men’s team (currently rudderless, though well led in a caretaker role by St Paul’s Craig Culkin) I can see bleak times ahead.

Without money, the JFA’s role is secondary. Because in the real world it’s the finances that count. And for all of the footballing authority both in the Combination League and within the JFA, without being able to seed money, to produce decent saplings, Island football will enter the wilderness. And that’s not me talking. It’s a combination of three grass root players/managers who will very soon walk away from Island football and turn their 100 per cent attention solely to their clubs.

Having begun this comment in such bleak fashion I have been following our footballers, both men and women in Aland, with great interest. Almost despite, rather than because of the support they’ve been given, I hope that both return with a medal.

Meanwhile, there have been a few other certainties along the way. We always knew, for example, that shooter David Ward would win some kind of medal to go with the other drawerful (and it is a drawerful – I’ve seen it) although perhaps no-one would have bet on Jennie Ward, with Mary Norman, beating him to gold in the 25m sport pistol team shooting event.

We always knew that the swimmers would return from the pool with all three medal colours, but for sheer dogged endurance, I was pleased for Jason Fox in the high jump, for after twice finishing fourth in two previous games, he came third this time around.

‘It’s great to finally get something,’ he said afterwards. And bronze might not sound as good as gold, but imagine all of those other competitors who come fourth in life and so have nothing tangible to show for it. So yes, Jason, you’re right to be delighted by what you’ve achieved.

Other writers will comment on this year’s Island Games. So my final comment on them is that they come around too fast, particularly in a time of recession. Personally, I’d have them every three years, not two. But what do I know? As I was told earlier this week, I’m a mere hack on a local newspaper . . .

But I do love my sport, though there are times I think the sporting world’s gone mad, not least when I listen to the South African rugby union coach, Peter de Villiers.

He was quoted at length after Schalk Burger, in the first moment of one of the most dramatic of all Lions games last Saturday, was seen trying to gouge the eyes of Lions winger Luke Fitzgerald: ‘I don’t think he should have been carded at all,’ said De Villiers. ‘This is sport. This is what it’s all about’ . . . and later: ‘Rugby is a contact sport.

The guys who can’t take it must make the decision. Why don’t we all go down to the nearest ballet shop, get some nice tutus and have a great dancing show. No gouging, no tackling, no nothing.’

The game was an epic. But it reminded me of ancient Rome. when the strongest survived and the rest were left for dead. It was a superb battle but, at times, it wasn’t rugby. And at no time did De Villiers in his after-match interviews say “sorry”. The following day’s hurriedly organised press release that he does not condone violence in sport was too little, too late.

On the evidence of a game like this, I would never let my son play the sport. Not unless his name was Ben Hur or Spartacus. Because the modern game at this kind of level can be equated with charioteers and Christians being thrown to the lions.

On the one hand I was fascinated. On the other I was appalled. And the entire spectacle is controlled by one tiny man with a whistle.