THE idea of playing a rag tag local team five days before our opening game of the World Cup never appealed to me.

I still can’t understand Fabio Capello’s logic, chancing the fickle hand of fate by putting his A-listers into action against a completely unknown quantity in a game that gives meaningless a whole new meaning.

It isn’t like a pre-season friendly at club level, where even if it all goes wrong in your first couple of games, there is still plenty of time to adjust as the campaign rolls on.

England have three group games. Get them wrong, and it’s a long journey home to a failure’s welcome.

Besides, you can’t tell me that any player could have furthered his cause by grabbing a goal, or performing well against this standard of opponent?

It didn’t stop me watching the game, however, which came as a bit of a Brucie Bonus on a dull Monday afternoon, where the usual TV highlight is a re-run of Trans-World Sport.

I joined everyone else on the edge of their office seats, praying one of the Platinum Stars didn’t fancy making a name for himself by putting Wayne Rooney in the stands. It also didn’t prevent me from throwing my remote control in the direction of the telly when Glen Johnson’s senses went AWOL a couple of minutes after the opening goal, conceding a penalty. But in the end, Capello’s gamble appeared to pay off without any major casualties.

History has shown that this kind of experiment doesn’t do England any good. In 1988, Bobby Robson organised a bizarre friendly against non league Aylesbury in which Peter Beardsley scored four of his side’s seven goals. Needless to say, the USSR, Netherlands and the Republic of Ireland provided somewhat sterner opposition and we lost all three games. Likewise, Glenn Hoddle took England to face a mighty Caen XI in 1998, shortly before an incredibly patchy World Cup in France.

I just hope history doesn’t repeat itself in South Africa.