IT'S coming to something when a football club manager fires a broadside at society for being "lazy", then goes further, castigating the government for not doing enough to make sport an integral, and influential, part of children's education.

Well, I'll go to the foot of our stairs, if I can somehow find the breath and mobility to climb back up again. As if Mr Blair and his sycophants (sorry, colleagues) didn't have enough to worry about, what with messy, unlawful, unwinnable wars, a health service on the brink of meltdown, cash for peerages probes, innocent civilians being executed on public transport and crime an omnipresent threat. Now they are criticised by Sam Allardyce, a football chap, of all people.

The Bolton boss has been linked with every vacant managerial post in football over the past few months. Now he appears to be pitching for the position of Health Minister, Sports Minister, or both, with his scathing appraisal of the nation's fitness levels. Mind you, he does have a point. One in every five adults in the UK is obese, a condition linked to life-threatening illnesses including cancer, heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure.

Big Sam has forced the health, or, more appropriately, the sickness of the nation back into public debate with his outburst. Not that I'm optimistic it will have much influence on the millions upon whom an unhealthy lifestyle is either forced by circumstance or chosen deliberately. Previous campaigns along these lines have had little effect. Why should this?

Allardyce based his damning conclusions on the ever-diminishing number of youngsters passing through football academies. Every club has a school of excellence for embryo soccer stars, with the purpose of bringing them to first team level, thus avoiding the need to import foreign players, who cost millions in transfer fees, particularly in the Premiership.

He was adding his voice to that of former England international Sir Trevor Brooking, the Football Association's Development Officer, who claimed that not enough home-grown talent was passing through the academies. Allardyce blames parents for not encouraging their children to be more health and sport conscious, hinting that mums and dads who sink into a settee after a fast-food meal, light a fag and settle down to a night of telly, don't set much of an example for budding Beckhams.

Many footballers currently dominating the world stage are from the poorest parts of the globe. Being good at sport, particularly football, is a route out of that poverty. In our developed and benefits-cushioned society, we don't have "deprived" areas. We have "depraved" ones where sport of the kind Big Sam and Sir Trevor were discussing doesn't figure highly on the agenda, if at all.

Anyway, with all its other problems, the government is unlikely to listen to a couple of "footie" personalities. Mr Blair should seek George Dubya's advice on health when he goes over for a chat on who next to invade. Sport is big in America, judging by the Olympics medals table. They don't do too well at soccer, but then neither do the English.