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Who was this Sir Alex Ferguson, then? Charity fund-raiser? Medical researcher? A great teacher? A helper of the poor and downtrodden? The Queen Mother?

A football manager? What? How do you manage a football team? “Look, lads: big net. Kick that ball in it”.

Of course, everybody tells me there’s much more to being a football manager than pointing at the net and throwing your boots at your players when they kick it in the wrong direction.

Well, yes. I think there’s a great deal more to managers than that. For example, there’s the question of deciding what to do with all that Monopoly money. Good grief, how much of a test of your management skills is it to hand somebody £250,000 a week and then expect them to do what you ask? Forget motivation, team-building, training. £250,000 a week!

And good God, if I could ‘manage’ a business head over heels in debt and win nothing but respect, I’d expect fulsome tributes in the press too. I’d kick a football round fields sown with glass, day and night, if the banks would let me be that much in debt.

To be fair, I think football managers fulfil a vital role in our culture: just as football acts as surrogate tribalism, so managers act as surrogate Somebody To Blame When It All Goes Wrong.

We’re always looking for somebody to blame, as any glance at the legal business will tell you. Nothing’s ever the fault of the obvious. (I’m a very big fan of Brother Fiddle’s plan for when he wins the Lottery. He’s going to book a TV ad in which he’ll star himself: “Have you been injured in an accident? Well tough shit…”)

So for football supporters, having a manager is fantastic: if the team plays badly it’s not the team’s fault, it’s the manager’s. So they sack him. If everything’s wrong with your world, blame the football team. And who’s in charge of the football team? Yep.

The one good thing about Ferguson is that Manchester Utd did not allow their manager to be hired and fired at the whim of the fools on the terraces and the fools in the newspapers who seek Somebody To Blame. They stuck with him. For loyalty and patience, he rewarded his employers a hundred-fold.

But 16 pages in each newspaper? Tributes on live national television? It’s soccer, for Christ’s sake.

Sixteen pages on a plan to cure soccer of its obscene financial excesses, to cure it of debt, to cure it of racism, to stop cheating on the field – yes. But 16 pages to reinforce the excess, the wages, the misplaced hero-worship. No.

Horse play

I’ve never much liked horses. For an animal-lover, they are my blind spot. I’ve always been very appreciative of the fact that horses provoke jodhpurs, but apart from that I’ve never really seen the point. I’m with those who say that an animal that permits another animal to ride it, all the while tugging at its mouth and kicking it in the ribs with sharp spikes, is really rather stupid.

Perhaps the best function of a horse, then, is as a metaphor for England under the Conservative party.

But these past few months we have had two of the strange beasts in our field, and for the first time in my life I have had to take the trouble to get to know horses.

I can’t say the experience has resulted in a Damascene conversion, but I have grown very fond of ‘our’ nags. I enjoy our chats when I take them our apple cores, and I like to see them wandering to and fro, up and down, making use of our lovely grass.

The crazy mad collie will never grow to love them, I fear. She is on patrol all day, except for the rare occasions when she finds a sunny patch in the garden or her favourite corner of the polytunnel and stretches out for a rest. Every time I go out she comes running to me: “Dad, dad! Bloody big dogs still in field! Look! Woof!”

Sometimes, let into the field, she’ll try to chase them, but the horses ignore her, unless they fancy a play. Sometimes I find the two horses and the dog lying together in the grass.

Neither the 23-year-old retired mare nor the unbroken seven-year-old, bought to keep her company in her retirement, seem especially bright to me.

They love their apples, raising their heads and pricking their ears when I come into view. But will they walk to me for them? Will they heck. I stagger after them, and as soon as I’m within range they stick their great slobbering chops in my pockets looking for the treats, but as for making any effort – forget it. I suppose that argues against my position, and proves they’re considerably brighter than me.

The mare wears a rug when it is cold and wet, which is to say, in Cornwall, all year round. But she cannot keep it straight. I am in the field ten times a day putting her straight, correcting the crooked rug, making her comfy. The second my back is turned she’s off for a roll to render it ragged again.

They are clever enough to stand by the water trough when it is low, but not clever enough to make a noise to attract me. They have not yet worked out that staring at the trough does not fill it. When I shove the hosepipe over the fence they startle, snicker and back, until the water starts gushing out. Then, daily, the lightbulb switches on and they return.

I’m not sure I’ll ever really see the point, but what Lynton and Boots have taught me is that if an animal makes you chuckle, and makes you feel happier, perhaps that’s all the point you need.