SO, Dad. Tell me something. What did you do during the World Cup?

Perhaps you became a born-again patriot, unfurling a Union Jack from Darren's bedroom window, blissfully unaware that it's the wrong flag for the occasion. Don't worry though, you're in good company. Thousands made the same error.

Or, there again, you might have ordered extra cans of special brew, lay back, and thought of England. A sore head next morning is the Blighty wound that surely proclaims your loyalty to the cause.

My own situation is peppered with irony, delicious and otherwise. For I must confess to having no real interest in either of the two great ball games - football and rugby - yet strangely enough, by some strange quirk of fate happen to hail from the county that gave them birth.

I am fully aware that there may be other pretenders to the throne, but this is my own theory and I'm sticking to it. So here goes...

Warwickshire. This is the most central county of this sceptr'd isle, England's beating heart of green - and it was under the spreading elms that both sports came about. It's true, I tell you. First of all though, a minor diversion down a side road in history.

Most of you will have heard of Rugby and the game that took its name from the town. Nevertheless, it is worth recapping on William Webb Ellis' spectacular brainstorm in 1823 when "in fine disregard for the rules of football he picked up the ball and ran".

Ellis was born in 1806 in Salford and went to Rugby School in 1816, where he performed his famous deed at the age of 16. In 1825, he attended Oxford University, where he won a cricket blue in 1827.

He eventually became the chaplain of St George's Chapel in Albermarle, London. He died in 1872 in France.

Yes, yes, I can hear you say. We know all about William Webb Ellis and all that handball stuff that led to an entirely new game. All right, then - but did you know that football was also invented in another Warwickshire town?

For the last 800 years, a complete free-for-all game of football has been played along Watling Street - the old Roman road - at the point where it forms the main street in the town of Atherstone, north Warwickshire.

This event, involving hundreds of men and boys, takes place every Shrove Tuesday. The ball is decorated with red, white and blue ribbons and is filled with water to make it too heavy to kick far.

The match starts at 3pm when the ball is thrown from a window at the Three Tuns Inn and continues until about 5pm. However, the ball may legitimately be deflated or hidden after 4.30pm.

There are no teams or goals, though in the last century, the game was played between a team from Warwickshire and Leicestershire. Whoever hangs on to the ball at the end of the "match" not only wins the game, but is allowed to keep the ball.

The battle for possession sways along the length of the street and back again, while onlookers fill the upstairs windows of every building. The ball is made by Gilbert of Rugby, who are world-famous for their rugby balls. It is 27 inches in diameter and weighs four pounds.

This traditional Shrove Tuesday "ball game" has been held annually since the early 12th Century and is Atherstone's only real claim to fame. The prize was traditionally a bag of gold and not even national crises, such as two world wars, have stopped it taking place.

However, although I am proud that my native county can lay claim to both the great games, knowledge of these facts still does not increase my ardour for the British obsession with football and rugby.

In fact, out of the two, rugby seems to have greater claims of descendancy from the Shrove Tuesday free-for-all. The mediaeval version invariably caused many a cracked head and scraped shin, something that is not completely unknown in the modern game.

Like a dog chasing a rabbit, there seems to be an innate desire in all young males to run after any ball-shaped object.

And, as history proves, the pursuit of a bouncy, leather thing is all but irresistible.

Except for me. Sorry, but there appears to be something missing from my genetic make-up. The gene that instructs the brain to tell the legs to start tearing after a round or oval wotsit is just missing. I am incomplete.

And no amount of cajoling has ever made any difference. To the hand-wringing despair of my own father, I avoided all spherical objects like the plague. True, a cricket ball hitting a sensitive area early in life did not ignite raging fires of zeal for such preoccupations, any more than an appendix-bursting boot in the guts during a scrimmage.

This is why, by the second year at Lawrence Sheriff Grammar School, I had plumped for athletics in summer and cross-country running during the winter. How could a javelin through the foot and forced swims across the Avon in January compare with kicking an inflated pig's bladder around for 90 pointless, misery-sodden minutes?

However, all this misses the real nub of this World Cup palaver. For the worst aspect to the mania that has recently paralysed the world and reduced the brains of millions to jelly is the Coronation Street issue.

The disruption caused to the lives of millions of Coronation Street fans is nothing short of a national scandal. And not just during the World Cup, either. The programmers have been mucking about with schedules for months now, probably in anticipation of the impending orgy.

And that is what really bothers me. So, if anyone ask, this is what I did during the World Cup. Well son, I put up with the inconvenience of Corrie being chopped and changed - and during the quieter moments reflected on those accursed lads of old from my home county who created what is known - without a trace of irony - as the beautiful game.