THEY say ‘It’s not the winning that counts, it’s the taking part’.

Well, try telling that to Yohan Blake, after he finished second to Usain Bolt in both the 100 metres and 200m at London 2012.

Or every English football fan after the national team has once again crashed out of a major tournament on penalties.

Being involved is all well and good but what’s the point of taking part if you’re not there to win? It’s what sport is all about.

With this in mind, it was rather worrying to see a recent junior football tournament in Malvern decided by a vote based on fair play.

According to the organisers, “the whole thing was based around not who was winning but fair play to get children involved with playing football.”

A noble idea but a flawed concept. It is perfectly possible to have fair play in a competitive environment and everyone should be striving to achieve that.

Taking the competitive edge off youngsters to avoid hurting their feelings, as is often the rationale behind such schemes, is inherently wrong.

Losing is part of growing up and children should be exposed to that.

Nobody likes losing, the key is learning how to handle it.

You can be a good sportsman in defeat, or you can behave like a spoilt brat. Is the latter not more likely to be encouraged if kids don’t know what losing is?

The organisers of the Malvern event went on to say: “At the moment there are a lot of children who don’t play because there is too much emphasis on winning.”

That’s also slightly concerning. While we mustn’t wrap kids up in cotton wool, likewise we mustn’t drum into them the mentality of winning at all costs.

A balance has to be struck.

But it is imperative that we don’t produce a generation that sees competition as an alien concept.