Did football officials watch Mr Bates vs The Post Office? They should have – and learned from it. Otherwise they could be next in the crosshairs of a TV dramatist. Just as the Post Office failed to act as they should have done to protect sub-postmasters, football – and rugby for that matter – is showing no noticeable signs of urgency to look after its players despite growing evidence that both sports are contributing to long-term brain damage.

Day after day we see young men heading the ball with an indifference that gives you a headache just to watch

A debate in parliament on the issue last September which referred to one report that the dementia risk to footballers was ‘phenomenal’ seems to have caused as much of a stir as a WI knitting competition. And yet day after day we see young men heading the ball with an indifference that gives you a headache just to watch.

We were reminded of the damage that heading a ball can cause by the death last October of Bobby Charlton, who had been diagnosed with dementia in 2020. Maybe that was Sir Bobby’s fate anyway; but what surely can’t be dismissed as fate is that seven members of England’s 1966 World Cup winning team suffered from some form of brain disease, including Bobby’s brother Jack.

While officials dither, footballers themselves are taking strong action. More than 50 former professional players, including Paul Scholes, Dom Matteo and Jill Scott, have signed up to join a 175-mile walk in March in support of two colleagues, former Liverpool player Stephen Darby, 35, and Marcus Stewart, 51, who have both been diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND). This will add to the pressure for action already simmering away thanks to the efforts of rugby players Kevin Sinfield, Rob Burrow and the late Doddie Weir.

In the High Court, the wheels of justice are beginning to grind in a landmark legal battle in which a group of 19 footballers are suing the FA for compensation over brain injuries. They are mainly in their sixties and seventies but some are thought to be in their thirties. Most want to stay anonymous but the former Manchester United full back Colin Gibson and John Stiles, son of World Cup winner Nobby Stiles, who died in 2020, suffering from dementia, have both gone public. The number of claimants could rise by hundreds.

‘Even now,’ John Stiles has said, ‘three years after Dad’s death, virtually nobody is aware of it. But this disease is everywhere where there are head impacts.’ If nobody is aware of it, it’s about time they were made aware. There must be an enterprising screenwriter out there to create a drama that would have the same effect as the brilliant ITV series about the shocking failings of the Post Office.

What English rugby needs now is a disruptor: someone who can shake things up and for whom money is no object. CVC, the private equity firm which runs the sport here, has just reinforced the status quo of the Six Nations and the autumn internationals. But a real visionary might choose a different path. The ten-team Premiership is looking a bit threadbare. If a club outside the top table became too big to ignore, if it could fill a geographical hole on the Premiership map, and if it could attract star players who would sell out their current ground and make the case for a proper stadium then where is Jeff Bezos when you need him?

Meanwhile, outside the rugby establishment Georgia is cementing its emergence as a proper power. The country’s Black Lion side – mentored by the former England player and Georgia national team coach Richard Cockerill – pulled in the season’s biggest Challenge Cup crowd for their match against Clermont in Tbilisi. They still got hammered 36-3, but things are stirring, and the status quo cannot hold for ever.