So, we can’t play football, says Ben Bentley. What are we good at?

Enough. Never again. The game is up for English football  – England are rubbish at it and it’s time to get a new national game. The unofficial referendum starts here.

So, what are our options? Bog snorkelling? Stone skimming? Cheese rolling? How about the World Naval Fluff Collection Championships, or the Long-Range Weather Nattering Knockout Pairs?

The more obscure the “sport” the better – at least that way England won’t have any competitors and should in theory have more chance of winning. Ideally this new national sport will be an indoor activity involving little movement or effort, and where performance-affecting substances will not only be permitted but encouraged.

So, how about darts? At least it’s a sport that can be played without leaving the pub – something Brits have a natural flair for, along with picking up sharp objects and throwing them across a crowded room.

Let’s all get behind darts player Phil “The Power” Taylor. With those arrows, it’s certainly safer than standing in front of him.

And at least the county would be in with a chance of international sporting glory – Telford arrowsman Ted “The Count” Hankey is a two-time BDO World Professional Darts Champion and a deadly rival to “The Power” – who himself is almost a Shropshire lad these days, living as he does near Nantwich.

Heather Ashton, from Bishop’s Castle, is a Shropshire stone-skimming champion. Give her a pebble and she can make it dance on water for more than 35 metres.

“We have quite a few women that have won big championships in sport but not an awful lot has been made of it,” Heather argues.

“Perhaps we should just do women’s sports.”

Having won ladies’ class of the stone-skimming two years on the bounce, ahead of this year’s event she had hoped someone else would win. Which might rule stone-skimming out of national sports status – chivalrous as it may be, wishing victories upon other people is an area already seemingly monopolised by Mssrs Gerard and Rooney.

Anyone for dominoes? Not technically a sport and not one that has developed an image of being openly female, but again it’s a game that has the added boon of being able to be played without leaving the local and therefore has the perfect pedigree for a new national game.

Having been crowned UK champions in 2007, the Hillybillies team based at the Queen’s Head pub in Dawley are a mixed-sex group that might top the challenge for wholesale national team selection, knock the Brazilians into a “Bendomino (a flair domino move that apparently involves “bending”dominoes) and send any number of South American sides into a “Mexican Train”.

How about carrying beer barrels up hills? We already have a champion at that in the shape of 20-year-old Tom Portman, drayman at the Cock Hotel in Wellington, who, in this year’s Wrekin Barrel Race, set a new course record for carting a full 56kg keg to the top of The Wrekin.

It’s a painful pursuit, but then eternal defeat in the world of football is no tickle on the tum either.

Just over the Shropshire border, the village of Willaston, near Nantwich, is home to the World Worm Charming Championships.

According to folklore, in July 1980 local farmer’s son, Tom Shufflebotham amazed a disbelieving world by charming a total of 511 worms out of the ground in half an hour in what was said to have been the first time a true competition of this kind, with strict rules, had been held. The village has hosted the annual divining of wriggling things ever since.

The British are clearly world class at this activity, that even has its own body, the International Federation of Charming Worms and Allied Pastimes, which also encompasses the interests of other zany sports such as indoor hang gliding, underwater Ludo and ice tiddly-winks which, apparently, is similar to curling but the tiddles go further.

Then there’s coracle racing – splashing around in a boat shaped like a giant cornflake dish. It is already a world championship event in Shropshire and teams from RAF Shawbury have been crowned champions several times. A head start, surely?

Squadron Leader Neil Hope, from RAF Shawbury, says: “Working on the theory that in some American sports they call their championships ‘world series’ but only ever have US teams in them, then it could be argued that we are the best at this.”

Another sport whose world stage is of this parish is bog snorkelling, and therefore looks a good bet for a national sport — if we skirt conveniently around the fact that the world championships are held in Mid-Wales. Llanwrtyd Wells in Powys to be precise.

What do you need to be good at this? Well, obviously you should look good in flippers, a mask and a snorkel and be adept at getting down and dirty in a 60-yard trench dug into a muddy swamp; inability to swim using conventional swimming strokes an advantage.

Furthermore, bog snorkel-ling works in combination with other sports too. The Bog Triathlon first ran in 2005 following a demand for more dirty fun.

The July event – the most unusual in the Triathlon calender – starts with a 7.5 mile run followed by two lengths of the 60-yard peat bog trench and finally a 19-mile mountain cycle.

They might be current world football champions, but one just cannot imagine the Italians rushing to get themselves dirty.

Luckily, organisers have plenty of other ideas for new sports. The annual Man versus Horse run being just one of them.

The Man v Horse Marathon began in June 1980 following a chat over a pint in the Neuadd Arms Hotel. The then Landlord, Gordon Green overheard two men discussing the relative merits of men and horses. The enterprising Gordon, never one to miss an opportunity to promote Llanwrtyd Wells and improve business at his hotel, decided to put it to the test. Today it’s an internationally acclaimed event.

So no shortage of ideas here to lift spirits.

One thing is certain: after yesterday’s humiliation at the hands of the Germans, for their own sanity England football fans cannot afford to keep pinning its hopes on football.

Hope, in the knowledge that it will end in abject despair, is futile, negative and frustrating – very much like any England performance in this year’s World Cup.

It’s been the same old story: England’s footballing lions roll over and walk away with a wimper, their tails between their legs. Seeing England play is as predictable as watching Cinderella over and over again, albeit a version that ends when the coach turns into a pumpkin.

Which, all things considered, Fabio has already done.

They think it’s all over – it really is now. Now, where’s that bog snorkel gone?