Regulation has made it so hard for small businesses to give youngsters a chance - Sarah Todd

Goodness, how her hero Rupert Campbell-Black (former Tory Minister for Sport) would have put today’s lily-livered lot in their place. The imagination now in overdrive, he would have swept his party’s leader Kemi Badenoch up - she wouldn’t have complained of mansplaining or gross misconduct if she’s half the girl she showed herself to be in her both-barrel Budget speech - and taken her home to his honey-coloured mansion Penscombe for congratulatory drinks.

Talking of sport, another distraction has been finally getting around to watching the third series of former England cricketer Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff’s Field of Dreams.

This cynic, who adored the first two incarnations of the programme about creating a cricket team in his hometown of Preston and then taking them on a tour to India, had wondered whether bringing in another film crew was a bit much. Absolutely and utterly not. Rather than going through the motions of a winning television formula Flintoff’s determination to prove that his previous success wasn’t a one off soon shines through.

They swore like troopers, didn’t listen to instructions and - more often than not - had been written-off by society. There was one lad, in Manchester, who had a smashing mum who was rooting for him from the word go. But, as for the others, so many had been let down by family, teachers, social services (one girl in care explaining that throughout her childhood she just got to trust someone and they moved on). A national disgrace, as is our country constantly cutting sport and the arts from the curriculum. Just because somebody can’t pass a maths exam it doesn’t mean they should be put on the scrap heap of life before they’ve started.

Presley, the boy mentioned above, took to plastering like a duck to water as they refitted a rundown club house. His pride as he showed Flintoff his tiling work in the kitchen brought a lump to this viewer’s throat. He knocked on doors to help get a team together. Some started out like zombies, looking at the floor and only speaking to either swear or say they would rather be “chilling” in their bedrooms on their phones. Was it because, until cricket, nobody took any interest in them?

Schools have been turned into institutions that are all about ticking boxes and it’s hard not to wonder whether lack of discipline plays its part. Flintoff and the other coaches pulled them up on their behaviour. They responded to this and wanted to do better; wanted to impress and be part of something. This is politically incorrect, but there is a desperate need for more male teachers and, in this reporter’s opinion, we ignore this at society’s peril. Strong role models for a generation so often brought up in all-female households, with men only occasionally passing through and so often causing chaos.

It made this correspondent wonder whether some would have benefitted from the old Youth Training Schemes of yesteryear. What with health and safety and this, that and the other it’s become so hard for small businesses to give youngsters a chance.

Everything has become too regulated; too many hoops to jump through. Then, of course, the forever upward trajectory of the minimum wage doesn’t help.

Who, in their right mind, is going to take on a teenager who will be neither use nor ornament for at least a year, when they have to pay them so much and there are so many forms to fill in?

Growing up in the 1970s on a farm, there was always the odd bloke temporarily on the dole (never long term) looking for cash-in-hand work on the side. A bit of extra for Christmas and suchlike. Benefits pay so well now there is no incentive.

Going back to where we started, referencing Robin Hood, if taxes must be taken, let's give them to people who will spend them wisely like Mr Flintoff.

He could have paid to fit out that club house himself, but he understood the pride that comes from working for something.

Yours, completely bowled over.