As summer ends, and the memory fades like sunburn, there are those already predicting gloom. They are the same people, who predicted washout, cock-up, grid lock and overkill, and they will be just as wrong. It was the best summer ever, precisely because we feared the worst.
The above was a quote from Ben Macintyre which was featured in The Sunday Times. It perfectly encapsulates the summer of sport that the nation has just witnessed and why we, as a nation, should be justly proud to be British.
This has been the beauty of hosting the Olympics and Paralympics. We have seen the best of the country and a unified sense of patriotism which is so often reluctantly shown for fear of causing offence.
It has "opened our minds to what people can do and to what can be achieved by sheer talent and determination", as Lord Coe so exquisitely put it. We have seen sport and disability in a way we could not have imagined.
It has made the governing bodies of national sports, most notably The Football Association, pledge to learn from the Olympics and sustain the Olympic spirit. This, though, is where Macintyre's prediction of gloom and being wrong feels slightly out of touch.
Whilst parallels can be drawn between football and the Olympics on the simple basis that they are both sports and forms of entertainment, there is a fundamental flaw affecting this sustained mantra of Olympic fever.
That fundamental flaw is, quite simply, The FA.
This weekend will serve as a reminder to all of the ineptitude of an organisation that has been treading on egg shells for far too long.
On Saturday afternoon, Queens Park Rangers welcome Chelsea to Loftus Road in the Premier League. It will become yet another fixture between the two sides in which a handshake, or not, will take prominence over the actual result in what is fast becoming a Punch and Judy type sideshow between the sides.
For the minority unfamiliar with previous events, John Terry the Chelsea and former England captain, was accused of racially abusing Anton Ferdinand, the QPR defender, during a league meeting between the two teams almost 12 months ago.
In July of this year, after a very public court case in which details published only helped tarnish the sport, Terry was cleared of racism against Ferdinand. Less than two weeks later, having relinquished any form of disciplinary action until the legal dispute had run its course, The FA charged Terry with using abusive and/or insulting words and/or behaviour towards Ferdinand. Terry predictably denied the charge and requested a private hearing.
With Terry and Ferdinand both reportedly winning their races to be fit for the match, one can't help but think that The FA are crossing their fingers in the hope an injury to one, or both, will spare their blushes.
It is fast approaching a year since that incident took place and, in that time, the sport has never been allowed to move on from this sorry saga yet The FA have appeared alarmingly apprehensive in trying to bring this matter to a justified conclusion.
Their laissez-faire approach to issues that are both damaging and distracting to the sport make their gestures to 'learn from the Olympics' seem extremely empty.
So while our Olympians and Paralympians, our 'games-makers' and armed forces and the Great British public have helped make London 2012 "the best Olympic Games ever" and a platform for other sports to build upon, an afternoon at Loftus Road will highlight the stark reality of how far football has to go to reach the standards set.
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