But what about the player whose top- class career spanned 38 years who survived an assassination attempt two kidnappings

But what about the player whose top- class career spanned 38 years, who survived an assassination attempt, two kidnappings, a terrorist explosion and an earthquake and who won 10 League championships, 10 FA Cups and two World Club Championships ? We are talking Roy of the Rovers stuff here, of course - quite literally. The Roy of the Rovers 2000 Annual has rolled off the presses of Egmont World Publishing as a timely reminder of the king of the comic book football world. SO PELE has been chosen as footballer of the century. The boy from Brazil was not bad at the beautiful game, it has to be said.

There are professional clubs in every sport doing a good job, but with a little tweak they could be doing it so much better, and the beauty of it is that we don't have to wait another 10 years while they get the structure right. We can sow little seeds right away." Surely the least we can do is give Kelvin Giles a listen Who knows, we might learn something.. Above all, it's about questioning assumptions, whether that's Kevin Keegan, the Rugby Football Union or Barnet. Campo [David Campese] saying `Come on Britannia, you no longer rule the waves' and all that, but nothing they are doing is peculiarly Australian.

They're having the same debates about the crisis of sport in schools and the video game generation, but when they identify talent they use it."It's a matter of finding the threads that hold the whole thing together, that provide the continuity and reliability of performance. These were the basic tenets of the Australian Cricket Academy."I've got a nephew aged 16 who has absolutely immersed in rugby union," Giles says "He looks as though he will be a hooker or a prop. We should be looking at the typical injuries he might get and give him a performance programme to work on to strengthen the right areas."There's a lot of sensationalised stuff at the moment about the Australian system. That means establishing contacts with local clubs, teaching them good biomechanic techniques from early in their careers to prevent unnecessary injury, developing flexibility, power and mental stamina. Perfecting the outswinger would be the province of the specialist cricket coach. It's about setting down roots into a community, educating athletes in the language of performance and establishing an independent framework of performance so that no matter how many times you changed the manager, the infrastructure of performance would still be in place. At the moment, when the manager leaves, the whole backroom edifice crumbles as well."The problem is that we are behind with the vocabulary here.

I've been told there are maybe three physios in football who would understand the language of models for football speed, football endurance and injury prevention. In Australia there would be 10,000."At a county club like Hampshire, for example, the model could be used for identifying and training fast bowlers. But Giles's model of performance, developed initially in Brisbane and now being used within severe financial and cultural restraints in his role as director of performance for the London Broncos, can apply as equally to individuals as organisations, as readily to Aston Villa as Barnet. In Brisbane, Bennett would outline the type of athlete he wanted and Giles would find and train them."It's like setting up a mini-Australian Institute within a club, from identifying the best talent at grass-roots level right through to the top professionals, providing them with the best surgeons, the best psychologists, the best biomechanists.