Why sticking to yours guns usually pays off

When I was a mere lad, in blogging terms, I had a rant about potholes (February 24). I mentioned, just in passing you understand, that I’d damaged a tyre hitting a pothole on a back road in Suffolk one dark and rainy night and was attempting to get recompense from the County Council, which is the agency responsible for that particular road.

Well, I filled in all the forms, submitted my claim for £99 and sat back to await the arrival of the cheque.

I was fairly confident as the pothole in question had been reported and was on the council’s rather impressive pothole reporting tool online.

However, after about a month I received a letter from the council’s insurers, informing me that they were rejecting my claim as it was “not reasonable to expect them to know about, and repair, every pothole in the county”.

I replied, saying the pothole in question was one the council DID know about, and that “it was only reasonable to expect them to pay me for my new tyre”.

Two weeks later a cheque arrived.

It just goes to show, yet again, that we, the great unwashed, must never roll over if we think we are in the right.

I would guess that the council sends the standard rejection letter out to all claimants. Many will let matters rest there.

And for those who won’t let sleeping potholes lie, they know a payment of under £100 is cheaper for them then a long-running game of letter ping-pong.

The following month, on March 2, I wrote about the World Cup in Qatar and the Premier League and FA’s response to the tournament starting earlier and the knock-on effect on domestic fixtures.

It was headlined “Selling football’s soul to the highest bidder.”

Three months later, with all that is happening at FIFA, only minor changes are needed to make that headline relevant today.

Take the soul out.

Which is something that football’s governing body is doing quite nicely.