In the week when England struggle to a 2-2 draw with a country that didn't exist 15 years ago, a stunning fact emerged.

David Beckham is Britain's third greatest sportsman.

Ever.

Not of this year, not even of this decade, but in history.

That is, of course, according the Great British public.

As with the BBC's 100 Greatest Briton's poll which, bizarrely, managed to include two Irishmen and, even more strangely, threw Princess Diana into a top 10 which included the likes of Darwin and Churchill, this bizarre exercise in populism tells us more about the great British public than the objects of its affections.

This isn't the place to rant and rave about the ignorance of our young (and some of our old) about the history of these islands (fun as that is) but it is worth pondering what possesses people who are given 2,000 years of history to think about not to look beyond what they saw on Football Focus this weekend?

Who voted for Beckham.

Pimply teenage girls who think he's 'well fit?' possibly, but (unless voting was by txt) it's hard to imagine enough of them turning off their Liberty X CDs for long enough to bother.

Hardcore Manchester United fans? Certainly the younger element, but the serious supporter is more likely to choose a more worthy candidate - Charlton, Law, Busby, even Edwards - from the club's history.

And (much as it pains me to say it) there are plenty of Reds who can take a more holistic view and vote for a worthy candidate from another team or even another sport.

Then there is the ' casual fan' - the people who believe the Beckham hype and spin.

But are football's couch potato generation going to walk past the fridge in order to get to the postbox and vote?

So, who did vote for Beckham? Did these three minorities possibly manage to outvote the great mass of the British public? Or could it just be that the field was split too evenly?

Who knows - maybe we should have a list of the '100 greatest highly misleading public opinion polls masquerading as works of social history' to decide.

Given another 10 years it could be that Wayne Rooney is voted Britain's greatest ever sportsman.

If he continues to do what he did against Arsenal last week, he might even be a worthy winner.

Somehow, I have my doubts.

Rooney clearly has bucket-loads of talent and isn't afraid to show it.

Nobody wishes him ill and he has a great manager in David Moyes to steer him along.

But for every Ryan Giggs there is a Lee Sharpe.

For every Michael Owen, a Mark Robins.

Everton fans hailed Danny Cadamateri as a footballing genius of the future, remember, and while this famous old club deserves to recapture some of its successes from the 1980s and 1960s, putting all their eggs in the basket of a spring chicken could turn out to be a cracking success or fry the few remaining hopes the Meresysiders have of returning to their traditional status as one of England's top five (or he could be poached by another club etc etc etc).