The hype about a Home Nations championship revival was good while it lasted.

No sooner had we all got excited at the prospect of seeing the British countries knocking seven bells out of each other again, than those hopes were dashed by a mealy-mouthed FA statement.

Yes, there might be a couple of games against a couple of the other locals, but only as glorified friendlies to celebrate the association’s 150th birthday.

What an opportunity wasted.

I would have loved to see the old end-of-season tournament revived. My earliest TV memories of international football were watching England playing at Wrexham’s Racecourse Ground on a Friday night – or annoying 100,000 raving Scots by winning again at Hampden.

There was some predictable poo-pooing when talk of it coming back first resurfaced. The football snobs looked down their noses and sneered about England learning very little from these tribal wars.

We should be playing teams from across the world to build up our technique, they claimed, not going hammer and tongs with the next-door neighbours.

But that’s a flawed argument. How much has the English national team progressed in the two decades since the British Championship bit the dust?

Players would prefer competitive action every time to the tappy-tap bores served up every few months against disinterested South Americans.

And see how few would pull out with so-called bumps and bruises if it was a fixture with Scotland coming up rather than an Ecuador or Paraguay.

But hey, what do we know? Let the experts continue to tell us how England should be doing it.

We’ll just sit back as the poor mugs ready to suffer again when the next proper tournament comes around.