With these words Mark Hargreaves, vicar at St Peter’s in Notting Hill, had everyone in the congregation sitting forward and listening, really listening. He started his short sermon, in the annual carol service, explaining  how the subject came to him whilst rummaging around in the church basement searching for figures for the crib.

 He found Joseph, Mary and the three wise men easily enough but  had to search harder for the small figure of the baby Jesus, eventually discovered buried under the christmas tree lights. From this simple and personal anecdote he developed the the theme of his compelling sermon.

 The moral of this tale is that if you want your sermon or your speech or your pitch to connect with people, don’t just preach or lecture or present, tell a story.

With the less than pleasant after-taste of the machinations of FIFA still fresh, it was sad to read of the also less than pleasant machinations of the IOC as the draconian conditions imposed on London as host city were made public. Both are self-elected bodies wielding unreasonable and seemingly unaccountable power.

It is bad enough that you can’t wear your favourite T-shirt if it carries any branding, that 700 limos with peak capped chauffeurs must be available to whisk dignitaries around in the style  which they assume is their right regardless of commuter agonies and that the French language takes precedence over English.

Even more demeaning is the condition, accepted, that the Union Jack must be smaller than the Olympic flag. This is an overt flexing of corporate power and glorified global branding. It is not a reflection of  the astonishing spirit of the Games.

Fortunately the essential spirit  seems to survive  most things, even the less than glorious phase in the history of the IOC  in 1936. Hopefully for London’s sake that spirit will overcome the conditions and cost of 2012!

England were never going to win this pitch. They never had a prayer and anyone who followed things from the start knew this. As did the media who, nevertheless, enjoyed raising the temperature with a ‘we was robbed by the bunging-corrupt-lieing-cheating-FIFA story. At least it kept the snow off the front pages. Here are two real reasons why we lost.  Lack of leadership. Lack of insight.

Think what you will about the preening Sebb Blatter but recognise that he and his cronies, like the IOC,  are all powerful.  They are not impressed by titles and are used to world leaders grovelling. Obama early in his presidency lost prestige pitching for Chicago to host 2012. The same goes for the ill-advised Cameron. The patent lack of clear leadership from England’s bid, at its conspicuous worst with Lord Triesman and his pillow talk, was a fatal own goal. 

Compare this with the Russian bid. Whoever was nominally leading their delegation, the real leadership was one man, Putin. From the outset FIFA  knew with total certainty who they were dealing with and who would and could deliver. (No client in any pitch appoints where leadership is lacking!)  Seb Coe was clearly the leader of London’s Olympic bid.

 The Dave, David and William charm team complains that it is unfair, “our technical bid was the best”. They forget that Paris, who were the  technically superior bid for 2012, lost because they lacked insight into what really mattered to the IOC, a  need to be seen as good guys inspiring the world’s youth.  London played to this.(See last post).

The FA’s lack of strategic insight was neatly expressed by Jeff Powell in the  Daily Mail: “Not until it was so late that the doomsday clock was chiming did it dawn on any of them that what FIFA really wanted was to bestow its greatest gift not upon the rich, smug and famous but on a region in need of those five star facilities….and in so doing open up a vast new frontier for the global game.”

The steppes of Russia were always going to have more allure than football crowded England.