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TV VIEW:THE 38-year history of the BBC's A Question of Sport has been built on the opposite natures of its captains. So it was at the beginning with the wildly lyrical Cliff Morgan pitted against the more stolid virtues of "Our 'Enry" Cooper. And since it worked, no one was fool enough to fiddle with the formula, writes Brian O'Connor

Would Emlyn "Em-Em-Em" Hughes and his crazy horse antics have been so indulged were it not for the fact that he had Bill Beaumont's second-row solidity just a few feet away? How annoying would Willie Carson's insane cackling have become were it not for Beaumont's furrowed understatement? Could "Beefy" Botham's aggressive will to win have looked just plain boorish if, well, you know who, wasn't the opposite captain? There are more recent examples. Ally McCoist's relentless chirpiness for instance could always be reliably evened out by John Parrott's boredom. With the entertainment factor of the guests always likely to fluctuate dramatically it is vitally important that the captaincy roles are well defined.