The furore over whether John Terry should have remained the England football captain was, and continues to be, ridiculous. The really ridiculous bit, though, is not Mr Terry's unsuitability for the job – but the job itself. With the exception of the ability to tell heads from tails and, in the rare event of ever winning one, the ability to hold a trophy aloft and kiss it without dropping it, it is hard to know what purpose a football captain actually fulfils, whether the game is in the local park or at Wembley. In football and rugby, as distinct from cricket, the real boss is the coach, while the captaincy is just an afterthought. Plenty of players have earned their places in plenty of football teams for possessing traits which are sometimes confused with captaincy skills – like being tireless, being hard as nails, or even being crafty. Few if any have made it to the team for being charismatic, leading a blameless home life or for being a jolly good sport. Mr Terry was none of these, yet even the sainted Bobby Moore had his brushes with the law and his nights on the tiles – as Jimmy Greaves's autobiography attests. Captaincy, in short, is a much overrated virtue, and it is especially overrated in this country. Even if captaincy isn't still an English public school conspiracy to ensure that the right sort of chap is always in charge, it has become a greedy love rat's opportunity to mop up even more money from even more endorsements. Either way, it is a waste of time and adds nothing to the game. Let all the captains depart. Football teams do not need them.