Keith Skipper: So is the world ready for 'Marbles on Ice'? Could be...

With chessboxing about to pack a punch across the board in Norwich, this idea of combining two sports

could yet make southpawns of us all before the next Olympics.

There are several twinning programmes already bearing fresh fruit, darts and archery getting together to form darchery, polo and lacrosse cosying up for polocrosse on horseback and association football and volleyball forming footvolley for starters.

For the hybrid fanatic, slamball must be somewhere near top of the bill. It's a full-contact team contest combining elements of American football, basketball, ice hockey, acrobatics and video games on the basketball court surrounded by hockey-style plexiglass walls, with two sets of four trampolines at the front of net and boards around edges of the court.

Back to mixed doubles. Football and diving have long been considered natural partners by more cynical observers of the sporting world. Cricket and sledging go so easily together, especially in Australia when England are defending the Ashes.

Playing conkers while wearing boxing gloves must be fun with the winner fully deserving of the coveted title 'All-Conkering Hero!'. I also recommend crossing blind man's buff with cycling to produce a dramatic version of dark-and-ride.

It takes a rare flight of fancy to pair croquet and trampolining and yet I can't help hearing a poetic cry of 'Hoops spring eternal!' on the genteel greens of Hunstanton.

Sadly, too many sports are being hijacked as vehicles for television shows featuring so-called celebrities eager to prove why they don't bother with the day job any more. It can be only a matter of time before Strictly Come Wrestling, The Great British Bike-Off, Squash in the Attic and I'm a Surfing Nonentity, Wave Me Out of Here.

Perhaps Marbles on Ice would add an exciting new dimension to an old favourite while a Mensa-backed production of Cloudspotting Over Wimbledon might just inspire a cry of 'You Cannot be Cirrus!'