I’ve often said that in life and love you can have too much jeopardy, but in sport you can rarely have enough.

Sport is the one arena when you can trust to fate and really believe that the best man/woman should win.

Fishing and football for me have always been sporting twins in this regard and neither has been better when I have known the result of my endeavours hangs in the balance, at the whim of the gods.

That is why the night of November 30, I switched off the World Cup and stomped off to bed. It was that penalty awarded by VAR against the Polish goalkeeper for a non-existent foul on Lionel Messi that did for me. The crowd saw nothing wrong in Wojciech Szczesny’s sporting attempt to reach the ball and neither, I think, did Messi himself. Nor did the referee until the dead hand of VAR intervened and the faceless boffins behind the screens delivered their senseless verdict.

Did these zombies ever play the game, ever face the rough and tumble of the penalty box? Do they realise that football reviews are warped in slow motion? Do they reflect in their self importance that their diktats are taking every bit of glamour and thrill from the beautiful game? I’d even rather have Maradona’s Hand Of God Goal because at least that stood through human error forged in the heat of battle rather than this ice cold judgment, once again ludicrously wrong.

In my own playing days (and I still have my boots ready dubbined if anyone is short on  Saturday) nothing did I find worse that winning 5-0 at half-time, and fishing is exactly the same.

Can I suggest that these following questions should be the basis of any fishing challenge worth the name?
What do you hope to hook?

Is the fish rare, or large or beautiful and does it represent a pursuit wherein the odds lie with the fish?

Is the fish super spooky and cautious to the most cunning degree?

Where do you hope to find such a dream catch?

Are the waters huge like the tidal Broadland rivers where location alone is a barrier to overcome?

Or are the waters small and the fish so close that one misplaced footstep is enough to spell defeat?

Do you know how you will finally persuade this extraordinary fish to bite at your bait, fly or lure?

Do you have a plan, well worked out over weeks or months?

Have you actually seen the fish?

Do you know its habits and routines?

You might hope your knowledge puts you in control, but do you sense that’s not the case, that you are always playing catch up?

Let’s say you find this target fish, that your plan works, that your hook is in its mouth. Everything has miraculously worked out for you, but will you be able to actually put your net under it and lift it from the water before you can relax in triumph?

Perhaps the fish is seriously big and bull like strong?

Will your tackle be up to the job?

Your skill too?

Is the water riddled with snags that a desperate, wise fish will run to?

Will you be able to turn it in the pressure cooker of battle?

An endless list of things are waiting to go wrong so how will you cope with possible despair right at the zenith of the struggle?

Have you got sweat, blood and tears enough for this level of fishing?

So, to précis, a serious fish that is hard to find, hard to hook and hard to land presents what I call a challenge full of jeopardy, a hunt that keeps you guessing until the final end. Norfolk anglers have never flinched from the mammoth quests in the past, I’m proud to say. I’m thinking the Broadland piking generation that included names like the Vincents, Giles, Sandys, Hancock, Wright and more recently, Amies and Belsten.  Consider, too, the roach generation of the 70s and 80s, John Wilson, John Judge, Terry Houseago, Jimmy Sapey, Jimmy Hendry and even little old me. What about the early Norfolk carpers like Len Bunn and Bill Whiting who were the first to pioneer a branch of sport that has become legendary?

The trout men too, the early founders of the Norfolk Fly fishers, the anglers who tackled great Wensum mill pool browns and those types in the north of the county like Charles Rangely-Wilson who have spent so many nights after those wraiths called sea trout are surely worth remembering?

What I’m sure of is that if either fishing or football gets too easy, too predictable and all jeopardy is lost, it is barely worth putting on your boots - either rubber ones or those with studs.