Cheating succeeds.

The reason we know cheating succeeds is because we spend so long teaching our children rules, laws and generally accepted standards of behaviour, how important they are, and how important it is to live, play and abide by them.

If cheating were not so successful, we would neither need nor care about rules, laws or generally accepted standards of behaviour.

Sportsmen cheat.

A lot.

Some cheat by ingesting banned substances.  Like the British Olympic gold medallist Linford Christie, for example.

Some cheat by missing drugs tests altogether (intentionally or accidentally).  Like England's exceptionally forgetful vice-captain Rio Ferdinand.

Some cheat by what Arsene Wenger has called 'financial doping'.  English football teams Chelsea and Manchester City, for example.

Some claim a ball was in when it was out (or vice versa).  Like the brave 1966 lions who rewrote the laws of physics to claim that the whole of the ball crossed the whole of the line, when no non-English citizen – apart from one Turkmen linesman – believed any such thing.

Some dive.  Sometimes a lot, like Steven Gerrard.

Some use unknown substances in their pockets to affect the cricket ball with which they are playing.  Like Michael "Steady on!" Atherton, former English cricket captain.

Some bet on the fixtures in which they are involved.

You get the picture.

And I'll point the finger at myself.  I have cheated at sport.  Not "a lot", but "a fair bit".

I've taken goal kicks that should have been corners.  I have occasionally deliberately handled the ball outside the penalty area.  I have feigned injuries and/or claimed non-existent fouls against me in order to stop play or buy time.

I even once deliberately brought down a player – outside the penalty area – who was bearing down on my goal in a one-on-one situation.  (Though in mitigation that act was perpetrated against a particularly widely loathed teacher and I got a few cheers and a smattering of applause from team-mates and opponents alike for my behaviour.)

There are plenty of other examples, even in a sporting career as distant and unsuccessfully amateur as mine.

So professional footballers certainly cheat, particularly when there are tens of millions of pounds/dollars/Euro at stake.  As Roy Keane said yesterday: "It happens all the time."

What happened to Ireland on Wednesday night was unfair and – in Utopia – Theirry Henry should have admitted his offence immediately and the game should have restarted at 0-1 with a direct free-kick to Ireland.

Unfortunately for the Irish, Henry doesn't live in Utopia.  He lives in a world where his commercial value is based on his success on the field.  Few will remember the members of the Russian team that didn't qualify for South Africa 2010, but they might just remember the French team that did and who may (albeit implausibly) repeat their feats of the 1998 or 2006 tournaments.

There are two specific reasons why Wednesday night's events have caused such a stir.

First, because "we" (and for these purposes the offence has been deemed by the meeja to have been committed against the British Isles) are on the receiving end of the filthy, foreign, dirty trickery.  If it had been Kevin Kilbane handling the ball before crossing it for Damien Duff to shank it over the goal line, I doubt the story would have played quite as big as it has.

In 1998 the media chose to vilify not Michael Owen for his bending of the rules of fair play to win the penalty that put England on level terms against Argentina, but Diego Simeone for his – er – "theatrical" response to Beckham's pisspoor but entirely unlawful kick to Simeone's calf.

It was the same old shit eight years later.  Our beloved media wasn't pointing out that Wayne Rooney was deservedly sent off for foul play – stamping on a prone opponent – but that English football's Portuguese imports Ricardo Carvalho and Cristiano Ronaldo had conspired to get him sent off in the first place.

If those decisions had been made AGAINST our opponents, our media moralists would not have been rushing into print to demand replays in the name of fair play.

Whether we like it or not, we are at base a xenophobic island nation.

Second, and most importantly and particularly, it is because of the identity of the miscreant in this instance.  Thierry Henry sits in a rare place in the hearts of English football fans – a place occupied by only a handful of genuine footballing magicians.

I'm a Spurs fan and even I have to concede that Henry is one of the two best footballers I have ever seen live (the other being Glenn Hoddle).

Add to Henry and Hoddle the likes of George Best, Eric Cantona, Gianfranco Zola, Dennis Bergkamp and Kenny Dalglish and you have the half-dozen or so English-based players of the last 40 years whose talents were so vast that they could do things with footballs of which you and I could not even dream.

It is of course wrong that the "plucky", "little" Irish team was cheated into defeat by one of the main footballing nations whose presence is crucial to the success of any World Cup Finals.  (Imagine a World Cup without France, Germany, Italy, Spain and England.  You can manage without one of them, but more than that?  Who would watch?  Who would pay for the ads?  Who would pay for Sepp Blatter's fluffer's fluffer?)

More than that it is, however, somehow offensive to see a footballer of the class, talent and grace as Thierry Henry playing volleyball in the Stade de France.

Anybody who knows anything about the game of football knows that he is simply too good – and by some considerable distance – to have to stoop to those depths.

To see one of the most gifted footballers of my lifetime handle the ball so deliberately, and to such devastating effect, is like watching archive of George Best dribbling between and around six bemused opponents only to learn that the ball had been velcro'd to his left boot throughout.

And it is that offensiveness, I contend, that has driven most of the outrage of the past 72 hours.  Had the handballer been Henry's teammate Lassana Diarra, the extra assistance would have seemed somehow slightly less distasteful.  Diarra is a prosaic water carrier like Dunga or Makelele.  He is not a Zidane, a Cantona, or an Henry – not an artist.

And so it is that someone who spent almost a decade dazzling British and Irish football fans and opponents alike, in so doing carving a very special spot in their affections, someone whose name and memory invariably brought a smile to our faces, in the space of five seconds drained bone dry an unimaginably vast reservoir of goodwill.

In preparation for South Africa Henry may now be asked by Gillette to film another in that company's abominable series of advertisements alongside Tiger Woods and Roger Federer for worldwide brand exposure next summer, but his reputation in the British Isles will never recover.

To fall back again on the words of David Ford: "Henry will not be welcome to join my Sunday league team."