She was particularly vehement when it came to doping in sport. Being an athletics correspondent, she especially detested cheats who denied medals to clean athletes.

Yes, she was friendly with many athletes, but it never stopped her doing her duty without fear or favour if anybody failed tests, or failed to be present for them. She worked to expose, and would have condemned, anybody who cheated.

Thus yesterday, following the announcement of Grigory Rodchenkov as winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year for The Rodchenkov Affair, I had a lot of thinking to do based on Vikki’s principles and ethics.

After 24 hours of considering the situation, I have decided not to accept the £3,000 for my book, The Breath of Sadness, as a prize for it being a shortlisted title.

If this leaves me open to accusations of sour grapes, then I will have to endure that. If so, it is a very expensive bunch of grapes for me. All I can say is that I would have been pleased for any of the other three shortlisted books and their authors had they won. I tweeted yesterday that my winner would have been Born Fighter by Ruqsana Begum and Sarah Shephard.

When it comes to The Breath of Sadness, it has more than achieved what I wanted for it: to honour Vikki and her legacy and to process my grief and perhaps help others with their own loss. The winning, as gratifying as that would have been, or losing of a prize scarcely compares to the wonderful feedback I have received for the book, especially from those who are grieving themselves.

Before I made my decision, I communicated with people in publishing, journalism and in athletics to gather views. It was clear that many people were as uncomfortable as I was with the decision to honour this book.

As a person inside the sport of athletics said to me: “So he had years of being rewarded and profiting from doping and now he’s being rewarded and profiting for talking about his role in it?”

Now, I believe in redemption. I believe in whistleblowers. I have ghost-written books myself with people who have come clean. Life and sport needs them and I am full of admiration for those who turn their lives around and offer a public service.

The difficulty I have, however, is that Dr Rodchenkov did what he did – that is, providing evidence and corroborating material published previously in British newspapers about the Russian doping programme, at whose heart he was as head of their anti-doping programme (in reality, his job being to ensure Russian athletes were not caught doping) – only when the World Anti-Doping Agency named and shamed him as a result of their enquiries. He fled to the United States, arranged by a film maker he was working with, where he entered a witness protection programme. This all had the feel of needs-must rather than anything principled.

I think the William Hill is a most remarkable award that has down the years done much to promote something I love: the writing and reading of sports books. It has overlooked some great books and picked some curious ones but that is personal opinion.

It has the opportunity to celebrate writers and writing of quality, principles, ethics and integrity but, in my view, it has failed to do that in this case and sent out, via an unreliable narrator, a dubious message while associating itself with notoriety. It is why I cannot accept, in all conscience, the £3,000 and am dissociating myself from this year’s shortlist.

My initial plan was to put that money towards the publishing of an anthology of women’s football writing next year through my company Floodlit Dreams in collaboration with Women in Football. This decision will not jeopardise that and I will be putting my own money into that project instead.

I hope my stance will not undermine that book’s chances next year should it be entered. More women need to win this award but that is another story.

I realise that my gesture may be token, and it would have been easy just to let this slide; to take the money and run. I also understand the potential for social media reaction these days. I can hear Vikki’s fearlessness as a journalist, though, urging me to take a stand for clean sports men and women, and writers of integrity.

As part of WIF’s innovative #WhatIf campaign, they and Floodlit Dreams joined forces at the end of last year to invite submissions from women writers for a competition that will guarantee the winner publication of their non-fiction football book.

Now WIF and Floodlit Dreams have agreed that the competition will be named after the WIF board member and pioneering Sun sports writer who died of cancer on February 6th aged 56.

“I am delighted that WIF so readily agreed to this,” said Ian Ridley, Vikki’s husband and the founder of Floodlit Dreams. “She loved books and was chair of the Football Writers’ Association books committee, so I feel sure she would have been honoured to have this initiative named after her.

“I saw the work Vikki was doing with WIF and wanted to help. Now this tribute to Vikki will make the initiative that bit more special.”

Jane Purdon, CEO of Women in Football, said: “Vikki was a huge part of the fabric of Women in Football right from the start. She was a driving force for a change in football culture and worked tirelessly to make a practical difference, supporting and encouraging the next generation of women journalists.

“To name our inaugural book competition with Floodlit Dream after Vikki is a mark of how highly she was held in our esteem and a fitting tribute to a very special woman.”

Entrants for the Vikki Orvice Prize are required in the first instance to submit a one-page synopsis of their book, along with a sample chapter. They can also submit a full manuscript if it is completed and they wish to do so.

The deadline for entries to be submitted is March 31st 2019.

The judging panel, comprising representatives of Women in Football and Floodlit Dreams, will then decide on a winning submission in May, to be announced at a WiF event.

After that, Floodlit Dreams will work with the winning writer to develop their book ready for publication, as an ebook and paperback, at a date to be agreed with the author.

Floodlit Dreams will bear all costs of producing the book and share profits on a 50-50 basis with the author, once those costs have been recouped through sales.

There is no age restriction and you do not have to be a professional writer to enter. Entries must be non-fiction.

Said Ian Ridley: “This offer is open to any woman who thinks they have a book in them. It could be a biography or autobiography, a memoir, anything. There seem to be plenty of books, for example, about fathers, sons and football but none about mothers, daughters and the game.

“We’re open to anything, mainstream or quirky, and from any age group or background. The only criteria really for the judging panel are that the work should be fresh, original and well-written.”

Entrants are requested to send their submissions to info@womeninfootball.co.uk

As part of WIF’s innovative #WhatIf campaign, Floodlit Dreams are inviting submissions from women writers to enter a competition with the ultimate prize – guaranteed publication of a non-fiction football book.

Despite football’s significant female following, women are hugely underrepresented in football writing – particularly in publishing. This unique pledge seeks to redress that balance.

#WhatIf is an initiative launched in May 2018 that has struck a chord world-wide, reaching a Twitter audience of over 55million. Driven largely through social channels, organisations, celebrities and members of the public have identified one way they could take action to contribute to an improvement for women and girls within the football industry, however large or small.

Floodlit Dreams join a list of pledgers including UEFA, Kick It Out, BT Sport, Twitter and Sky Sports in offering an exceptional opportunity to help make a real difference.

Jane Purdon, WiF Chief Executive, said: “This is an amazing opportunity for a female football writer to have a book published, working with the support of the expert team at Floodlit Dreams.

“We know that there are many women out there who will have wonderful, engaging stories to tell, whether it is about their own direct involvement with football or an associated theme relating to the game. This is an outstanding chance for one of them to make it into print, adding a female voice to the football literature.

“Huge thanks are due to Floodlit Dreams for this very generous offer; we are both very much looking forward to reading some exciting entries.”

Ian Ridley, Floodlit Dreams publisher, added: “We are proud to be working with WiF on this. My wife Vikki Orvice is a board member and I have seen the great work the organisation does and wanted to help out. This seemed to be a good way to do it.

“There aren’t many books out there on football by women and I don’t know why that is, given the number of women who love the game. I just thought ‘What if we did something to start to change that?’

“This offer is open to any woman who thinks they have a book in them. It could be a biography or autobiography, a memoir, anything. There seem to be plenty of books, for example, about fathers, sons and football but none about mothers, daughters and the game.

“We’re open to anything, mainstream or quirky, and from any age group or background. The only criteria really for the judging panel are that the work should be fresh, original and well-written.

Entrants are required in the first instance to submit a one-page synopsis of their book, along with a sample chapter. They can also submit a full manuscript if it is completed and they wish to do so. Entries need to be submitted by March 31^st 2019.

The judging panel, comprising representatives of Women in Football and Floodlit Dreams, will then decide on a winning submission next May, to be announced at a WiF event.

After that, Floodlit Dreams will work with the winning writer to develop their book ready for publication, as an ebook and paperback, at a date to be agreed with the author.

Floodlit Dreams will bear all costs of producing the book and share profits on a 50-50 basis with the author, once those costs have been recouped through sales.

There is no age restriction and you do not have to be a professional writer to enter. Entries must be non-fiction.

Entrants are requested to send their submissions to info@womeninfootball.co.uk

THE summer of 1962 brought only confusion and disappointment as the England side which Walter Winterbottom had built up so promisingly gave an inspirited display in the World Cup in Chile. Again the lack of urgency was missing, Jimmy Greaves fluttered about like a stray cage bird, the defence did loyally but the forwards, with the exception of Bobby Charlton, were pop guns. Gerry Hitchens who was playing in Italian league soccer, was brought in to replace Bobby Smith but he was lifeless, his arts hidden away in a drawer.

England lost in the quarter-finals against Brazil by 3 – 1 and Brazil, as expected, went on to beat Czechoslovakia in the final.

During 1961-62 a Suffolk team of unbelievable ordinariness, but of quite astonishing efficiency when it came to scoring goals, won the Football League Championship.

Ipswich, who had won the Second Division Championship the previous season, under Alf Ramsey’s managership, duly won the Football League Championship amid Sam Wellerish East Anglian enthusiasm. Ted Philips, a tall gangling man with long legs, and Ray Crawford did most of the goal-scoring, thundering in massive shots into the cage, but finally it was Alf Ramsey’s coaching which did the trick and the big wigs of the Football Association did not let it die.

Walter Winterbottom chucked it in and Alf Ramsey took over as the England manager to prepare the side for the 1966 World Cup. It was a task which nobody envied and Ramsey, a reticent man, soon came under fire. His relations with the Press were often cool. ‘He behaves like a R.A.S.C. captain’ was how one critic described him bitterly.

So far Ramsey’s record has not been particularly pale, as has been proven with notable away successes against Czechoslovakia, West Germany (twice) and Portugal. But the defeat by France in the European Nations Cup was a fiasco. And later our efforts in the Little World Cup game in Rio in 1964 was a nasty pill to swallow. Since then he has based his team round a solid defence of Gordon Banks, George Cohen and Ray Wilson; a terrier of a worker in Nobby Stiles of Manchester United at right-half; Maurice Norman, and now Jackie Charlton at centre-half; Bobby Moore, a Jaguar type left-half; and a fuller selection of forwards, including Alan Ball, a solid, chunky ball player from Blackpool, the under-rated schemer George Eastham of Arsenal, Geoff Hurst, the West Ham opportunist, Terry Paine of Southampton, and a far less cynical Bobby Charlton.

The problem as ever has been Jimmy Greaves, who has let Ramsey down on a number of occasions and seems to miss the presence of his old Tottenham colleague Bobby Smith who drifted into decline after England’s 2 – 1 victory against the Rest of the World in the Football Association Centenary match again at Wembley in October 1963. Smith was not only dropped by England but dropped and transferred to Brighton for only £5,000. ‘Smithy’ had one season in which he helped Brighton gain pro-motion from the Fourth Division but he put on weight and Brighton let him go to Southern League.

Smith’s bustle had allowed Greaves openings against Continental defences and Ramsey’s problem was to replace him. As Stan Cullis wrote in the Daily Express:

‘Transfer Mr Ramsey into another football era and reflect how much heart searching he would have in deciding on alternatives for Stanley Matthews, Raich Carter, Tommy Lawton, Joe Mercer and Frank Swift.

‘This is not a nostalgic cry for the good old days. I realize this country has produced modern players just as good as those post-war stars, but I think there are more question marks attached to the present-day pool of players than in the Lawton era.

‘If you consider how many England players have worn the Number 9 jersey in the last two years you can appreciate Ramsey’s dilemma. He stands or falls on his own judgment, not only in selecting his team but deciding on the tactics to be used.

‘His next step is to convince his players that he has the right tactical set up. . .’

Alf Ramsey, the former Dagenham grocer’s boy, stands to win a prestige fortune or lose all by July 1966, for England’s performance will be judged by this. The policy of playing a 4—3—3 team which is more or less ‘wingless’ seems to be the fundamental, much-criticized plan, and the formation which dumbfounded Spain in Madrid in December 1965 was the key to his intentions. However, Spain did not have Suarez for that Madrid game and Suarez is as important to Spain as Pele. And as I write the 4—3—3 ‘wingless’ set-up has gained a lot of critics. It was a failure against Poland.

Ramsey’s cold, withdrawn expression, as impersonal and mysterious and vaguely hostile as a duty officer marching up to inspect a fire piquet, hides a burning fanaticism and surely a trace of anxiety.

If England get knocked out early he will surely return to another manager’s chair, to sit alongside rakish, rustic directors as he is portrayed in team groups of Ipswich Town all over their Press Room.

If he succeeds he will be considered another Vittorio Pozzo who steered Italy to victory in the World Cup twice before the war. He will be fêted and wined and dined and toastmasters will call out his name as reverently as announcing a Vanderbilt.

Perhaps we of the press and all supporters of England would like rather more communication from him, and less of an attitude that the England side is his and his alone. It is not his alone. Haven’t we waited long enough for a team to win this competition?

Ramsey is not always a man to arouse confidence in the task. Is he trying to build a team with or without Jimmy Greaves; is his plan a mere flash in the pan relying on hard workers, players like Roger Hunt and Nobby Stiles merely following the plough? England’s team will have to be a team of eleven Rolls Royces, average runners will not do. And surely he must play at least one established winger?

On a train going north to Sheffield, Ramsey was the only other member of the restaurant car. As the landscape turned into the industrial tattoo of the North, Ramsey gazed out of the window at fields and factories, giving the waiter a slightly embarrassed smile when he was recognized. He was going to watch Sheffield Wednesday play Everton and the odds were that Derek Temple, the Everton outside-left, was his key figure that afternoon. Temple would not now seem to be part of his wingless plan but that time his speed and shooting power had put him in line for an England place.

I asked Mr Ramsey if it was indeed Temple he was going to see. He looked up at me as if I was mad. The coffee cups tinkled and tried to sprint across his table. He looked just as edgy. ‘Could be,’ he said in a slightly refined tone. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me.’ He rose and walked away towards his compartment. ‘That’s Alf Ramsey,’ said the dining car attendant. ‘I know,’ I said.

Alf Ramsey, the shrewd enigma, the terror of the press, awaits his destiny. We may hope that he avoids the fate Dostoevsky describes for a losing gambler: ‘When once anyone has started upon that road, it is like a man in a sledge flying down a snow mountain more and more swiftly . . .’

THE SOCCER SYNDROME: English Football’s Golden Age by John Moynihan is now reissued by Floodlit Dreams and is available in our store