WHY ARE TROPHIES CUPS?

That's that then. Germany fly off home with the little gold-plated folderol everyone else was hoping to kiss, and the FIFA World Cup is over for another four years. Woop-de-do.

The Zappers are happy. They can go back to Midsomer Murders and Cash under the Hammer in the Attic or whatever it's called.

Meanwhile the Pundits reflect on all the glorious football they've seen, salivating over the memories of rippling onion bags while getting themselves ready for the long disappointing cycle to begin again.

I've been wondering why it's a cup... when it's not actually a cup. I mean, take the FA Cup or the Wimbledon Men's Singles Trophy; look at the bulbous Premier League trophy or the preposterous Americas Cup... cup. The Ryder Cup, the Stanley Cup, the Scottish Cup, the Cheltenham Gold Cup... lids! handles! receptacle for liquid! ... these are all, by the most basic of definitions, cups!

The FIFA World Cup, the most famous sporting 'cup' in the history of our planet... is a truncheon. It's a little golden weapon, a kind of ornate club that wouldn't be out of place next to the lead-piping or the candlestick on a Cluedo board. You can't drink out of it, pour anything into it or pass it round for your teammates to have a sip. Neither can you pose for a photo with its lid balanced on your ridiculous grinning head while your team mates dance like naked loons in the background. It hasn't got one. All you can do is hold it, lift it up and kiss it... which is a weird set of things to do with any kind of cup, I think.

All this thought, as Germany pranced about with the thing last night, led me to wonder... why are trophies cups in the first place? What's so great about a cup?

So I looked it up.

It turns out that nobody's really certain. Some people seem to think that one particular ancient trophy, a spoil of a great battle was olive oil. An expensive commodity like that would have required a suitable receptacle. Bring on the cup.

Another much later theory is that it's down to the Methodists. Nice people, the Methodists - they invented a sort of communion cup with two handles so that you could pass it round to your favourite brethren without spilling the wine. Though, I thought they were teetotal? Maybe I've got that wrong.

Still others believe that the cup represents Christ's great victory over evil. The idea of a cup may have come to symbolise victory - in which case, the Holy Grail is the ultimate trophy cup, to be shared with your fellow disciples (or grinning teammates) I suppose.

Argentina looked gutted. Some of them were crying. My Mum (who's a Zapper, remember) suggested that they ought to grow up. Meanwhile my Dad was wondering how the German team would get that thing through airport security.

I prized myself out of the armchair and headed for the kitchen.

"The only cup I'm interested in..." I said.

"...is a cup of tea," they chimed together. Brilliant.