Yet this development is far less sudden than the sequence of events might suggest. It is two years since Simon Clegg, chief executive of the BOA, first made contact. “We sat down for breakfast one day in 2004,” explained Woodward. “It was all merely exploratory. Simon explained how Britain’s approach would be changed profoundly if they were awarded the 2012 Games. The rest is history.”
Are there some sports of the 35 over which he now presides about which he knows very little? “Yes, of course. But I intend to listen and learn, and my diary is already full. I start on September 18.”
This startling elevation has drawn a range of reactions. Some performance directors in Olympic sports, usually anonymously, have threatened that Woodward had better not darken their doors. It may be significant that most of the adverse comments appear to have come from those who never won anything worth getting excited about. Sir Steve Redgrave, who won an awful lot worth getting thrilled about, said: “If there is anyone who knows how to get the best out of elite athletes, it is Clive.”
So why the caution? It is as if he is perceived as some kind of bawling sergeant-major who will rush in and be deaf to persuasion. When we talked last Thursday, he came across as more humble than aggressive. “The key for me will be to meet people and establish relationships,” he said. “I will set great store by the partnership with UK Sport, which is key. I hope to sit down with the directors of elite performance and get to know them. I am thrilled by the challenge, but I am not going direct to athletes, over people’s heads. I am not going to go anywhere where I am not expected. In any case, sports like rowing, swimming and cycling are already running outstanding programmes, way ahead of what our national football and rugby teams are running.”
But what of the tiny sports in which Britain is never going to win a medal? “Six years is a long time in sport. I am fascinated to learn about some of those so-called smaller sports because as host country in 2012, we want to be up there in as many sports as we possibly can.”
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He was also enthused about working with the nation’s teenage talent: “There are so many 14-, 15- and 16-year-olds around in Britain at the moment with the capability to win medals in 2012. They must be found and challenged and given whatever is necessary to fulfil their potential.”
Unquestionably, Woodward can be difficult. He is relentlessly hard-driving, especially when he encounters discredited orthodoxies. His search for an edge can make others, well, edgy. He admits that Martin Johnson, his World Cup captain, provided a check and balance if Woodward threatened to go over the top. “Martin did not come to me that often, but when he did, I listened,” he said. “Perhaps Sven- Göran Eriksson did not have a Johnson. England’s footballers should not blame Sven for everything, because it was their World Cup and their big chance. If the players felt things were being done wrong, the captain and senior players should have gone to him before, not complain afterwards, although it was up to Sven to create the environment in the team for that to happen.” So Beckham was not Johnson, as if we hadn’t noticed.
At his best, Woodward exposes weaknesses and self- interest and illuminates a path to success at the top of sport. Considering the kudos, cash and glory that he helped bring to Twickenham, it is still a shock that rugby union has been so dismissive of him since. Woodward was asked to apply for the elite rugby post, reached the last two and was beaten by Rob Andrew.
The new man has many qualities, but it must be said that in going for Andrew over Woodward, the RFU ignored its own job description, which not even the most fervent anti-Woodward fulminator could deny fitted him like a body stocking. It seems that other concerns and possibly grudges were involved.
Woodward said there was no guarantee that he would have accepted the RFU job if he had been asked to do it. “I might well have taken it had they allowed me to try to make England the best-prepared team in the world, but I was very fortunate that I had two approaches.” I suggested to him that he would surely have accepted had the job come his way. “You can write what you like,” he said.
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A close business associate suggested that the BOA handled its approach far better than the RFU. Again, Woodward was relentlessly charming. “It is time to move on, to wish Andy (Robinson, England’s head coach) and Rob all the best. I’d like to go to Twickenham in November to see friends, maybe have a drink in the car park.”
Perhaps the best news for those who fear Woodward’s ability to interact comes from Harry Redknapp, the former Southampton manager with whom he once shared an office. Woodward admitted that to outward appearances, they were polar opposites. “Harry came up to me when we first spoke, held out his hand and told me we were never going to fall out. We didn’t. We were different, but we got on really well, and if I come across him, I’d love to have a beer.”
The Woodward handshake, encased for the moment in kid gloves, will soon be available to Britain’s Olympians. It will be a ferociously difficult posting. He will definitely visit a place he has been before, where old dogmas and personal enmities supersede the business of winning at the top level. Anyone who begrudges his return to the arena really is accused of putting separate agendas in the path to Olympic gold.