Breaking news: Kleenex supplies in Derbyshire have just run out.

“It’s a bigger outrage than when Diego Maradona punched the ball past Peter Shilton in 1986. It’s a bigger disgrace than when Zinedine Zidane butted Marco Materazzi three years ago,” fumes the Derby Telegraph on its tear-stained pages.

The strains of mournful violins can be heard across the city.

Derby and Leicester (and indeed Hull) are not taking their rejection from the World Cup bid well. With Nottingham being the sole choice for the East Midlands, local pride has certainly been lost.

I wonder if we, the people of Nottingham, would be reacting quite so badly if yesterday’s announcement had gone differently?

Certainly it would have grated to see the world’s focus on Pride Park or the Walker’s Stadium, but that Nottingham was shortlisted came as a bit of a surprise to most of us. After all, we don’t have a stadium – we don’t even have a location for the stadium!

I’m not hugely pro-New Ground, to say the least, and I am sceptical about the abilities of the people involved to deliver what they promise, but I must admit the prospect of the World Cup being held in Nottingham is exciting. Living in West Bridgford during the World Twenty20 was awesome and the football World Cup would certainly top that, even if we did only have Bulgaria vs Saudi Arabia group games.

But, if we hadn’t got the nod (and, to be fair, we’re still not a definite, even if the World Cup does come to England) and the wonderful new stadium doesn’t happen, then Forest fans would at least have the consolation prize of keeping our spiritual home, the City Ground. Derby and Leicester don’t have that luxury. They sold their souls down flatpack alley years ago, and for what? Stadiums less attractive than one that hasn’t even got planning permission yet!

At yesterday’s press conference, Lord Mawhinney insisted that the FA panel had only taken practical matters into consideration when drawing up their list. Footballing heritage didn’t come into it, he asserted. But that was minutes after saying it would be hard to imagine a World Cup in England without games in Liverpool (whose new stadium is more of a pipe dream than ours).

I think the reasons Nottingham was chosen over Derby and Leicester come down to two things: a) Nottingham is a bigger city which (in theory) is better set up to handle large sporting events and the influx of people they bring, and b) we won a pair of European Cups three decades ago.

I know that idea will wind up the Derby and Leicester fans even more, but I got my gloating out of the way in the opening paragraph. To be honest, I’m as perplexed by the FA’s decision as our neighbouring counties are. Our bid was built with lofty ambitions on unstable foundations. I refuse to believe that Nottingham’s international status as a footballing city didn’t influence the panel’s choice. For those in Nottingham who want World Cup games in the city, there is, yet again, something to thank Brian Clough for.