Column: ​Could asparagus hold the key to England’s Euros success? Take a guess

​The last time we were in the Euros, we found out that there are some supporters who like putting fireworks into bodily places that would be more fitting of Guy Fawkes, but we know there are exuberant footy fans.

The strange side to our nature that I worry about is the side that put Jemima Packington in the news. If you haven’t heard of her, she’s the prophet who makes predictions of the future using her asparagus. The newspapers call her an asparamancer.

She throws her spears in the air like she just doesn’t care, and reads the way they fall.

Using this pattern, she can predict the future. She says it’s similar to reading tea leaves.

While I am being a cynic, for what I hope are obvious reasons, she says had success in the past. She correctly predicted the outcome of the 2016 Brexit referendum. If you flipped a coin to predict that, it would get it right half of the time.

She has turned her veg to the issue of England’s football hopes. Thankfully her greens have predicted that England will win, which must be good news for any patriotic supporter who believes in this.

It must wind up people who work in PR. They spend all day trying to get their clients into the news to raise awareness of their brand and someone can come along, throw some clairvoyant salad about and they’re the front page of a national newspaper.

She’s not the only wacky fortune teller that people cling to when sport happens. We have seen an octopus predict football games before.

One was called Rabiot and a quick search online tells me that he was boiled alive and sold for food at a fish market. He didn’t see that coming.

It doesn’t take much for us to turn to a psychic to give us hope. We’re supposed to be an advanced and intelligent culture now.

We’re centuries removed from the civilisations that would hear thunder and presume there must be a god of thunder who was having a bad day.

We have science and understanding of how the universe works. Yet, when we’re desperate to win something against the odds we will listen to anyone that can give us hope.