DIVING, play-acting, and the harassment of referees have become commonplace at football matches, and there has been justified criticism of the behaviour of some of the world's highest-paid footballers in the Chelsea versus Paris St-Germain Champions League match this week.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic was sent off, there was a melee, the PSG striker described the Chelsea players as "babies", and John Terry has today hit back with a retort which can be fairly summed up as "they started it".

You know the kind of thing – embarrassing schoolyard histrionics.

Compare all of that to one of the sporting world's genuine greats, AP McCoy, who thrilled the racecourse crowds and millions of TV viewers by riding a winner today at his farewell Cheltenham Festival before he hangs up his boots.

Every racing fan wanted to see the legendary jockey go out on a high at the world's biggest national hunt festival and 16-1 shot Uxizandre obliged in the Ryanair Chase.

Here is a man who rode to his first victory as a 17-year-old in 1992 and has risked his neck every day since then in pursuit of a record-breaking number of winners.

An unparalleled mix of dedication, hunger, and skill in the saddle has seen him ride to 19 jockey championships and the sport will be infinitely poorer without his name on the racecards.

And through it all, he has been the complete professional: polite to the media, popular amongst his peers, and generous in giving time to fans.

There is still his final Grand National to come but that would surely be too much of a fairytale. Let's just enjoy him while we can – and use him as a role model of how a sportsman should behave.