Even in this fraught period, beset by mounting public scepticism over doping and creaky governance, you can’t take that away from it.

Take last Saturday: rather than hang around waiting for the conclusions of an Olympic Summit which not even the International Olympic Committee (IOC) appeared to expect would be very newsworthy – why else would you circulate a release emphasising that there would be "no media facilities" at the hotel where it was happening? - I decided to take part in something a little more constructive.

A team-mate at The Authors Cricket Club where I play had arranged to drive to Calais.

The objective? To drop off a trunk-full of winter supplies and cricket clobber at the camp that has become known as the Jungle - and, if possible, play some cricket.

This "Jungle" currently houses more than 10,000 refugees and migrants, including over 1,000 unaccompanied children.

This is what happened.

First stop, after emerging from Eurotunnel, was a warehouse on an industrial estate where donated supplies are collected and assessed prior to redistribution.

There was much that was reassuring here: the quantity of incoming goods, from sleeping-bags to sacks of garlic; the transparent dedication of the volunteers; the omnipresent aroma of curry hanging in the air; and last but not least, a blackboard giving details, in coloured chalks, of significant events - including the result of a past cricket match.

But there was tension too.

Authorities are expected to move soon to clear the camp and resettle the people living there.

Nobody at the warehouse could say when this operation will start or what the full consequences will be.

For now, the pile of soggy cigarette-butts in an industrial-sized chickpea-can beside the chalkboard will continue to grow.

On the short drive to the camp, I daydreamed about how excited I had been to sail into Calais as a teenager.

In common, I imagine, with many Brits, it was the first town I had set foot in outside the UK. How exotic it seemed!

Peering out from the backseat, I now looked down on allotment sheds which, I suspected, would turn out to be far more sturdily built than any structure in the nearby Jungle.

At the entrance at the bottom of a motorway slip road, the navy-uniformed policeman was perfectly courteous, perfectly correct as he asked to inspect the driver’s passport.

Also perfectly inscrutable, betraying not the slightest sign of what he was thinking as he allowed us through.

The atmosphere?

It was not demoralising or demoralised, at least not instantly so; not pushy or aggressive and in no way hostile.

Listless probably just about covers it, the product, I suppose, of largely empty, frustrating days and an unknowable future.

The predominant colour of the sandy wasteland where the camp had sprung up was grey.

But there was some wall art and our benign north European autumn had spared clouds of small flowers as yellow as the sets of plastic cricket stumps we had under our arms.

Near where we parked up, an area had been taken over for board-games, including chess.

We wondered through a school and a church with a bell and a red and white flag of practicality, signifying (I think) the presence of a wood-burning stove.

I saw no mosque, although I presume there must be one.

A piece of graffiti at the base of a post read, ‘Veni, vidi, vici’ – Latin for ‘I came, I saw, I conquered’.

‘Vici’ had been crossed out.

As soon as we arrived at the kids’ café, in an area of the camp where a few of the makeshift wooden structures actually have glass windows, we were greeted by a dozen or so Afghan teenagers, who instantly recognised the cricketing paraphernalia, including a motley selection of shirts, we were carrying.

Within 10 minutes, we were playing.

The rat carcass at short mid-wicket was a reminder both that this was no ordinary pick-up cricket game and of the living conditions with which the 20 or so youngsters who joined us must cope.

To be fair, as the designated short mid-wicket fielder, the flattened rodent probably cramped my style more than anyone else’s.

The strip of clapped-out tarmac where the wickets were erected served, in the absence of grassy swards, as a reasonably true batting surface.

A five-metre high earth bank, topped with razor-wire and dotted with crouching figures seeking better mobile phone reception, offered insurance that not even the most languid off-side drives would send the ball scudding over the N216 motorway and off towards Picardie.

The zeal with which our fellow cricket players had donned the shirts and checked out bats and balls did not surprise me.

Nor did the skill levels of the ablest players.

One skinny left-arm seamer, who looked about 16, showed enough to suggest he would be a real prospect if he were able (and willing) to take the game up with any degree of seriousness.

And he was steaming in off a long run-up in a pair of flip-flops.

What did surprise me was the strong insistence - on their part; this was nothing to do with us - that the rules of the game be respected.

We were carefully divided into two teams.

Onlookers were strenuously discouraged from fielding the ball if it happened to come near them.

Boundary limits were defined and enforced, and no-balls and wides called by a member of the batting team detailed to serve a stint as umpire.

There was obviously no scoreboard, or indeed scorer, but somebody kept track well enough for a batsman to be informed, as the match neared its conclusion, that his side needed three to win off the last three balls.

The group had enough English to convey that they were knowledgeable and unforgiving observers of the game.

“Not good bowling, my friend,” commented mid-on cheerfully after the Authors captain uncharacteristically served up a juicy long-hop.

Another Author reported that some of them had been most impressed with my own batting cameo, since “at your age, anyone in Afghanistan would have a walking-stick”.

In short, it was all great fun and hopefully enabled some of them to scavenge an hour and a half’s enjoyment from the boredom and uncertainty of their current situation.

Yes, sport is a good - and nearly instant - bridge-builder, and more power to it for that.

But, let’s be honest, this was the flimsiest of pontoons.

It seems more than likely we will never see most of our Calais team-mates/opponents again.

And, given what they are going through, what are the chances of this visit lingering more than momentarily in their memory?

At least they have a good supply of balls now, and two sets of yellow plastic stumps.

It is the instant you say goodbye, of course, when reality reasserts itself with all the subtlety of a raised drawbridge: reality as in we can/must take the train back to Folkestone, and you can’t/mustn’t.

“See you next week,” said an intense and talented young bowler who can’t have been more than 15.

In these circumstances, it is the most haunting of phrases.

As mentioned above, it is uncertain how much longer the Jungle will be there. If you would like to do anything to help, might I suggest consulting the www.helprefugees.org website and following their advice.