The Olmecs [1200 BCE — 400 BCE] built the first significant cities in Mexico. Prominent features of their culture were perpetuated by the later Mayans and Aztecs. Their giant stone heads, each carved from a single basalt boulder and originally painted in bright colours, continue to cause much head-scratching among present-day experts.

Did they portray rulers, as one recent article suggests? What are they wearing? Space helmets, as some would have it?

One thing all the experts agree on is that pre-Columbians, at all periods in their history, were football-crazy.

Football (an evocative metaphor, so let’s stick with it) is strictly a misnomer. Ball-games (“pelota”) were played with a heavy indiarubber ball bounced off the hips only. Ball-courts, prominent in the centre of any town, stood-in for our cathedrals, and ball-players received almost religious devotion from the common folk. As anyone who first turns to the back page of their newspaper will warmly appreciate.

So might the giant heads portray legendary footballers, and their headgear football helmets?