Alastair Hignell column: Indulge me. While the England rugby squad head off to Portugal, I'm going to take a trip down memory lane.

While they embark on some warm weather training (or, given last week's meteorological conditions in Europe, shouldn't that read storm weather training?) I'm going to give a little toot on my own trumpet.

It's always been a fun, and ultimately futile, exercise to compare generations – in material wealth, in lifestyles, in sport, in anything.

Rugby was a totally different game in the 1970s, when I was lucky enough to strut my stuff, but sometimes the temptation to throw light on the present by reference to the past – and vice versa – is overwhelming.

Not so long ago, I used to portray myself as the Jonny Wilkinson of the 70s.

For one thing, we both made our first starts for England as teenagers on the wrong end of a drubbing in Brisbane – he was a helpless bystander in England's record 76-0 defeat on the Tour to Hell in 1998, I was a helpless bystander when Mike Burton became the first Englishman to be sent off in a Test match in the so-called Battle of Ballymore in 1975.

For another, we were both goal-kickers – and that's where the similarity ends. Let's just say that, while Jonny could be relied on to win matches with his boot…

Then, when Ian Balshaw burst on the scene in 2001, it only needed a small leap of the imagination to draw the parallels.

We were both attacking full-backs, and both had a devastating change of pace. The reality being that while Balshaw could go from fast to lightning in the blink of an eye, I would take slightly longer to go from a slow to dead slow!

Now this England squad 2009 has thrown up an individual with whom I can even more closely identify.

The only new cap in the party heading for Portugal is the 23-year-old Northampton Saint, Ben Foden.

He is a scrum-half. Or is he a full-back? Nobody, least of all the player himself, and, most importantly of all, the England manager Martin Johnson, is too sure, or too bothered.

Both Northampton and his previous club Sale originally signed him as a scrum-half, but the latter were so impressed whenever he filled in at full-back that they signed Wales and Lions scrum-half Dwayne Peel to fight for the number nine shirt with England cap Richard Wigglesworth, while the former have decided to drop their club captain Bruce Reihana in recent weeks in order to find room for Foden at full-back.

Spectacular displays in that position against Bristol and Leicester have catapulted him into the training squad for the Six Nations, where he finds himself alongside two full-backs and two scrum-halves.

With Johnson reluctant to be drawn on the subject, acres of newsprint have since been devoted to pontifications about Foden's best position and demands for him to opt for one or the other.

I had something similar in the 70s. I joined Bristol from school as a scrum-half and had worked my way into the first team by the time they had clinched what was then the equivalent of the Guinness Premiership, the Sunday Telegraph pennant.

I filled in at full-back in a Cambridge University side whose scrum-half was another Bristolian, Richard Harding, but then reclaimed the number nine jersey at both university and club only to find myself selected as full-back for England's tour of Australia that summer.

Like Foden now, I refused then to be categorical as to which position I preferred. Scrum-half was the position I knew best, but I wasn't going to turn down the chance of playing for England and would have played in any position if they'd asked.

Foden has already indicated that he has the same motivation.

And so, too, has every player who has ever been asked to play out of position for his country, from Michael Lynagh, who began international life as a centre before becoming the greatest fly-half Australia has produced, to Daniel Carter, who has followed a similar career path with New Zealand.

Closer to home, recently-retired Austin Healey won full caps in four positions for England, while Jean Baptiste Elissalde and Frederic Michalak have been equally at home in either half-back position for France.

As far as the selectors were concerned the priority was to get a prodigious talent into the team as soon as possible and let nature – in the form of injuries and loss of form – do the rest.

If Foden does half as well for his country as those superstars, England will be more than happy.