By Daniel Warren BBC Sport Online

It's been a permanent fixture for football fans for decades, but Mark Lawrenson's moustache is no more.

The hirsute Football Focus presenter was forced to say goodbye to his long-standing 'lip rug' after he bet Bolton fans their club would be relegated.

Sam Allardyce's men duly avoided the drop, and the moustache had to pay - although the charity stunt did raise �1,500 for the NSPCC.

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But the demise of Lawro's 'caterpillar' has highlighted the uneasy relationship between the moustache and the world of sport.

And it raises the question of how this kind of facial hair would look if it was adopted by other leading sports figures.

Although the 1960s saw The Beatles all sporting bountiful 'upper lip insulation', the England World Cup winners of 1966 did not have a single hair beneath their noses.

Sir Alf would never have allowed such a slovenly appearance. And rightly so.

It's well-known that England's World Cup flops, who failed to even qualify for the 1974 and 1978 finals were a motley bunch of hairy-faced losers.

Yet elsewhere, sportsmen have triumphed in spite of their hairy handicap.

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"Marvellous" Marvin Hagler dominated the world of middleweight boxing in the early '80s, despite having no mastery over the humble disposable razor.

And Graham Gooch made an incredible 333 for England, despite sporting a monster moustache in which small children could get lost.

But as Lawro faces up to life with a naked face, there are signs the humble 'tache is coming back into fashion.

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England's hopes during the inevitable World Cup penalty shoot-out in Japan will be pinned upon virile goalkeeper David 'I comb it every day' Seaman.

David Beckham is no stranger to the designer stubble look - it's only a matter of time before Victoria insists he grows a full-on 'tickler'.

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Perhaps the only way to slow Michael Schumacher would be to insist he grows a bushy non-aerodynamic 'handlebar'.

And who can say tennis lovely Anna Kournikova won't follow in the footsteps of some of her athletic countrywomen, who in decades gone by were in possession of 'facial clothing' which would shame Jimmy Edwards?

It's a hair-raising thought.