Firstly, an apology. A little late, maybe, but nevertheless. I apologise to anyone whom I might have offended when I ran through Garston Park in a state of complete undress.

Now this happened many years ago - might have been 1978 even - and I very much doubt if its effects were deleterious. I very much doubt in fact whether anyone actually saw me and my prancing fellow fools as we concluded a long Saturday night at the Black Horse, White Horse and Coach and Horses - it was that kind of area - with what then seemed the supremely appropriate flourish of a mass streak.

I think I can still faintly remember the sensation of turf under bare foot, and the occasional whoops we emitted to underline the fact that this was all a jaunt.

Anyway, the point is, this jape we schoolfellows hatched all those years ago would never have seen the light of day - or in this case, the streetlight of day - without the group dynamic. As an individual exercise, it would have appeared embarrassing and ridiculous.

I feel the continuing trend for naked calendars, and in particular naked sporting calendars, operates on the same principle.

The iconic reference for such unlikely egging-on is of course that of the Rylstone & District Women’s Institute, whose members, after much internal debate, produced a calendar featuring themselves discreetly posing nude while engaged in everyday activities such as baking and knitting.

The publication of the 2000 Alternative WI Calendar raised a massive media to-do, and eventually more than £2 million for Leukaemia Research, with the whole process being immortalised by the likes of Helen Mirren and Julie Walters in the film Calendar Girls.

That "go on - why not? - let’s!" spirit has since animated hundreds if not thousands of similar projects.

Like the old advertising line - “naughty but nice” - these pictorial confections strive to hold an uneasy balance between salaciousness and seriousness.

So you can find, for instance, the aesthetic black-and-white installations featured in Edinburgh University Boat Club’s calendar, which are clearly nude but hardly naughty at all.

As in the various oeuvres of the Calendar Girls, the art in so many of these enterprises lies partly in placement. A rowing blade here, a rugby ball there, maintain the balance between the naughty and nice, allowing the enterprise to remain in the larkey category which seems most appropriate given that most such projects seek to raise funds for charity.

Naughty has the edge over nice, however, in other more adventurous installations. Such as the Men of Strokes calendar - featuring DC Strokes, the self-styled biggest gay rowing club in the United States.

And this year’s photographic offering from the Stade Francaise rugby club, Dieux du Stade (Gods of the Stadium), openly displays, er, club members.

Perhaps the perfect graphic means of incorporating the naughty and the nice in the area of self publicity in recent years has been body painting.

A year before she won the Olympic heptathlon title at the 2000 Sydney Games, Denise Lewis appeared in a magazine photoshoot in patriotic red white and blue. But if you looked more closely - and I suspect one or two people might have done so - she wasn’t wearing much, if anything, other than artfully applied paint.

That was rather a bold statement from Lewis, who began her career as a game girl from West Bromwich and ended it as a sultry, sulky creature who clearly belonged somewhere far more exotic.

At that point she was a world silver medallist, twice, and an Olympic bronze medallist, but she did not finally crack it until the following summer. The gamble worked for Lewis, however, shifting her image in a bold and commercially advantageous direction.

Since then, the old "I’m clothed – no I’m not. I’m (nearly) nude! – But I’m body-painted!” routine has been used by numerous sporting protagonists, and, three years ago, by some chums of Kate Middleton’s named The Sisterhood who pretended to be sporting figures, aided by genuine sporting "props" such as Terry Venables, Iwan Thomas and Andrew Castle.

Charity, of course, was the sole beneficiary.

So what are we to make of the very latest sporting calendar, featuring the noble features of our leading eventer, Oliver Townend?

This photographic confection for 2011 features Michael Blann studies of the Burghley and Badminton winner in a series of thoughtful - and as far as one can judge, buttoned-up - poses, sometimes with a noble steed at his side, in and around his yard near Ellesmere in Shropshire. It’s a new departure in the world of British equestrianism.

"I always appreciate the support I receive on the circuit," says Townend, "and we thought a calendar would be a good way of giving the fans a glimpse of what happens behind the scenes at my yard."



Not the best description, I would have thought, unless Townend is given to staring moodily out of windows with a horse craning over his ear.

But one thing is certain - there’s no nudity, and no body paint involved.

Perhaps one of the comments from Townend’s reputed 7,500 Facebook followers offers the best measure of how this calendar will be received: "Thanks Mr Olly, for looking so good."

Yep. Different method. Same effect.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames