Dave the cat could be the stress-busting lucky charm for England's football players

Dave the cat has become something of a lucky charm for England’s national football team. Maybe it’s the extreme heat of Qatar, the pressure of millions of fans or the fact that a feline friend has a certain attitude of ‘couldn’t care less’.

Whatever it is, the players have taken Dave, and apparently another cat they’ve nicknamed Paul, into their adrenaline-filled hearts.

Midfielder Kalvin Phillips has told how the England team have christened a couple of stray cats Dave and Paul after befriending them at their Qatar hotel.

Cats have been a symbol of good luck for millennia. The Egyptians revered cats and saw them as God-like creatures. They feature heavily on hieroglyphs. Egyptians believed cats were magical creatures, capable of bringing good luck to the people who housed them.

To honour these treasured pets, wealthy families dressed them in jewels and fed them treats fit for royalty. When the cats died, they were mummified.

In Japan, China, and other Asian cultures, all cats are seen as a symbol of good luck and prosperity. Several beliefs deal specifically with black cats. If you keep a black cat safe and well cared for, they will reward you by frightening away evil spirits and bringing wealth to the household, so the belief goes.

Other cats to be mascots to high profile figures, include Larry the cat at Number 10 Downing Street. Larry hasn't had a good run with Prime Ministers in the last few years, but I don't think we can blame Larry for this. To lose one prime minister a misfortune, to lose two looks like carelessness, to lose three and four... well, what's a cat to do?

Larry became the resident cat of Number 10, the powerhouse of the UK government in 2011. He's a brown and white tabby believed to be born in 2007. He's far-outpaced our last four prime ministers: David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and is currently on his fifth with Rishi Sunak.

The tennis player, Rafael Nadal, was playing a doubles match in 2009 with fellow Spaniard Marc Lopez when a cat wandered onto the court. The pair won. Of course. Clearly, it was the cat who swung it. They do like to chase balls.

That’s a lot of pressure for Dave and Paul. Let’s hope they don’t read the news and let’s also hope they’re not being paid by Qatar sporting officials to distract the England team.