Prime Minister David Cameron seems to have picked a couple of formidable strikers in the new Sports Minister, Tracey Crouch, and her boss as DCMS Secretary of State, John Whittingdale. Both are genuinely interested in sport, and more importantly are knowledgeable about it and well acquainted with its corridors of power.

Insidethegames readers will recall that before the election I wrote that the name I was hearing mentioned frequently as a prospective Sports Minister was that of Crouch, the MP Chatham and Aylesford  “who is only 39, is a qualified FA coach and runs a girls’ youth football team.”  One of the things I like about her, I said, is that clearly she has a mind of her own.

She certainly has. The nation will know that it has a Sports Minister and so, I suspect, will FIFA and the Football Association. She likes to speak her mind, especially on football.

A qualified FA coach, she has served on the Parliamentary Select Committee for Culture, Media and Sport under the chairmanship of Whittingdale, himself no slouch when it comes to putting the boot in on perceived, and often arrogant, sports authorities.

Avid Tottenham Hotspur fan Crouch was admirably voluble when raising questions over the hosting of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups in Russia and Qatar. In July last year, she told the Committee that Russia should not be allowed to host the 2018 World Cup tournament as punishment for its involvement in the Ukraine conflict after pro-Moscow separatists were held responsible for firing a missile which hit a Malaysian airways jet, killing all 298 passengers and crew.

She said: "I think Russia ought to be stripped now. There's so much political uncertainty. Football could be used to put pressure on President Putin to change some of his practices.”

Then, in November, Crouch called for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar to be re-considered by FIFA due to corruption claims and the oppressive climate saying: “Qatar's staging of the World Cup is shrouded in controversy - whether related to the corrupt way it was awarded the tournament or else the heat in which games will be played.

“And now there are potential links to the financing of terrorism as well. I really think this needs to be evaluated and reconsidered. Terrorism is clearly a growing concern.”

Her appointment as successor to Helen Grant - brutally axed in true football managerial style after only one season - is something of a gamble by Cameron, for Crouch can be a loose cannon who doesn't always toe the party line.

She has been outspoken on many issues, including opposing badger culls and the imposition of press regulation. I like the cut of her jib.

Crouch also sat on the women and sport advisory board set up by Grant to boost the profile and number of participants in women’s sport.

Actually she is not the the first Tory sports minister named Tracey. Remember Richard Tracey, one of the string of hapless incumbents who went into bat under the Thatcher administration and were quickly bowled out? No, me neither.

Since her election in 2010, Crouch has always been active on sporting issues. Along with Whittingdale, she supported of fellow Conservative MP Damian Collins' Football Governance Bill which  proposed to bar clubs from English football's top eight divisions if their owners were not disclosed and also sought to reform rules around administration and the fit and proper persons' test for owners and directors.

It also called for fundamental reform of the FA and for greater fan influence in how clubs are run.

She is the third successive Conservative sports minister to come from Kent, following Grant and Sir Hugh Robertson, who says her three main challenges will be: “Funding, football and the wider issue of governance,” something which he constantly tussled.

A keen footballer herself, Crouch has a working knowledge of the grassroots game, coaching and managing Medway’s Meridian Girls' football team for the last eight years, since they were 10.

She already has a score to settle with the FA who, in 2011 barred her from playing alongside fellow male MPs Andy Burnham, Ed Balls and former sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe in the Parliamentary football team, where she once famously nutmegged the former Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy.

Crouch reacted angrily when the FA insisted that mixed teams were not allowed over the age of 13, snorting: ”It is ridiculous. I am quite capable of looking after myself.”

Subsequently when she defied to ban to play for the Parliamentary XI against a team of journalists the FA withdrew their officials.

The FA bigwigs, and those at the Premier League, are now likely to discover that she is capable of some hard tackling in her dealings with them too.

Her stewardship is unlikely to be without controversy. She certainly will adopt a higher and more self-assured profile than Grant, who I liked and had worked hard to establish her credibility after a faltering start in a post that can be a treacherous obstacle course if you are unfamiliar with the territory.

But Crouch knows the score. She is unlikely to fall victim to any impromptu pub quiz-style interrogation and will already cognisant, or will have mugged up on the names of FA Cup winners, Wimbledon champions and England team captains.

There is plenty to fill the in-trays of both herself and Whittingdale, the latter having a much keener interest in sport than either of his two predecessors, Maria Miller and Sajid Javid.

Funding for the Rio Olympic and Paralympic Games are in place but there are several upcoming major sports events to oversee in the UK during the next five years, including the Rugby World Cup this autumn, the World Athletics Championship in the Olympic Stadium in 2017, the International Paralympic Committee Athletics World Championships and the Cricket World Cup in 2019.

However, an immediate priority must be see that a sport retains its reasonable proportion of Exchequer funding when inevitably, the departmental budgets cuts come.

So while 55-year-old Whittingdale initially sorts out the BBC, it will fall to Crouch to see that sport is not relegated to a lower leagues of Government responsibilities.

Whittingdale has worked with Crouch for the past three years on the Culture Media and Sport Select Committee, of which he has been an effective chair for ten.

He, too, has been critical of UK football governance and said if the game does not reform itself, legislation is needed.

He called for the 2022 World Cup ballot to be re-run and questioned Qatar’s capability to host the World Cup, calling president Sepp Blatter’s position “almost untenable” following to corruption allegations within FIFA.

Among the Conservative party’s manifesto pledges is a promise to improve the quality of community sports facilities, working with local authorities, the FA and the Premier League to fund investment in artificial football pitches in more than 30 cities across England.

They aim to raise the number of women on national sports governing bodies to at least 25 per cent by 2017, seek to increase participation in sport by women and girls and support school sports with £150 million-a-year to to head teachers for primary schools until 2020.

Meantime, Labour has yet to confirm whether Opposition sport's spokesman Clive Efford remains as Shadow Minister. He certainly doesn't deserve to be dropped as summarily as Grant was.

Presumably they will wait until a new leader is appointed and if it turns out to be front-runner Andy Burnham, currently Health Secretary, you can be sure sport will figure prominently in the party’s new game plan.

For Burnham is a true sports aficionado and was a contender to be Sports Minister before a Government reshuffle in 2008 saw him elevated to Secretary of State at the DCMS.

Not only is he a lifelong Everton fan, he still plays a mean game himself, is a former honorary chair of Leigh Rugby League club and was a talented cricketer with Lancashire juniors.

So it does seem that sport will have a welcome presence in the new Parliament, though the Lib Dems will have to find a new spokesperson as John Leech was among their shoal of casualties.

There aren't many left to choose from. Perhaps Nick Clegg may be glad of game of political football.