In doing so, they exposed the woeful shortsightedness of Britain's elite sports funding policy through to the Rio 2016 Olympics and Paralympics.

"That is my greatest moment representing my country," said Angie Winstanley-Smith, 29, who put so much into the game that she threw up in the pool at one point.

"I don't really believe we have beaten the world champions," added Ciara Gibson-Byrne, 21, one of the young stars of the team.

"I just feel madder that we have lost the funding."

Ciara Gibson-Byrne is revelling in the joy of Britain's win, but there is no getting away from the stark reality that comes with UK Sport's funding withdrawal ©Getty Images



The melancholy sub-text to which Gibson-Byrne alludes is that UK Sport, Britain's elite funding body, have just pulled the plug on this highly promising - and uplifting - story of hard work rewarded in women's team sport.

On February 4 - a date that must be etched on the minds of these young athletes like a death in the family - the £4.54 million ($7.53 million/€5.54 million) they had initially been awarded to see them through to Rio disappeared, or more accurately was redistributed, cut literally to nothing.

"Water polo was among the sports that were not able to demonstrate they had a realistic chance of performing well within the top eight in Rio 2016 and targeting a medal performance in 2020," UK Sport told me.

After Tuesday night's performance, it is impossible to resist alluding to the punch-line of an old Rowan Atkinson comedy sketch where, as I recall, he played the devil addressing various groups who have not made it to Heaven. Reaching the atheists and agnostics, Atkinson remarks: "And a right bunch of Charlies you must be feeling."

Meeting the characters involved in the team brings home the harsh personal consequences behind February's funding U-turn.

This is not quite the sporting equivalent of those City of London bankers who you sometimes hear about being fired on the spot, handed a bin-liner in which to place the contents of their desk and escorted from the premises - but it is not so far off.

"To be so blunt and out of the blue like that - mid-season, a new coach, all stuck in Europe [at a variety of water polo clubs] until the end of May was," Winstanley-Smith says, "ridiculous".

Take team manager Graeme Thompson, whose reward for his role in helping to upset the world champions is, he confirms, to be made redundant next Wednesday.

Britain's victory over world champions Spain should lead to a rethink by UK Sport ©Getty Images



Not that he was letting that detract too much from the moments after the final whistle had blown.

"I'm extremely proud of the girls," he told me before leaving for a post-match team meal at Jamie's Italian.

"Immense pride. They deserve it. They have worked so hard.

"But it is horrible to think that the full funding stops on May 6.

"UK Sport needed evidence. I don't know what other evidence you can have but to beat the world champions.

"I can just see the result, see the pride these girls have.

"They judged them before. Well judge them now!"

Having scrutinised elite funding policy in some detail since February, my own personal conclusion is that a fundamental mistake was committed in the euphoric aftermath of London 2012.

This was to set a needlessly taxing - public - target for Rio of becoming the first nation in recent history to be more successful in both Olympic and Paralympic Games post hosting.

In Olympic terms, this means winning 66 medals.

It is a tall, though not quite impossible, order of, in my view, questionable benefit to the country - particularly when you consider that sports deemed unlikely (rightly or wrongly) to add to the medal haul, such as water polo, are being cut loose, in spite of substantial progress and their potential to create impressive role models for young men and women.

There was succes earlier this month for England's women when they won their first ever Commonwealth Water Polo Championships gold ©Brian Battensby



Since team sports typically offer fewer medals and are expensive because of the personnel required, it seems to me inevitable, moreover, that team sports will struggle to justify investment in an environment where Olympic silverware has been allowed to become the be all and end all of elite sports funding policy.

"It takes time to develop team sports," says Winstanley-Smith, a South Shields native, playing in Lille, northern France, who strikes me as just the sort of role model Britain needs, but who is now thinking of going to New Zealand.

"It is not just that we need different investment criteria for team sports. We need a better understanding of what it takes to build a team over four years.

"Being in a team gives you a role. It gives you something to believe in. You laugh together and cry together. Everyone should be able to experience that."

Tuesday's win is not quite the end of the road for this team which, by the way, representing England, also won gold in the Commonwealth Water Polo Championships this month.

They have also qualified for the European Championships in Budapest this summer, although the shock over their loss of funding can hardly have helped preparations.

"We are 100 per cent going to the Europeans," goalkeeper and captain Rosie Morris told me while dancing a little jig that I initially attributed to the elation of victory, but which turned out to be a side-effect of her having been selected to provide a doping sample.

"But after that there is massive doubt because there is no funding."

It seems to me self-evident that UK Sport needs to use Tuesday's landmark result as a pretext to have another re-think.

Frankly, the victory also raises questions over British Swimming's decision last month to pursue an appeal against the withdrawal of funding from synchronised swimming, but not water polo.

You may find it hard to believe, but Britain is a historic power of Olympic water polo, ranking second in the all-time medals table, behind Hungary, with four golds.

The last of these was won at the Antwerp Games of 1920.

Tuesday night's impressive performance suggests it should not be beyond the bounds of possibility for a British team to return to the Olympic water polo podium at the Games marking the centenary of this last gold medal, in Tokyo in 2020.

But it needs UK Sport to acknowledge its mistake and restore its support.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed here.