Like the England football team entering a major world championship, there is always the hope that a new test to differentiate Parkinson’s disease from atypical parkinsonism will be successful. Unfortunately, and in keeping with the soccer analogy, several of these tests have often failed at the quarter final stage! In the paper by Abdo et al¹ (see p 1367), a remarkably simple clinical test is described that may be useful in making this differentiation. In this test, the patient is asked to take 10 consecutive tandem steps along a straight line without walking aids or support. …