Here at Magic Spongers, we’ve never been ones to shirk the challenge of launching a stream of invective at anyone/thing we feel needs a dressing down, John Sitton-style. Well my attention was drawn to an article Mark Bright wrote for the Metro earlier in the week and the hair dryer is going to well and truly come out as a result.
Brighty is one of the glut of ex-pros who gets a decent amount of media run outs these days for his remarkable ability to state the bleeding obvious, usually not so eloquently. It’s a decent gig for Brighty and he seems like a decent enough bloke to boot. But what riled me into QWERTY bashing this afternoon was that the Metro ‘FFed’ this today: ‘@MarkBrighty for being a legend.’ That was all it took for the red mist to descend over this Yorkshire blogger. A cursory glance at the ‘legend’s’ Twitter page shows that he has 17,701 followers. That we have less than 1% of this figure (114 at the time of press), I have to admit to suffering from slight Twitter envy. But I digress. The ‘legend’s’ article. Firstly, I want you to read it. You’ll find it here.
And now I am going to rubbish the entire article as the type of systemic dross pedalled by ex pros whose lack of footballing insight never fails to stagger me. Brighty opens his piece with a controversial assessment: that players in his day were better than today. Interesting, I thought. Let’s see why Brighty thinks this is the case. It appears that he has based this claim on the fact that a) there were better strike partnerships in his day and b) Kevin Davies is in the England team. Ok, let me address these points in turn. Firstly, how many teams play a traditional front two in the English top flight these days? There are no Rush/Dalglish or Sharp/Gray duos because the vast majority of sides are playing a 433/451 variation. That isn’t to say that the Premier League does badly for strikers though is it. Drogba. Rooney. Torres. Anelka. Van Persie. Tevez.
Now to his second point. Brighty takes the Michael here, in essence. He suggests England have been calling on the services of Davies for years and yet his era had an abundant of wealth in this department, something he would know all about – Bright struck a hugely respectable 113 goals in 286 games for Crystal Palace but never played for England. But this is hugely disingenuous. England called Davies up for the Montenegro Euro qualifier during an injury crisis and he came on to make his debut as a second half sub. At the age of 33. No, Davies wouldn’t have got in the England Euro 96 squad. But he barely squeezed into the last England squad, at a time when there is hardly an embarrassment of riches up front for the national team.
Brighty then completely loses track of his central point. He mentions the £26m Man City paid for Milner. And? What does this have to do with anything Mark? Oh right. Absolutely fucking nothing, that’s what.
His next point made me laugh. Players aren’t as good now because they listen to music on the team bus and all play their PSPs and Wiis in their spare time. Meanwhile, back in the good old days, Brighty asserts: “The hours spent on the coach travelling to games, all we talked about was football 24/7.” Weren’t playing on your PSP Brighty? No? Because for one, they hadn’t been invented. And while we are talking massive sweeping generalisations, you were all probably slouched over your 10th can of Special Brew, wiping the fag butts off your tracksuit.
Finally, and this is the real deal-sealer for Bright’s argument, he declares that Glen Hoddle, Graeme Souness, Neville Southall, Alan Hansen, Billy Bonds and Paul McGrath would walk into their respective Premier League side now. Yes, they would Mark. Very few would disagree. By the same token, Didier Drogba, Rio Ferdinand, Cesc Fabregas and Michael Essien would walk into their respective side 15-20 years ago. So would Nicolas Anelka, Gareth Bale, Ashley Cole, Charlie Adam, Luca Modric, Steven Gerrard, Florent Malouda, Darren Bent, Pepe Reina… I really could go on here. A child of six could come up with this drivel. “Pele would walk into any side these days Daddy.” “Yes he would.” *End of argument*
Brighty does, however, neglect to mention the following players in his Metro piece, who were all capped for England in the ‘glory days’ he cites: Carlton Palmer (18 caps), Andy Sinton (12 caps), Geoff Thomas (9 caps), Earl Barrett (3 caps), Brian Deane (3 caps), Keith Curle (3 caps), John Fashanu (2 caps) Andy Gray (1 cap), David White (1 cap), Mel Sterland (1 cap)... fucking hell, this is too easy.
Brighty’s article is a load of crap for the very reason that so many so-called pundits who get their jobs purely on the basis of what they could do with their feet and not what comes out of their mouth: they are stuck in a time warp where 442 with a big, target man is king; you could get away with GBH on the pitch and not get a booking because it was a ‘man’s game’ back then; there are too many foreigners, bla bla bla. It isn’t just Brighty; there is a LOT of deadwood out there ‘informing’ our opinions on the beautiful game. It wasn’t so long ago that Alan Shearer was telling us that ‘no one really knows a great deal of him,’ when introducing highlights of Hatem Ben Arfa, following the Newcastle v Everton game. Really Alan? A lad capped eight times for France? Former young player of the year in Ligue 1? Oh well. It’s not like it’s your job to know these trivial things Al… oh.
Former players in this country seem, on the whole, unable to raise their commentary above the level of amoeba. Rob has covered it on these fair blog pages before and it remains a maddening bugbear. Brighty’s stats spoke for themselves on the pitch. Fair enough. But punditry? I was sick as a parrot after reading that execrable mess.
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