Magic Spongers

Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right

2012-01-24T11:55:00.004Z

"Why always me?"

Over the past 10 days or so, the Premier League and its orbiting media bodies have seen fit to dispense with perspective like a grown man discarding some raggedy old fleece he used to have as a student, and concern themselves with as little football as possible. This has been a great shame, because there was a lot of football over the past 10 days or so and some of it was very good indeed.

But more than ever we were treated to delirium in the stands and in the press as Mario Balotelli stamped on Scott Parker’s head before scoring an injury-time penalty winner. Two new rules were also invented by some angry people; namely the ‘Vincent Kompany rule’ (fictitious) and the ‘Glenn Johnson rule’ (believe it or not, also fictitious), which conveniently can be used to either excuse a dangerous course of action that was punished, or justify a dangerous course of action that wasn't.

This is not to get at any fans in particular, before anyone starts – there’s been more than enough written, entirely correctly, about persecution complexes and tribalism among ALL football supporters.

Rather, it should be said that attention on the game’s rules and regulations and their judicious application by officials has now reached such saturation that I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised to see 60,000 turning up at Southwark Crown Court to brandish imaginary copies of UK tax regulations at ‘Arry Redknapp. The only reason this didn’t happen was likely because tickets weren’t made available, but as a result of this potential untapped market it would scarcely be a shock to see Southwark Crown Court build an extra tier on the gallery and install bucket seats for the counsels, before being bought out by a mysterious conglomerate, moving itself to an out-of-town shopping centre, then filing for administration and going bust by 2017. With ‘Arry at the 'elm.

But I digress. Vociferous demands for consistency on decisions by referees abound, but basically there is precious little that can be done about the issue, short of getting rid of the human capacity to make mistakes altogether, and we’ve all been on that particular ‘introduce technology’ merry-go-round long enough. Clamouring for referees not to make mistakes is completely pointless, because, like the Magic Spongers rule that every girl should at least accept ONE drink if you’ve been nice enough to offer, it depends on the circumstances, is completely unenforceable, and generally ends up far worse if you push it.

You can’t ever guarantee that two people will interpret the same thing in the same way. Refereeing is inconsistent because it relies on the individual split-second interpretation of a human being. Consistency across matches is therefore even more elusive - there's no way of guaranteeing the exact same response to each of the hundreds of incidents in every single fixture. Let's also bear in mind that the only human beings who ever try and be remotely consistent with each other are people who are trying to get away with something. Oh, and David Cameron and George Osborne. Although that’s essentially the same thing.

In short, it’s impossible.

But no matter to the poor persecuted in the stands. I might be a bit sour from listening to five minutes of ‘606’ after ‘Super Sunday’ (yes, I feel dirty) but the continuing application of prior perceived ills or slights to a succession of what, in truth, are isolated incidents is at best pointless, and at worst completely and utterly fucking pointless.

There is no conspiracy against anyone’s club. Referees are just about as fit for the job as they possibly can be (if you really want some officials to complain about, get yourselves down to League Two, or if Bushby is to be believed, Bootham Crescent every other week). They see as much as one man with two working eyes can reasonably be expected to and, if we’re being honest, are probably individually very consistent. Beyond hauling them in front of the cameras after every match to be berated over a split second moment they probably can’t fully remember anyway, but has been pored over by people in a studio for 25 minutes, there isn’t much more they can do than make sure they know all the rules and apply them to what they see happening on the pitch. You want to vilify them even more, fine. But there won’t be any referees left if this growing obsession continues.

Contentious decisions certainly aren't intended to personally insult any particular member of any particular football club. Referees generally do ok, I reckon. But, as the proverb goes, even if you can keep your apples when all about you are losing theirs, you can pretty much guarantee some moron will still start chucking onions around, my son.

You can’t begin to apply another person’s interpretation of a tackle to a completely different tackle. You can only apply the rules of the game. ‘If you look at the Vincent Kompany sending off’ is not a sufficient piece of reasoning, because according to half the universe, and likely the person making the argument, the ‘Vincent Kompany sending off’ wasn’t a sending off. It was a decision that had to be made, and lo, it was made, so it’d be nice if we could all just move on and accept that contention is going to be part of every match because we’re all too partisan to know any better.

‘But think how much is riding on the games’, you might argue. ‘Some of these decisions are worth millions of pounds’. Well exactly. If ever there was something indicative of what might be causing all the sodding problems, that argument is precisely it.

English Jobs for English Workers

2012-01-21T11:07:00.001Z

'What competition?'

Handing you over to a man who has obviously read the Magic Spongers blueprint - filing a piece months late - here is the ever-excellent Dan Forman on a still pertinent issue

In October last year (for it has taken me this long to get round to writing this piece) those of you without access to the Times website (or unwilling to pay a pound for the paper) may have had the misfortune to miss this fine, considered piece of sportswriting from Mike Atherton.

Around the same time you may also have had the misfortune to be listening to Talksport when Jamie Carragher was asked about the next England manager, which was what prompted the Atherton article. For those still too tight to pay to read it, Atherton rather more articulately explained and supported the basis of Carragher's argument than Jamie had managed - that international sport should be about the best of one country against the best of another's - players and coaches included. So, naturally, the players and the coaches should be, in our case, English. Carragher even went one stage further, to include all members of staff: "The best doctor in the country should be the England doctor, or whatever." Which, on the face of it, and lack of eloquence aside, sounds fair enough.

But the logical conclusion of this starts to sound a bit odd. Should the England manager's secretary by English? The coach driver? The tea lady? "The best tea lady in the country should be the England tea lady, or whatever". Maybe just whatever, Jamie. Clearly the tea lady has less of an influence on a team's performance than the manager. But in an age where we are constantly told that it is the one or two per cent margins that make the difference in high-level sport, where would this line have to be drawn? If the doctor has to be English but the doorman doesn't, what about the sports psychologist, masseuse, video analyst or chef, if all these things can be said to have an impact on performance worth investing in? Would it apply just to the senior national side only or all the way down through the youth age-group teams?

Of course a lot of this is splitting hairs, but the point is that it is not quite as simple as it sounds and that it would not really be much different if the manager was English but the FA used its financial might to surround him with the best coaches and support staff from around the world. Bryan Robson, for example, backed up by Jose Mourinho drawing up the tactics, Pep Guardiola taking training and Sir Alex Ferguson giving the team talks.

Beyond all this, some more fundamental problems remain. The first of these is, like it or not, EU labour law. As it stands, and is likely to remain, it would be illegal for the FA to restrict its search only to an English manager. Accepting the fact that this is what it is unofficially highly likely to do in the summer, it could not institute a published policy or issue an advert as such. It could ask for a fluency with the language, experience of developing English players and a track record of success in the Premier League, but on all these criteria Arsene Wenger would have an open and shut case for discrimination were he to be overlooked in favour of Alan Pardew, say.

On top of this comes the unique UK situation in which we have four nations competing in international sport within what the rest of the world (and ourselves when it suits us) sees as one country and two within one island that many see as one country. When we say English, do we really mean British? Would that include Catholic Northern Irishman Martin O'Neill? And what would be the Carragher position if Chris Hughton or Mick McCarthy became a potential England manager (don't laugh - they're not that far down the pecking order)?*

Furthermore, would this be a Fifa-imposed rule or something only adopted by the FA? Aside from the legal implications within the EU, Fifa is unlikely to want to restrict developing countries by barring them from bringing in international help. So we are left with what would be a self-denying ordinance in England (albeit one most likely to be shared by a few other of the larger, footballing nations). An FA which is pretty much prepared to spend limitless amounts of money on its national team, flying it first class, putting it up in the best hotels and employing a travelling army of support staff, would be refusing to do the one thing that would make the single biggest short-term difference; buying in the best possible manager.

Honourable? Maybe; but inconsistent too in a country quite willing to cheer Kevin Pietersen centuries or Manu Tuilagi tries. Sensible in terms of pursuing success? Almost certainly not.

And here we come to the real issue. The quality (or lack of) of English candidates. For no English manager has ever won the Premiership or Champions League. In fact, in the last 30 years, you have to have been called Howard or Ron to be English and have won a league title and there are no leading managers called Howard or Ron anymore.

We do have a Harry and a Roy, though. One has taken a team into one Champions League campaign and had one famous victory over an Inter Milan side that also lost away to Chievo that month and later lost 5-2 at home to Schalke. He also scraped past AC Milan last year (as did Palermo in the Coppa Italia) before going out 5-0 on aggregate to Real Madrid in the quarter-final. And yet we are told Harry Redknapp (for it is he) will be able to better organise England than a man who has won seven major league titles with four different clubs, as well as a Champions League (and has also beaten Inter Milan a few times too).

This season, Spurs are certainly challenging and - who knows? - may even go on to win the league. But it is just as plausible they will slide down the table (they still have to travel to Man City, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea, as well as face Man Utd at home) and finish outside the top four. That would make Redknapp not much better qualified for England than John Gregory - whose Aston Villa side led the league at Christmas 1998 before slipping down to sixth. Perhaps the most likely outcome is that Tottenham will stay roughly where they are - in the Champions League spots without ever really threatening to take the title. Well that sounds quite like David O'Leary, who finished fourth and third in the Premiership with Leeds and also has a Champions League semi-final on his CV. But somehow that didn't stop Ireland appointing Giovanni Trapattoni as their manager.

Roy Hodgson probably has more of a proven and sustained track record than Redknapp, certainly so if the spending splurges at Portsmouth and Spurs are taken into account. Hodgson has managed Inter to seventh in Serie A and to a Uefa Cup final - and a series of clubs and national teams to similar moderate success. But he conspicuously failed to motivate Liverpool last season in the same way that Kenny Dalglish has managed, or challenge for honours as Gerard Houllier and Rafa Benitez did before him. A good man (unlikely I suspect to ever appear in court on tax fraud charges) and a good manager who deserved more time and better circumstances at Anfield. But an England manager? Not unless Graham Taylor and Steve McClaren are your archetypes.

Other than it being illogical, illegal and self-defeating then, an English manager would be a great idea, or whatever.

* for those too young to remember the 1988 European Championships** both represented the Republic of Ireland despite being born in the East End and Barnsley respectively

** It was much the same as most other England efforts at major tournaments - we qualified well, hopes were high but were hopelessly out of our depth and came home empty-handed having lost all three games in the group stage. Holland, however, were quite handy that year.

Podcast Episode 4 - Wayne Bridge is SO selfish

2012-01-19T11:19:00.001Z

The podcast is back! And just like it's never been away, this week features a brief catch up, corruption at FIFA, Wayne Bridge, 'Wilman's Big Headers' and... just some other stuff too.

Just click the arty picture. Lovely.

Don't You Know Who He Is?

2012-01-13T13:29:00.001Z

'How long left? 88 minutes?!'

In true Spongers style, we celebrate the return of the Premier League by looking back at some FA Cup stuff from about six days ago. Sort of.

Here’s a little joke for you. There are these three pieces of string, right, and they’re trying to get into a club which doesn’t allow pieces of string inside. They’ve tried every combination, they’ve swapped jumpers, they’ve been round the block and come back twice. One gets fed up, so he’s going, ‘Leave this to me lads, I’ve got an idea’. So he ruffles up his hair, right, and swans up to the door with his arms folded. And the bouncers go, ‘Here, aren’t you a piece of string?’. And he goes, ‘No, I’m afraid not’.

Here at Magic Spongers, being unable to get into clubs is a familiar enough experience. Normally, (the joke’s finished now, by the way) we like to try that most familiar short straw of desperate celebrity, ‘Don’t you know who we are?’ And every time, despite educated guesses including ‘them off Planet of the Apes?’ and ‘Jedward’s uncles?’, people don’t have a sodding clue.

I don’t pretend there’s any excuse for this. In fact, general Spongers policy states that it’s pretty unforgivable. Just imagine if that was your attitude on the football pitch though. ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ JUST IMAGINE.

Well you don’t have to imagine. You can just go back to the Manchester FA Cup derby match (and further, if you like, to the Manchester United-Newcastle match) and plainly see part-time editor and Twitter aficionado Rio Ferdinand behaving in exactly this manner for more or less the entire time.

Now, I’m not saying that Ferdinand is necessarily finished. I know he’s coming back from injury and I know he’s 33, and he might now be injured again for United’s game with Bolton. But he has been the main culprit in a United defence that without Nemanja Vidic has been a massive cause for concern.

And a main culprit that has been completely unable to recognise his culpability. On countless occasions, the camera zoomed in on Rio giving someone else an absolute shellacking as the ball was recovered from Row Z for a City throw-in, having been booted there in panic by a defence about as composed as Adam Bushby after three pints.

He’s played against two very different strikers in these past two games. Against Demba Ba and Newcastle, Ferdinand and Phil Jones (who has also been woeful of late, by the way) struggled with the striker’s physicality and barely won a single header. Against Sergio Aguero, Ferdinand was terrorised by the Argentinean’s pace and movement, dithered around like a child on his first day at school and seemed to think he could get by because he’s still ‘really good at passing’ and ‘bringing it out from the back’. Which he wasn’t.

When he was injured before the 2010 World Cup, some wag (me) opined that such was his injury record, we might not see him play for England again. One appearance in 2011 was enough to technically prove me wrong, but that technicality cannot mask the fact that Ferdinand is far from the same player. Injuries have done for him. Compare his return with that of Steven Gerrard – who might not have the legs anymore, but has lost none of his impact on his team mates. With Gerrard, you appear to get leadership, drive and goals. With Ferdinand, you get bollocked for a mistake that wasn’t even necessarily yours. It's like you've spent months and years working hard to become the best apple you can be, and then some former apple now reduced to an onion starts screaming in your face that YOU'RE the onion and he's still an apple, even though from your apple pie vantage point you've seen him in a savoury soup VERY recently indeed.

He will likely still play a role for United, and a valuable one at that. With a run in the side he’ll probably recover some form too – and it’ll help that he’s not playing two strikers in season-defining form every week. But the attitude seems all wrong, and detrimentally so. On this evidence, he is well past it and his attitude belies the fact that he probably feels it too. Can you sustain a league title challenge with a brittle defence, the most senior member of which (as he struggles to recover his form) is the footballing embodiment of ‘Don’t you know who I am?’? Sorry Rio, I’m afraid not.

The Road to Contrition

2012-01-04T15:33:00.001Z

Disappointed by this, Dan Forman imagined this [pours on fuel, lights match, stands back...]:

Having had the appropriate time to consider the FA's full report into Luis Suarez, Liverpool FC would like to make the following statement:

We accept the FA's findings in full and also accept the suspension from football given to Luis which we will not appeal. While we would legitimately have had the opportunity to further consider our response and delay the suspension, we think it is only right that to avoid any impression of 'playing' the system that the ban should begin with immediate effect.

Internally we have also spoken to Luis in the strongest terms about his choice of language and fined him the maximum two weeks' wages. However, as he makes clear in his own statement below, Luis has already offered to make a much more substantial sacrifice than this which we fully support.

We do have some concerns about the FA's handling of this matter as we have made clear privately to them. These relate to the manner of the investigation, hearing and punishment and the precedent it sets for future incidents. However we do not wish to elaborate any further publicly on these as it would be inappropriate to distract attention from the fact that Luis made a serious mistake for which he has rightly apologised and rightly been punished. Neither do we want our concerns to be seen as in any way about the treatment or singling out of an individual player or club. Rather they are concerns about the nature of future FA investigations that may affect any player or club.

But far more important than football and its internal administration is the ongoing issue of racism in society. We in the city of Liverpool and those of us involved in the club from the US need no reminding of the sickening effect of racial segregation, discrimination and abuse. That is why this club has taken such an active part in anti-racism initiatives and why we are so proud of the small part we have played in improving attitudes and behaviour over the years. That is also why we will step up our efforts in this regard and work with all of our staff, including and especially those we recruit from overseas, to be aware of the cultural and linguistic sensitivities of the UK and remind them of their place as role models in society.

To this end we have also reflected on our immediate response to the charge and punishment brought against Luis. As a club we supported him fully through this process as it was only appropriate to do so given our duty of care to him as an employer. We were also keen to explain the cultural background to the incident and to reaffirm that Luis is unequivocally not a racist. However on reflection we deeply regret that our support for Luis may have allowed the impression to emerge that we did not take the basic charge against him seriously or, even more damagingly, that we do not take the issue of racism seriously. This was never our intention and is absolutely not the case.

Particularly we have reflected on the decision to wear supportive T-shirts before the match against Wigan. While we fully understand the squad and management team's desire to show solidarity with their friend and colleague - and that they as well as anyone know the person that Luis really is - this was clearly a mistake and a matter of serious regret for the reasons outlined above and for which Liverpool FC would like to unreservedly apologise.

Luis Suarez added:

I would like to re-iterate everything the club has said above. I am not a racist - as I am glad the FA have recognised - and am deeply saddened that this label has been in my view unfairly attached to me by some.

Nevertheless I made a terrible mistake in my choice of language - albeit in the heat of the moment - and deserve to be held to account for it in and of itself and also as a role model to others. While, as I argued at the hearing, the word 'negro' has an alternative meaning in Uruguay, it was wrong to use at the time and it is my responsibility as a resident of Britain to be aware of this country's cultural norms, particularly in an area of such sensitivity.

Let me once again apologise to Patrice Evra and anyone else who may have been offended by my actions. As well as accepting the FA's punishment I have also volunteered to donate my wages for the period of the suspension to the brilliant Let's Kick Racism Out of Football campaign and, while continuing my training, will also be volunteering in inner-city youth projects to learn more about their community cohesion work.

I would like to thank the club, my fellow players, my friends and family and the fans of Liverpool for their support during this difficult time. But can I also call on everyone to now unite around English football's fantastic anti-racism work and try to move on from this unfortunate episode, for which I take full responsibility. While the rivalry between our great clubs will always endure, the last thing I want is for relations between Liverpool and Manchester United fans to sour or abuse of any kind to be directed at a fellow player.

Bobby Zamora, Gambling and the Light at the End of the Tunnel

2012-01-03T17:28:00.004Z

"No admiral hats for you two LOL!"

It was with not only itchy feet, but a heavy heart that I watched Arsenal succumb to their very special brand of spontaneous combustion at Craven Cottage. The Bobby Zamora 90+2 minute winner cost me £2,000.

Ok, it didn’t cost me £2,000 in the literal sense of the word. But it did mean that, down to the final 33 in Paddy Power’s Last Man Standing competition (no we aren’t getting any money for the advertising), I needed an Arsenal win or the draw to progress, more than likely to the final dozen or so. Now I know that even our most hardened of fans will care not - or will even take some perverse joy from this misfortune - but I had promised to buy myself and Rob admiral hats if I won. A pair of beautiful admiral hats. Because that’s how we do things at Magic Spongers; with a bit of panache. And Bobby Zamora, which wasn’t what I called him last night by the way, doesn’t even know that he shat all over two grown mens’ dreams last night.

In my last piece for this blog, I took the unprecedented step of forgiving Gary Neville. Bobby Zamora, you will have to wait your turn.

Although not technically a Saturday – it was a Monday – yesterday, the footballing God, or 'Life' as he will be known herein, actually contrived to lose me the princely total of around £2,076. Added to the fact that Bobby Zamora wasn’t happy with what would have been a fair point, Life decided it was perfectly equitable for Aston Villa to lose at home to Swansea and Shrewsbury to draw with Northampton. I say ‘decided’ because this is how I dole out my vitriol while watching Jeff and the boys of a Saturday (except yesterday, which, as I mentioned earlier, was a Monday).

“Well done Life,” I said as Wayne Routledge scored Swansea’s second at Villa Park, voiding my accumulator containing Charlton (won), Sheffield Wednesday (won) and West Ham (won). I thought Wayne Routledge had retired? But I still had my other accumulator, didn’t I. The one with MK Dons (won), Swindon (won), Torquay (won) and… “OH CHEERS LIFE.”

With the impeccable timing of a grade A bastard, Life does this to me EVERY SINGLE WEEK. Essentially, Life sees fit to dangle a princely, wallet-boosting apple in front of me - rather like a carrot, if you will - before whipping it away from my grasping hands and replacing it with an accumulator-busting, rage-inducing, worryingly smelly onion. And it's the same one every week, so it really stinks these days. And I know I aren’t alone. Across the country, Life is busy merrily throwing onions / pissing on the chips of punters like me by finding it acceptable to see Dagenham & Redbridge beat Gillingham, or making Michael Chopra shoot narrowly wide from 10 yards out as Ipswich sink to a 1-0 defeat.

Saturdays in front of Jeff can be joyous, heartwarming and soothing. An afternoon spent with Hartlepool’s most beloved son is akin to meditation, albeit meditation that costs me (in real terms) in the region of between £10 and £15 every week as Life deals me 90+5 minute equalisers by Robert Snodgrass to literally cost me £58 (December 10) or snidey little 89th minute winners by Peter Odemwingie to cost me £81 (December 17).

But what’s this? Crawley to beat Bristol City at 6/4? MK Dons to draw with QPR at 9/4? Southend to beat Port Vale at 5/6? How can I resist such odds? £44.69 off a £3 bet? I’m having some of that. Now go, please, save yourselves. I know my fate. I was the one that chose it.

On Gary Neville and Forgiveness

2011-12-20T15:45:00.002Z

Gary Neville kisses a badge and the world shits itself

Adam Bushby hates Gary Neville. Or does he?

Let me make something absolutely clear. I am not seeking the forgiveness of Gary Neville. If anything, this piece is about applying some fundamental rules of the New Testament to football and, perhaps more specifically, how these rules relate to someone who I once hated. ‘Hated’ of course in the ‘footballing sense’, which is to say ‘dislike severely’, but not ‘to wish sudden death upon’. Hate in a vacuum, if you will. With the hatred dissipating Monday Night Football by Monday Night Football, something curious happened in December 2011. I learned to forgive Gary Neville.

For the sake of clarity, I’d better sum up my position. I’m a York-born York City fan first and foremost but I had a strange relationship with them during the mid-90s to mid-00s and throughout that time and since the age of 7, also supported Liverpool. Which I still do. Liverpool fan equates to ‘hates Manchester United’ as we all know. And not for show either. I do really, really hate United. Hate in a vacuum, of course, but still, it’s a real feeling. United have haunted my adult life. And a really unpleasant ghost too, if there is such a thing as a pleasant one. Snide. Arrogant. Privileged. Girls at my school would support United. They didn’t know anything about football but they’d ‘support’ United. United won everything. United fans were everywhere. And it really fucked me off.

Central to United’s success in the way that Richard Hammond is central to Top Gear’s was one Gary Neville. Always there, wasn’t he. Like the bully’s smaller, weaker mate. Gary Neville loves Manchester United. For that reason, I hated him. When he ran half the length of the pitch to dementedly start touching up his badge, I threw an orange at the TV screen in the pub. I don’t even know why there was an orange on my table. My only regret is that it wasn’t an onion. A big fuck-off onion right at his stupid ratty face.

So you get the gist. When Neville was unveiled as a Sky pundit at the tail-end of last season, my heart sank. “OH GREAT, SKY. JUST GREAT. NOT JUST A TOSSER BUT THE MOTHER OF ALL TOSSERS. THE MOTHERTOSSER.” I can just about deal with the ineptitude of your Redknapps and Townsends. Your Mersons and your McInallys. But Gary Neville? It was like being told I was going to be read bedtime stories as a kid by the local pederast. My favourite thing ruined by a very bad person.

I didn’t think much about Gary Neville over the summer. But when the season started up again in August, sure as onions is onions, there he was. Bumfluff monstrosity intact. But, in the words of the genius, Jarvis Cocker, something changed. With every passing week, Neville was saying things and I was fighting every sinew to not say, “he’s right you know”. And the things Neville was doing with that touch-screen were putting Andy Gray to shame. Week after week I was finding myself not only agreeing with Neville’s assessments, but being actively impressed by his observations. Whisper it but, oh God the shame, he’s actually quite likeable. In short, Neville was doing the job a pundit SHOULD do, but had been either too lazy or stupid – or both – to do.

All of this came to a head before the Chelsea v Man City match. I tuned in around 7 as there wasn’t much else on. There was Neville, eloquent, touching his screen with the poise of veteran. His dissection of the problems Chelsea’s defence have been having this season was excellent. He explained why a high defensive line had been bad and how one further back was stronger. And then, for the piece de resistance, he showed us all how you stop David Silva, by highlighting the exceptional marking of Lucas Leiva.

Gary Neville, and please bear in mind this is in spite of myself and I feel more than a little grubby, Gary Neville is showing everyone how punditry should be done. It may be that it’s Christmas, or it may be that I’m going soft, but Gary Neville, I forgive you.

The Runs #5: Sheffield Wednesday 1974-76

2011-12-15T10:24:00.002Z

Assigning two men to 'not look at the ball' against Man United was a bad start

Over to Chris Ledger from the outstanding Obscure Football. Read this, then go there.

During a football season, there’s a point when certain statistics start to become interesting. A player’s first goal or appearance of the season may sound banal in August, but in March or April its intriguing quality tells a story about that player. However, there’s also the reoccurring statistic of a team failing to win away from home all season.

This usually happens to the more unfashionable clubs, think of Coventry City or Grimsby Town: those that rarely achieve anything better than a late push for the playoffs. These sorts of teams often struggle in the league; it may only be their home form that staves off the threat of relegation. You may see Jeff Stelling, during the penultimate or last weekend of the season, claiming that they’ve finally won an away game, but sometimes this unwanted run remains unbroken.

There’s the inevitable disappointment and gallows humour associated with a scoreless draw at Gigg Lane, a hapless defeat at Ashton Gate, a last-grasp equaliser by Hereford United at Edgar Street and an occasional thrashing at Oakwell. One season is bad enough but imagine if your team did not win an away match, in the league, for nearly two years and a total of 36 matches. That’s right: nearly TWO YEARS, during your club’s darkest hour.

Such a thing happened to Sheffield Wednesday in the mid-1970s – a run that started after a 1-0 victory at Southampton on 28 December 1974 and somehow lasted until a 1-0 win at Reading on 16 October 1976, to be precise. In hindsight, and to be perfectly fair, it was clear such a run was coming. The 1973/1974 season, in particular, should be seen as a catalyst for Sheffield Wednesday’s sharp decline in form.

That season had started fairly ordinarily and the Owls seemed to be safe in mid-table as, by the beginning of October, they were 13th in the Second Division. Such a position was fairly typical under the stewardship of Derek Dooley: apart from the occasional peaks and troughs in form, the Owls were stuck in mid-table mediocrity.

However, a nine-match winless run – brought on by a mystery virus that led to the Public Health Department fumigating the Owls’ showers, toilets, and dressing and medical rooms – meant that Wednesday’s league position plummeted. By the beginning of November 1973, the club was in 18th place and, by early December, it had slipped into the relegation zone. Subsequently, Wednesday’s greatest ever player, Dooley, was sacked on Christmas Eve, of all days.

Dooley was replaced by rookie manager Stephen Burtenshaw, formerly QPR’s chief coach. Although, thanks to Ken Knighton’s goal against Bolton Wanderers, the Owls managed to narrowly avoided relegation, an 8-0 defeat at Middlesbrough in the 1973/1974 season’s penultimate game was an early warning sign. The club was also facing financial difficulties as they had made a £102,000 loss on the previous season, despite a £47,000 donation from the Development Fund.

Few could have predicted how badly the 1974/1975 season went, though. Not only were Wednesday relegated to the Third Division for the first time in their history, but they started two runs after their fifth and last league win of the season at The Dell. One was the aforementioned winless run away from home; the other was a 20-match winless run, lasting until they defeated Wrexham on 6 September 1975. To make matters worse, in the last 17 games of the 1974/1975 season, they lost all but three of their games and scored just two goals.

There were several reasons behind the runs: most notably, the sale of influential midfielder Tommy Craig to Newcastle United in December 1974. The club’s supporters were also unsettled; attendance figures rarely peaked beyond the 15,000 mark during the 1974/1975 season and, a season later, these figures declined further, regularly dipping below 10,000. Despite the best efforts of the Sheffield Star’s ‘Save our Owls’ campaign in January 1975 – which tried to encourage more fans to attend matches – morale and finances were at an all-time low.

The inept Burtenshaw wasn’t blameless either, as his inability to decide upon regular partnerships in defence and attack ensured that he was as bumbling as Peter Eustace and Alan Irvine. For instance, during the 1974/1975 season, he used six different players at right back and seven at left back, as well as four players in five different combinations in the two centre-back positions. Meanwhile, up front, he used 13 different striking combinations, with only one of these lasting more than three matches. To highlight how much Wednesday struggled in attacking positions, their two top goalscorers during that season – Eric McMordie and Tommy Craig, who even then only scored ten goals between them – left the club in mid-December 1974.

Unsurprisingly, it was more of the same in the Third Division. By September 1975, Burtenshaw departed Sheffield Wednesday after a poor start had left them 17th in the table. And, rather inevitably, when things couldn’t possibly get any worse, they did. Step forward, Len Ashurst. The former Hartlepool United manager – whose coaching schedule seemed to largely consist of runs in the moors and military-style roll calls – certainly didn’t make a good first impression.

Another hopeless run, this time consisting of one win out of 14 matches, ensured that the Owls were rooted in the relegation zone by January 1976. They eventually escaped relegation to the Fourth Division, via a 20th-place finish, but the away run continued. During the 1975/1976 season, they failed to register an away win in the league after losing 13 matches and drawing another ten. However, it must be said that a number of these draws were scoreless at the likes of Shrewsbury Town and Halifax Town. Although the Owls conceded 34 goals in 23 away games – which is fairly respectable for a side that finished in the bottom five – they only scored 14, highlighting the extent of their toothless showings in the final third.

Thankfully, during the 1976/1977 season, Jeffrey Johnson’s winner at Elm Park ended the Owls’ near 22-month winless run away from home and their league form began to improve. Although Wednesday only registered seven away wins during the 1976/1977 season, they achieved an eighth-place finish and Ashurst’s overhaul of the club’s youth policy benefited Jack Charlton and Howard Wilkinson during their spells in charge. From the mid-1980s to the late-1990s, Sheffield Wednesday were a regular fixture in the first tier of English football, though history has repeated itself in recent years with financial problems and struggles in the third tier. But, despite this, it’s unlikely they’ll ever repeat this away record from the mid-1970s:

L, L, L, L, D, L, L, D, L, L, L, L, L, D, L, L, D, D, L, D, D, D, L, D, D, L, L, L, L, D, L, D, L, L, D, D.

The Runs #4: Macclesfield Town and the Ince Effect

2011-12-13T13:12:00.002Z

"HOW MANY defeats?"

Over to Spongers' own Rob MacDonald, who couldn't even manage to stick to the blueprint and just write about one run.

The joy in supporting a team that seldom achieves is rarely the accolades or silver pots. It’s the sublime and often accidental skill, the flashes of inspiration amid the darkness and brutality of potato patch pitches and lower league football; the fleeting moments when the impossible dream seems almost possible.

Most of these would be impossible without the framework of lower league angst. And so it is that the greatest 42 seconds (approximately) of the careers of most Macclesfield fans was the pinnacle of a great run, but one that followed what is possibly the worst run IN HISTORY. What is fondly remembered as the greatest of all the Silkmen’s ‘Great Escapes’ – and we’ve had a few – actually constituted a phenomenal six-week run of form leading up to an FA Cup tie with Chelsea, after which something resembling normal service just sort of resumed.

This is, in fact, more a tale of two runs: the dreadful, rank onion of defeat followed by the gleaming, precious apple of achievement. A perfect juxtaposition, you might say.

At the end of the 2004-05 season, Macc were losing semi-finalists in the League Two playoffs, having finished fifth. Not a bad result for a team perennially tipped for relegation, but certainly nosebleed-inducing heights that it proved impossible to replicate the following year, when Brian Horton struggled without now-famous foodie (but back then, goal machine) Jon Parkin. The painfully familiar experience of needing a win on the last day of an indifferent season was softened slightly with a 3-2 victory at Bristol Rovers, but this would be Macc’s last league win for… erm… exactly seven months. It was their last win under Horton. It was their last win for… *rubs eyes*… 213 days (and some of these might have been over the summer, but just wait for the form guide).

Macclesfield’s performances from the start of the 2006-07 season (21 games in all competitions – 18 league, one league cup, one FA Cup, one JPT):

L, D, L, L, L, L, D, L, L, L, D, D, L, L, L, L, D, L, D, D, L

Horton lasted just 13 of these, departing shortly after the ninth ‘L’ of an increasingly desperate start. Ian Brightwell stepped in, but eventually Paul Ince arrived to much fanfare, only to oversee two more defeats and two draws. But then, Macc FINALLY won a game. Unfortunately, it was away at league leaders Walsall in an FA Cup first round replay, making it possibly the least useful distribution of resources since Adam Bushby decided to purchase some expensive ‘lucky pulling pants’.

Even more uselessly, it didn’t help the Silkmen’s league position either. At that moment, Macc were unsurprisingly rock bottom in League Two, with a grand total of six points from 18 games. They’d conceded 20 goals at home and 15 on the road. The other side in the relegation zone, Boston United, had 16 points. Safety was 11 points away on October 25th, with Ince’s first point achieved from a 1-1 draw away at Stockport. You could have been forgiven for thinking things were finally looking up, but then blindingly good winger Simon Wiles, just arrived on loan from Blackpool, got absolutely clobbered and was stretchered off.

You could have been forgiven for thinking things at least couldn’t get any worse, but then centre back Andrew Teague and goalkeeper Jonny Brain collided while stretching to clear a dangerous cross, breaking each other’s legs and presenting County’s Adam Proudlock with not only the ball, but an open net in which to put it.

You could have been forgiven for thinking things at least couldn’t get any worse once more, but then centre back Jimmy McNulty, later immortalised in TV series The Wire and at that point a contender for player of the season, broke his leg in training. Macc were still 10 points adrift. And now had almost no centre backs.

Another POINTLESS victory in the FA Cup followed at home to Hartlepool. STOP WASTING OUR RESOURCES, INCE.

Only he wasn’t. After Macc made it into the hat for Round 3, they stayed there almost until the end of the draw. With four teams left, Ricky Hatton pulled out number 10. Chelsea. With three teams left, Amir Khan pulled out number 50. Macclesfield Town.

(As a personal aside, I can safely say no one saw this coming. I know this for two reasons. Firstly, I was at home and had a) forgotten Chelsea were still in the draw and b) had already been chastised by the neighbours for screaming when we equalised against Shrewsbury then cursing when we lost it in the 92nd minute, so was pointedly ignoring things ‘just in case’. It didn’t work. Secondly, it was my job to run the Macc Town website and when I rang club captain Dave Morley for his reaction, he was in the Trafford Centre watching the draw through the window of a branch of Dixons.)

This moment changed the entire season. Improbably and impossibly, a Football League victory subsequently arrived. The rest of football might have thought Macc were finished, but only this club can go into their 22nd game of the season without a victory, lose ANOTHER centre back to injury, have a man sent off in the 38th minute, score in the 52nd and then ‘defend resolutely’ for the rest of the game. Apparently, Chelsea was a good carrot.

An exceptional carrot. A carrot so exceptional it could have been mistaken for an apple. One win became two in a row away at Notts County, then eighth in the table. Three games unbeaten after a 3-3 draw with Accrington became three wins in four with a 2-1 home win over Swindon Town, then fourth in the table. Victories at Chester and Torquay made it six wins from seven in all competitions. A win at home to Lincoln City on New Year’s Day made it six wins from eight unbeaten in the league, eight wins from 10 unbeaten in all competitions.

Macc had finished November 2006 rock bottom with no league wins at all and with just seven points from 19 league games. They ended the first day of January 2007 with 26 points from 26, finally off the bottom and only three points from 18th place. One of the most abject runs in history became an incredible sequence of results practically overnight.

And then there was Chelsea. While the record books show a 6-1 thrashing, the memories will always be of the absolute pandemonium following John Murphy’s equaliser. I distinctly remember being half hugged, half punched in the face and almost thrown off the top tier of Stamford Bridge. Which would have been a completely acceptable way to go, because that was the moment – the fleeting glimpse, the outpouring of quite ludicrous hope that having gone unbeaten for a preposterous six weeks, Macc might actually stay up.

The comedown, of course, began almost immediately. Frank Lampard scored Chelsea’s second within seconds of the restart and we were mortals again. Though at half time it was only 2-1, the second half was more of a procession as keeper Tommy Lee was sent off and Morley went in goal (though Shevchenko STILL couldn’t score).

Macc were back in London a week later, losing 1-0 to Barnet as the comedown continued. Six wins from 20 and three consecutive defeats left them needing to better Boston’s result on the last day. A draw at home, while Wrexham beat the Pilgrims 3-1 completed the greatest of all great escapes, but one achieved amid a far more familiar run of form and last-day mathematical scenario.

It would be ridiculous to suggest that this familiarity has bred any kind of contempt for what Macc achieved under Ince. It’s probably a bit disingenuous, too, the fact that I’m aligning the jubilation following Murphy’s goal at Chelsea lasting just 42 seconds with the run that kept us up lasting ‘only’ six weeks.

Things did just sort of ‘go back to normal’ after that absurd month, but it was that normal reality of Macc’s existence – and that of many lower and non-league sides – that made them such ridiculous achievements in the first place. The club might not have the most glamorous identity, but it makes those flashes of the impossible made possible all the sweeter.

The Runs #3: Arsenal's Invincibles (and the fundamental nature of humanity)

2011-12-08T10:06:00.000Z

Some might-have-beens, May 2004

Over to the ever-superb Dan Forman (@dannyforman) for a look at Arsenal's Invincibles and the very fabric of fandom...

What does it say about the mindset of the modern football fan that I felt slightly flat at Highbury on 15 May 2004? My team had just completed an unbeaten league season, an extraordinary sporting accomplishment by any standard. Perhaps it hadn't "sunk in yet". Perhaps it was so unusual that it was too hard to comprehend. But perhaps [insert pompous cod psychoanalysis here], football can never make us truly happy.

Of course I was pleased; proud; vindicated in a belief that such defensive robustness as an unbeaten season requires could be accompanied by a glorious attacking verve (indeed that the two can be self-reinforcing); and I was more than old enough to realise that this was a feat unlikely, at least by my team, to be repeated in my lifetime. But a part of me was disappointed.

It may have been that it was - outside of its historic context at least - a mundane game. A 2-1 home victory over already-relegated Leicester City was routine, marked only by a 20-minute period in which we were behind to a Paul Dickov goal and during which it felt possible if not probable that we might not do it after all. But the game itself was never likely to do justice to this achievement. The players were tired and preparing almost to a man for a major championship. They, like the crowd, just wanted it to be over with, the record secured and the celebration to begin. And then, when it was, things felt a bit underwhelming.

The main prize had already been won three weeks previously with a thoroughly entertaining 2-2 draw at Spurs. There were no mixed feelings about that. Securing a league title at the ground of your neighbours is about as good as football gets. But after that we rather limped over the unbeaten season line: 0-0 at home to Birmingham, followed by 1-1 at Fratton Park (where we had reached a sublime peak in the FA Cup a few weeks previously) and a 1-0 win away at Fulham preceding the Leicester game. It was a curious mixture of the kind dead rubber ennui you often get at that stage of a season and a nervous desire to clinch the invincible accolade that meant we played, in Arsene Wenger's phrase, "a little bit with the handbrake on".

All of which meant that the historic game at Highbury was nowhere near as euphoric as the derby, despite the comparative long term significance of the two games: A record for the ages (or so we thought) versus what at the time felt like 'another' Arsenal title, our third in six years.

But broadly, and ridiculous as it sounds, even a team that had just completed an unbeaten campaign still had plenty to regret. That team was so good, so consistent, so balanced, so powerful and so strong in all positions that it should have won more both in that year and others. We were kicked out of the FA Cup in a Villa Park semi-final by a disgraceful performance from Man Utd (with Keane and Scholes' tactics in midfield at least showing they had no ambitions of out-playing us that year) that should not have gone unpunished but did. That could have led to a third successive Cup, a run that should have been extended to five when and if 2005's triumph and Stefan Henchoz's absurd 2001 goal-keeping performance are included. Similarly 2004 should have been the third in a hat-trick of league championships with Arsenal having surrendered the 2003 title (with a draw from the jaws of victory at Bolton and a loss to Leeds) to an inferior United side in a foreshadow of our mental frailties to come.

But the bigger prize was and is the Champions League and we will never have a better chance to win it. We'd done well in a quarter-final first leg at Stamford Bridge, coming away with a 1-1 draw that looked like a solid platform for the return. But the away goal turned out to be not as crucial as the cliché suggests. Perhaps still bruised from the Villa Park battering at the weekend, Arsenal were uncharacteristically lacking in confidence in front of goal and it took a scrambled Reyes strike to go ahead. Then a mistake by Jens Lehman allowed Frank Lampard a trademark 10-yard toe-poke and we were clinging on when Wayne Bridge (Wayne Bridge!) danced through our defence to slot home. The semi-final would have been against Marseille and a likely final against Jose Mourinho's Porto, both well-organised but far from our standard or that of usual European Cup winners.

Greedy? Certainly. Ungrateful? Of course. But perhaps that is partly what makes us football fans. It is in the very nature of sport not to be satisfied, to always have another target or to have wished to have done more. None of which is to say that it wasn't wonderful. No-one who had the misfortune of seeing David Hillier and John Jensen in midfield just 10 years previously would ever think otherwise. And at 8-2 down at Old Trafford in August I would have willingly given a limb for an unbeaten run of four to nine games, let alone 49. And yet the pessimistic streak still cries out to be heard, calling for the closest a professional football team has ever come to perfection in this country to be improved upon. And yet, and yet, and yet... Even the Invincibles are what-might-have-beens.

The Runs #2: Jon Dahl Tomasson 1997-98

2011-12-02T10:39:00.000Z

Presumably not scoring a goal here

For the second in our 'Runs' series, it's over to Michael Hudson (@DolphinHotel) of the rather exceptional Accidental Groundhopper - and it's Jon Dahl Tomasson's spectacular bad luck / loss of form that gets the treatment.

Jon Dahl Tomasson played for Stuttgart and Villarreal, won a Champions League medal with AC Milan, netted a record-equalling 52 goals in 112 appearances for the Danish national side, finished among the top scorers in both the 2002 World Cup and 2004 European Championships, and hit the goal that took the UEFA Cup to Feyenoord. He also, as football commentators never tired of reminding us, played one season at Newcastle United. Where he was absolutely shit.

That said, things started promisingly for Tomasson at St James’ Park. Nicked from under the noses of Sunderland – where he’d made a one-off training ground appearance in the BBC’s unintentionally hilarious Premier Passions – he was signed as a foil for Alan Shearer, the two combining to great effect as the Magpies won a four-team pre-season tournament at Dublin’s Lansdowne Road. Playing in the hole behind the England skipper, Tomasson scored twice as Newcastle beat PSV Eindhoven on July 15th, adding a further goal in a 2-1 win at Birmingham City the following weekend. On the 26th afternoon of the same month the Dane opened the scoring in an Umbro Cup game against Chelsea played at Goodison Park. The same day though, Shearer ruptured his ankle ligaments turning for the ball and Kenny Dalglish sold his erstwhile strike partner Les Ferdinand to Spurs. Forced into service as an emergency centre forward until Shearer eventually returned in January, Tomasson’s Newcastle career was officially screwed.

Vomiting in the tunnel before the first game of the season wasn’t a good sign. Neither was the sight of the Dane – visibly cacking it – squandering a one-on-one after just 90 seconds of the opening day defeat at home to Sheffield Wednesday. Physically and mentally ill-suited to the task of leading the line, Tomasson resembled one of those kids who turns up fully kitted out in the hope that a last-minute spate of injuries will see him called out of the stands to play. Based on some of his early performances up front, the kids might even have been an improvement.

Alongside Faustino Asprilla as the Colombian scored a hat-trick in a Champions League game against Barcelona, Tomasson didn’t score himself until the first afternoon in November, a ‘Disco’ Des Hamilton shot brushing against his arse and trickling across Leicester City’s goal-line in a three-all draw at St James’ Park.

“It was definitely Des Hamilton’s goal,” left-back John Beresford remembered in an interview with nufc.com. “I think it was Peter Beardsley who suggested we should credit it to Jon-Dahl because he was going through such a bad time”.

The first intentional strike of Tomasson’s Newcastle career came in a 1-0 League Cup win at Derby County on November 18th, over three and a half months since his pre-season goal at Goodison. On the 29th of the same month, a shot with less power than an insult from David Cameron was just about enough to earn a 2-1 victory at Crystal Palace (Newcastle’s last win in London for four years and 29 games until a 3-1 triumph at Arsenal in December 2001). With Shearer still two weeks off a playing comeback, Tomasson’s fourth and final goal in a black and white shirt came in an away defeat at Sheffield Wednesday on January 10th. Before the month was out, the equally hapless Andreas Andersson had been signed as his replacement.

Voted Dutch Footballer of the Year just weeks before he moved to England from Heerenveen, Tomasson ended his short time in a Newcastle shirt with a tally of just four goals in his 35 appearances. In July he signed for Feyenoord where, playing in attacking midfield, he scored 16 times as the Rotterdam club won the Eredivisie and the Dutch Super Cup. A fine player, of that there is no doubt - but also the owner (through no fault of his own) of one of the more disastrous runs of form to grace the Premier League. Bad luck, Jon.

A Tale of Two Centre Halves

2011-11-29T13:22:00.000Z

"HIS KNEES AREN'T AS BRAVE AS MINE"

Though one series has ended and another since begun, this corker from Sam Macrory deserves your undivided attention.

Two decades ago, two schoolboys from East London lined up together in a youth football team and swept all before them. Just three months apart, the older boy played centre half and the younger in midfield.

The former was tipped for greatness from the start, and soon left Senrab FC to sign for a Premier League club, where he was fast-tracked into the first team at just 19 years old.

The latter also signed for a Premier League team, but after struggling to make an impression was sent out on loan to a lower division club. An offer from a rival lower-league team was then was accepted, only to collapse due to a failure to agree on personal terms.

A decade on, one of these players has clocked up over 350 first team appearances, won 71 England caps, has captained his country, and lines his mansion with a full set of domestic medals.

The other has played 100 fewer games, won just 21 caps, and has a solitary league cup medal to show for the same amount of time in the game. And yet, the less celebrated of the two was hailed by no less a striker than Thierry Henry as able to “get the ball off you without you even noticing… [he’s] the only defender here who doesn't hold onto you, and he sometimes still gets the ball off my feet easily.”

Step forward Ledley King, the best centre half England hardly had, and John Terry, a man whose career has benefited enormously from the failure of his one-time teammate at Wanstead Flats to fulfill what was expected of his.

King emerged as a holding midfielder during George Graham’s short tenure as Spurs manager, making a man-of-the-match debut in a 2-1 home win over Liverpool. A few torrid seasons of marshalling the likes of Anthony Gardner and Gary Doherty followed, with King emerging as the outstanding defender of his age group: powerful, elegant on the ball, and phenomenally fast. Watch this tackle on Arjen Robben, one of the quickest players around at that time, for an example of all his attributes rolled into one. He seems to captain the team in virtual silence, yet when he plays lesser defenders like Michael Dawson, Younes Kaboul and even the never predictable Sebastien Bassong grow alongside him. In his many absences, more of which later, they often fall to pieces.

As for Terry, his failure to break into Gianluca Vialli’s Chelsea team meant his loan spell with Nottingham Forest was very nearly followed by a £750,000 move to Huddersfield Town. So what did Steve Bruce, then Huddersfield manager, see in a player deemed surplus to requirements by Vialli?

“It was a cold miserable afternoon and I saw John Terry in his short sleeves, rolling his shirt up. I thought, 'Christ, he'll do me at Huddersfield. I like him’.”

Rolling your sleeves up, it seems, can get you a long way when you’re playing with more refined players. Over the last decade Terry has had the incredible good fortune of playing alongside defenders as good as any in their generation: Marcel Desailly, William Gallas, and Ricardo Carvalho for Chelsea, and Sol Campbell and Rio Ferdinand for England. It’s certainly a long way from Gary ‘ginger Pele’ Doherty, and where Terry apparently trumps King, as well as all other footballers, is through an asset which seems to make up for any footballing failings he may have: bravery.

Watch him risk a braining here as proof – not the type of tackle which King has ever attempted - or look at this muscle-flexing show of machismo as Terry makes clear who is in charge. He shouts and barks his way through games, bullying referees, teammates and opponents. The approach seems to have helped him get his way both on and off the pitch, with former team-mate Claude Makelele claiming that Terry was behind the sacking of manager Jose Mourinho, and his cuckolded former teammate Wayne Bridge finding out the hard way that when John Terry offers a shoulder to cry on he has something else in mind. The fall-out of his falling out with Bridge saw Terry stripped of the England captaincy, but the whole sorry affair was just one of a litany of misdemeanors which began with the drunken taunting of US tourists in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks – and at present, of course, the Chelsea centre-half finds himself accused of on-pitch racism.

Of course, it would be overly generous to paint King as a full-time saint to Terry’s constant sinner. An apparent inability to hold his drink has ended in more than one embarrassing night out for the Spurs captain, as King blames his ceaseless injury frustrations as the reason behind his thirsty misdemeanors. However, the softly-spoken centre half has singularly failed to divide opinion as much as his Chelsea counterpart.

At international level, King made his debut for England in 2002, with Terry following a few months later. At the 2004 European Championships King started against France, shackling an Henry at his peak in another man-of-the-match performance. He then returned home for the birth of his son, allowing Terry to take his place for the rest of the tournament. From then on, Ledley King has watched the irrepressible rise of John Terry as his own career stutters onwards.

Shortly before the start of the 2006/7 season, King suffered a knee injury in training. A broken metatarsal followed and King played less than half Tottenham’s games that season. An operation the following summer left King on the sidelines for the first half of the following season. By the start of the 2008 campaign, a regular pattern had emerged, with King’s famously cartilage-free knees meaning he trains alone, if at all, can manage one game a week at best, and frequently succumbs to unavoidable niggles and strains. And yet, when he plays, Tottenham invariably play better. Consider this: in the 56 games King has played under Harry Redknapp, Spurs have won 75 per cent. In the 98 he has missed, the win ratio falls to just 35 per cent. And all that without pre-seasons or training with his teammates.

Martin Jol describes King as the most gifted centre half he has worked with, while Redknapp went as far as to compare him to Bobby Moore. Fabio Capello decided it was worth taking him the World Cup in 2010 even if he couldn’t train – and King predictably retired hurt half way through England’s first game. Midway through the current season, King is notching up more games than expected and Tottenham sit third in the table. The twist is that if doesn’t make it to 20 full matches, he may well find himself released by his club. He admits that he feels he is playing at around 70 per cent of his potential, with every game completed a bonus: King’s knees are now so damaged that he is unable to play park football with his son.

Terry, on the other hand, managed to extract a £150,000 per week contract from his club following suggestions he would join Manchester City. But with the lumbering Alex and eccentric David Luiz now charged with bailing the self-styled Mr Chelsea out of trouble, his paymasters may now wish they had spent the money more wisely.

Gianluca Vialli may not have been the greatest judge of centre halves – he signed Ramon Vega for Watford after all – but if that sale of Terry to Huddersfield had gone through then its easy to imagine that brave JT would have slogged his way through a lower level of football and remained firmly stuck there without any world-class teammates to lift him any higher. At the same time, if Ledley King had knees that worked, then England could have been looking at a decade of a centre-back pairing of King and Rio Ferdinand – Alex Ferguson might have liked the sound of that too – which could have been the envy of the world over. I wonder if Ledley ever looks back on those Senrab days and reflects on the glittering career which his one time team mate has gone to enjoy. He might feel that he has been ever so slightly cheated; English football certainly has.

The Runs #1: York City 2003-4

2011-11-25T11:35:00.001Z

Chris Brass presumably enjoying the first four games of the season

We have a confession to make, Rob and I. We've got lazier in our old age so series are easier to do than write proper articles. So, true to form, here is Spongers' own Adam Bushby kicking off our new series with a quite remarkable winless streak.

The 2003/4 season in England is best remembered for Arsenal’s ‘Invincibles’. Thirty-eight games unbeaten and a Premier League title. Twenty six wins and 12 draws. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s impressive, if in an obvious way. But I tell you what is more impressive. Gaining just 16 points between November 22 and the end of the season. Sixteen points. (Clamouring from soapbox) SIXTEEN. From 27 games, between end-November and May. I tell you what is more impressive even than that. Not winning a game from January 10 to the end of the season. NOT ONE. And these things happened that very season at the other end of the pyramid.

It had all started to go very wrong for York City back in December 2001 when long-serving tosser Douglas Craig put the club and Bootham Crescent up for sale. It’s easy to forget now, being the Barcelona of the Conference as we are, that City were a whisker away from folding in April 2002. The club’s saviour was to be none other than John Batchelor, armed with delusions of grandeur so great they make Rob MacDonald’s laughable pulling efforts on a Saturday night look respectable. A pillock of such epic proportions that even the mild-mannered Jeff Stelling had a pop at him on Soccer Saturday on learning he wanted to buy Mansfield Town. But alas, this piece is about a very specific period of shitness and so back to the main plot.

City, remarkably, began the 2003-4 season with four wins from four, beating the to-be-promoted Huddersfield in the bargain. Automatic promotion was a given, of course on this sort of form. Indeed, after the first 20 matches, York had the decent return of seven wins, eight draws and five defeats – play-off form. I chose the first 20 games because that number is to be significant in the second half of this piece. We expected to be treated with apples in the 2003-4 season. Lots of them. But what we got was an oniony nightmare.

Player-managed by 27-year-old Chris Brass – the eagle-eyed of you remembering that 27 is the amount of games between November 22 and the end of the season that York amassed the grotesque and measly sum of 16 points – for whom one moment of buffoonery is infinitely more telling than I ever could be. For those who have never seen this own goal scored by Brass while playing for Bury, sit back and enjoy.

Again, back to the plot. A 2-1 defeat against Northampton at the Sixfields Stadium on January 17 began a run that would be punctuated by gross ineptitude. Indeed, York never scored more than one goal a game throughout this and the next 19 matches. Twenty games – remember I said 20 was to be significant, yes you do – pockmarked with shit football, led by a man who would later go on to score an own goal by twatting the ball into his own stupid face and breaking his own nose. A dreadful, nightmarish season where we would lose 4-1 to both Lincoln City and Kidderminster Harriers, and most embarrassingly of all 2-0 at home to Macclesfield Town (as any lower league football fan will tell you, the single most horrific fate that can befall your club) on a SUNDAY.

And thus it were so. Relegation to the Conference. A horrible place where former distinguished football league clubs go to rot. York have been in these doldrums ever since. Trips to Histon and Salisbury in recent years serving only to reinforce the haunting presence of former glories. A brief glance at the league tables of the 2003-4 season, however, did offer a chink of optimism. To highlight how quickly a side’s fortunes can turn, consider that York drew home and away with now Premier League side Swansea that season. Consider current League Two favourites Crawley Town, sat in second place at the time of writing, finished the season as champions of the Southern League (the precursor to the Conference South). Every action has an opposite reaction though of course. 2003-4 Conference champions Chester City sadly folded in March 2010.

There’s scant consolation being relegated with 44 points though (a total that would have kept us up in 1997/98, 1999/00 and a season later). Not when I think back to that hideous 2004, which at least saw the back of Brass who buggered off in November.

So for all you Arsenal fans who think you have it hard, or for the Chelsea lot who think they are in ‘crisis’ right now, here is real pain. Here is real unpleasantness. Here is York’s final 20 games in all its grisly W/D/L glory: L,L,D,L,L,L,L,D,L,L,D,L,L,L,D,L,L,L,L,D.

*Special thanks goes to this unofficial Boston United site where I found my upsetting, if necessary, Division 3 results.

A Run For All Seasons

2011-11-23T13:05:00.003Z

Jordan 'Rhodes of Goals' Rhodes

Quite a big thing managed to sneak under the radar this week, presumably as the radar itself was either straining to measure superluminal neutrinos, or joining the rest of the football universe in providing repeated shots of England’s Brave John Terry either falling over or looking contrite. What was happening, in actual fact, was that Huddersfield Town were putting the finishing touches to the most unlikely run since Adam Bushby went for a run.* A shining and magical apple obscured by all the oniony inadequacies of Super Sunday and Gary Neville’s David Luiz/Playstation joke. Well, no longer.

Jordan Rhodes scored twice as the Terriers beat Notts County at the Galpharm on Saturday, making it 43 league games unbeaten and moving them ahead of Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest (so presumably even the County fans didn’t mind too much) in the all-time not-being-beaten list.** And this, in case you hadn’t noticed, is pretty remarkable stuff. When was the last time you did something 43 times without messing it up at least once?

You reckon you’ve put your socks on flawlessly on 43 consecutive occasions? Don’t think so. You made a brew 43 times without once thinking ‘this tastes a bit shit, this one’? Dream on. You’ve enjoyed success every time you’ve tried to catch a hamster the last 43 attempts? Seamlessly opened a bag of crisps 43 times? NO YOU HAVEN’T. NO ONE HAS. STOP LYING.

Huddersfield have made it through 3,870 minutes of league football (excluding injury time) without losing once. This not only breaks Clough’s 33-year-old record but moves Lee Clark’s side to within six games of equalling Arsenal’s Invincibles record of 2003-04, which should Huddersfield reach it will probably see Steve Claridge mumbling incoherently and irrelevantly about how great Old Big’ead was and another few pieces churned out about Wenger’s former greatness and future departure.

Now admittedly, Huddersfield aren’t top of League One as a result of this remarkable run and it’s almost as if that, along with racking up 18 draws on the way, is somehow not quite as big a cause for celebration. They might not be the most fashionable side – and we speak as fans of Macclesfield Town and York City, before you all go off on one – but this achievement deserves the utmost respect. And for some reason it has had precious little. Maybe it's because Huddersfield’s run has come over consecutive seasons unlike the season unbeaten that Arsenal achieved. But as Clark himself acknowledges: “It’s a phenomenal achievement in any team sport to go so long without losing and it shows we have something special going on here.”

Following a 4-1 defeat at Southampton on December 28 2010, these 43 unbeaten games have taken in 25 wins in regular league matches, as well as the aforementioned draws. They have also unearthed a gem of a manager in Lee Clark, as well as a young Scottish striker called Jordan Rhodes whose scoring record is – and get a load of this – 48 in 98 for Huddersfield since 2009 and six in six for Scotland’s under-21s THIS YEAR.

And if ever there was a case for a blend of youth and experience, then look no further than the inclusion of, for a start, forgotten 10-club man and former ‘next big thing’ Danny Cadamarteri (remember him?!), now 32. Fellow journeyman Joey Gudjonsson (ex-Villa, Wolves, Leicester and Burnley, 31) and former Scotland international Gary Naysmith (46 caps for Scotland, 33) also give the side a very early-noughties Premier League feel.

While Clough and Wenger received plaudits and column inches aplenty for their achievements, Huddersfield’s phenomenal run was marked quite unfairly, given that it hasn’t even ended yet, with what looks to us like quite a shit little plaque. And should the run now come to a halt, this takes the heat firmly off us for drawing attention to it and places it firmly onto Npower for commemorating it in plaque form. Nice one, Npower.

If Clark and his players wish to receive another more momentous plaque in a few games’ time by chasing down the Invincibles’ record then first they must overcome perhaps their sternest test of the run yet; Charlton away on Monday. The fixture at the Valley pits first versus second and Charlton are in fine form themselves, racking up two 4-0 wins in the league in October, as well as spanking Preston 5-2 a few weeks ago. However, it would be worth considering Huddersfield won this fixture 1-0 back in April thanks to a goal from Gudjonsson.

Should Huddersfield keep the wolves from the door until at least the end of the season and manage to keep hold of the much-coveted Clark, then promotion to the Championship is a very real prospect. Consecutive play-off defeats in the 2009/10 and 2010/11 seasons (semis and final respectively) haven’t knocked Clark’s confidence or diminished his belief in employing an expansive and attractive style. Hopefully in seven games’ time Clark and Huddersfield will have beaten the odds and be awarded the exposure their truly remarkable achievements deserve.

Please note: this piece is a precursor to yet another series set to launch soon imaginatively entitled ‘The Runs’.

*April, 2002 since you were wondering.

**Not its official title

What If? #5 Everton in the 80s

2011-11-10T11:11:00.001Z

The fifth installment of our What If? series sees Spongers' own Adam Bushby look at the impact the five-year European ban had on the great Everton side.

After convening for an emergency session in Switzerland on June 2 1985, Uefa chiefs issued a statement that would have immediate and lasting consequences: English clubs were banned from Europe, indefinitely. At Goodison Park in particular, home as it was of reigning First Division champions Everton, the news was greeted with anger and dismay. Following the tragic events a few days earlier at the crumbling Heysel Stadium in Brussels, the sentiment was pretty much universal; enough was enough. Thirty nine Juventus fans went to a football match that day and never came back. The European showpiece between Liverpool and the Bianconeri will forever be remembered for events that happened in the stands, rather than on the pitch, and set in motion much-needed introspection as an English disease threatened to become a Europe-engulfing epidemic.

Heysel was the nadir of course, but English football had already been shamed that year by the Kenilworth Road riot on March 13, when Millwall supporters tore the ground to bits. A month later, a 14-year-old boy was crushed to death at a game between Leeds and Birmingham, an event described by Justice Popplewell during the Popplewell Committee investigation into hooliganism as “more like the Battle of Agincourt than a football match”. To emphasise the scale of the problem, that bastion of common sense and thoroughly nice guy Ken Bates advocated the use of electric fences in football grounds. The Valley Parade fire on May 11 would claim the lives of 56 people, with a further 265 injured.

During the second reading in the House of Commons of the Sporting Events (Control of Alcohol etc.) Bill on July 3 1985, Hansard documents home secretary Leon Brittan as lamenting: ‘The series of appalling and shameful events in the second half of last season—at Luton, at Birmingham and of course in Brussels, and elsewhere — has shaken the whole nation.’

It came to pass that English clubs would be banned from all European competitions for five years; Liverpool for six. And so back to Goodison. On May 15, Everton got their hands on their first piece of European silverware, beating Rapid Vienna 3-1 in Rotterdam. They also won the First Division by an astounding 13-point margin ahead of their city neighbours, finishing up with 90 points, as well as being top scorers in the division by seven goals, and were only denied a famous treble by Manchester United’s Norman Whiteside in extra time in the FA Cup final. These were the days when Merseyside, and not Manchester, dominated English football. Since the 1980-81 season, the title had not left the city of Liverpool and it would not do so again until Arsenal’s epic win over Liverpool in the final game of 1988-89.

Which leads one to wonder what might have been during those five forlorn years, when English football was rooted firmly in the doldrums, left in the dark to finally get its house in order while on the continent Arrigo Sacchi took the plaudits, winning back-to-back European Cups with a Dutch-infused AC Milan side that would be considered one of the greatest of all time. With English football in the early and mid parts of the 80s so subjugated by the spectre of hooliganism, it is very easy to forget that it was English sides who had dominated Europe in the years prior to the ban. Incredibly, between 1976 and 1982, the European Cup didn’t leave English shores. In that time Liverpool won a hat-trick of competitions, Nottingham Forest won back-to-back big cups under Brian Clough and Aston Villa won their solitary European Cup. Liverpool then won it again in ’84.

It may be nothing but conjecture, but it doesn’t take such a leap of imagination to picture Kevin Ratcliffe lifting the European Cup rather than Steaua Bucharest’s Stefan Iovan in ’86 or Joao Pinto of Porto a year later. The Everton side of 1984-85 was a relatively young one with the experienced Peter Reid and Andy Gray added. To the younger generation, Reid may now just be an ageing man with the head of a monkey, famous for the amusing way he said Gerardo Torrado in the 2002 World Cup and selling his cup final medal to help save Plymouth, but he could really play. So much so that Reid was voted fourth best player in the world in 1985 behind Michel Platini, Preban Elkjaer and Diego Maradona. And Gray, when he wasn’t being sexist, was your classic British ‘put himself about’ striker, revelling in scoring spectacular diving headers. Add to those two the brilliant Neville Southall, England winger Trevor Steven, the ‘robust’ Welsh defender Ratcliffe, ball-winning foil to Reid Paul Bracewell, free-kick specialist and left-foot-wanded Kevin Sheedy and Scotland striker Graeme Sharp, and it was quite a side.

A season later, when Everton and the rest of England would be banned, Gray would be replaced by a young Gary Lineker, joint top scorer in the league with 24 goals the season before and who would finish the 1985-86 season with 30 and the Golden Boot. For that season and the next, Everton and Liverpool were head and shoulders above the rest of the First Division. Who knows what they’d have achieved in Europe. These were the days before the Champions League was a bulge in Lennart Johansson’s trousers which meant that anyone could draw anyone; there were no seedings. England’s unprecedented dominance in the late 70s and early 80s surely points to the fact that more European trophies would have been won during the years of the ban. And Merseyside could certainly have had their fair share.

But history intervened, and the great Everton side was broken up when ambitious manager Howard Kendall inevitably sought European football and joined Terry Venables as an Englishman managing in Spain, taking the Athletic Bilbao job. Kendall admitted to the Independent in 2010 that he ‘wanted Europe’:

‘I know it was a tragedy but in purely football terms I think that Everton suffered more than anyone. We were on a high, we'd just qualified for the European Cup and we wanted to prove we were the best. One of the biggest compliments was from Brian Clough during his commentary [on the Rapid Vienna game]. He said: 'On that performance, how long is this team going to rule Europe?’’

Highlighting the unfairness of the ban, Joe Ashton, MP for Bassetlaw, explained in the Commons: ‘A great deal of damage has been done to the image of football in this country. As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr Heffer) mentioned, when Everton went to Rotterdam, there was not a single arrest and nothing went wrong. To punish, or to suggest punishing, innocent people is something that the House should never condone. Yet all too often, when there is a fault, a crime or a happening at a football match immediately the cry is, "Punish everybody". The supporters of Norwich committed no crime. They were totally innocent. They had a perfect record and had never been in trouble, but immediately after the Liverpool problem in Brussels all English clubs were banned.’

The wounds were still raw in the blue half of the city, with David Moyes expressing characteristically blunt sentiments on the matter, telling the Mail in 2007: “It has taken us a long time to get back into Europe, in the 80s Everton were there all the time, but then through no fault of their own they were denied the chance to continue to compete at that level. We are now, after all these years, beginning to get back for this club what the fans have missed all these years.”

He added: ‘There is a bit of me that wants to tell people in Europe that they should not forget that Everton were champions of England, and but for the Heysel disaster they have been denied a chance to have a long run in Europe. People forget that and don’t understand what happened. Everton were unfortunate but I accept it was a tragedy that made football unimportant… What happened after Heysel changed lots of careers. Players and managers. Since then we have been watching from the outside and the club was denied the chance to grow and benefit from the money in European competition.’

Moyes had a very valid point. Everton’s history will always be inextricably linked to those tragic events that occurred at Heysel on May 29 1985. Paling into insignificance of course when compared with the deaths of 39 people, and as Moyes put it himself – ‘[Heysel] was a tragedy that made football unimportant’ – one nevertheless fights the urge to wonder what might have been in those five dark years.

No Spain, No Gain

2011-11-08T14:55:00.000Z

We give up lads, you can have it

The FA, who can always be relied upon to completely miss a trick, abjectly failed to take advantage of some joint marketing potential last month, scheduling England’s friendly with Spain for Saturday (which is in November) and not for the weekend of Halloween (which wasn’t). You can’t help but get the feeling that a festival now associated with horror and scary stuff would suit the World Cup winners, because quite frankly, their squad is downright terrifying.

Even more pertinently, the sexification of Halloween, which has somehow yielded a culture in which dressing as a sex worker covered in blood qualifies as a ‘costume’ (a ‘sexy witch’? Really?), coincides readily with the Spanish sexification of football, itself a pagan festival which has now descended into total overblown farce.

Oh happy coincidental metaphor. The case of Spain visiting England, however, is slightly different, for there is extreme beauty in this terror, and not only from the fact that England’s Brave John Terry is going to be given the bloody runaround by not only his own clubmate (currently unable to score at club level, cue hat trick at Wembley), but by some of the finest attacking minds in football.

A brief aside: Whether or not you believe Terry should be playing for England this weekend, you can’t deny the man has big brass balls. Big brass balls and completely misguided self-belief. The kind of brass-balled lunacy that has got him out of enough fairly unforgivable scrapes in the past, simply by virtue of being convinced that absolutely nothing happened. The kind of unrelenting, irrational, idiotic certainty that suggests if he really put his mind to believing it, there really could be an old man with a white beard freezing his tits off in Lapland this Christmas. Or that England could compete over the course of a tournament with this Spain team.

Spain’s squad for this completely meaningless friendly that they could probably win with a reserve XI has a reasonable case to be considered the strongest in international football. Like, ever. Look at it:

Casillas, Reina, Valdes;

Sergio Ramos, Arbeloa, Puyol, Pique, Jordi Alba, Raul Albiol, Nacho Monreal;

Xavi, Xabi Alonso, Sergio Busquets, Santi Cazorla, Javi Martinez, Fabregas, Iniesta;

David Villa, Silva, Torres, Llorente, Mata, Jesus Navas

LOOK AT IT. We might as well all just go home now. Upon reading that, only the following two responses are permissible: a) literally shitting the bed or b) weeping at the sheer sublime terror of it all.

This is the kind of squad that turns up at Wembley with Casillas badgering Vicente del Bosque to play up front like keepers ALWAYS do when it's going to be easy. 'Put Reina in net and me at centre forward boss. Just for 15 minutes at the end. PLEASE'.

This is also the kind of squad that has no room for Thiago Alacantra, Ander Herrera or Sergio Canales, for example, players that would be being rushed into Fabio Capello’s side a la Phil Jones, Chris Smalling and Jack Rodwell. And in that little nugget lies a further indication of its claims to be the greatest – the continuation. There might have been a Portuguese golden generation at the turn of the century (and a French one), a Brazil class of 1970, a great Dutch side of ’74, but this Spanish squad looks like it will just keep producing new Xavis (Herrera), new Iniestas (Canales) and so on ad infinitum.

Watching Spain’s under 21 side in the summer in Denmark at times was figuratively the equivalent of watching the violent and clinical death of English football. Death by a thousand passes. Terrifying. And beautiful. The side that beat Switzerland in the final comprised such phenomenal talents as Mata, Martinez, Herrera, Thiago, Iker Muniain and David De Gea. Consider this: Bojan Krcic (remember him) cannot even get in the under-21 squad.

Here at Magic Spongers, we’ve been saying for years now that England suffer from their high seedings in qualification and tournament finals, finding themselves bewildered when the first team offering any modicum of technical aptitude forces them onto a plane back to their ungrateful media. And we stand by that – the English national side need more realistic indicators of their station and everyone knows it (or should know it, WRIGHTY). But come on, Spain? SPAIN? At least let Lamps et al kick the Dutch or the Portuguese around the park for 65 minutes before losing 3-0. That would at least be fair.

As a preparatory game for a major tournament, this couldn’t be a more stupid choice. ‘Blooding’ young players here will be a catastrophe – look at how good Jordan Henderson’s been since his England debut against France. Senior players missing; John Terry ostensibly picked ON FORM. Micah Richards left out. If Capello and the FA are trying to manage expectations ahead of the trip to Poland and Ukraine – evident in their choice of hotel and training facilities – this could be the weekend that quashes them altogether. Which is no bad thing certainly; a more pragmatic approach to supporting Team England has always been the savant’s choice.

But full circle and back to Spain. Having just trashed the media’s propensity for hyperbole in this and many of our other pieces – 198 of the bastards, check them out – it’s time to be contradictory, for this is something that really does require some amplification. Take another second to look at that Spain squad again. It’s fucking astonishing, it really is. Never mind the fact that it will toy with England like a dog half-heartedly chewing a bone: cast your imagination ahead to next summer when those players take to the fields of Ukraine and Poland. In fact, never mind a historic third consecutive tournament win. This squad could just be the best one ever. Cherish it.

What If? Scotland's 1960s

2011-10-31T14:08:00.003Z

Jim Baxter becomes an 'unofficial World Champion'

Over to Magic Spongers' Rob MacDonald to lament the many and varied 'What Ifs' of Scotland's very own golden generation...

A famous anecdote about the Rangers midfielder Jim Baxter on international duty reads thus: As others bustled and clattered around the room he was, unusually, a study in concentration. He tapped the studs on the heel of his right boot idly, and exhaled slowly. The volume of the shouts, the barks, the back slapping increased. In the far corner, Denis Law was so flushed with intent it looked like he might explode. ‘Jim’, a voice said, over the cacophony of Celtic camaraderie. ‘Jim’, it said again. ‘You should warm up. It is England after all’.

Baxter lowered the pages of his Racing Post, and stretched his left leg out in front of him. He stretched his right leg,languid and disinterested. To the casual observer, the Racing Post exercise would have appeared the most strenuous of the three. He raised his eyes.

‘That’s me warmed up’.

This might have been big-game preparation capable of giving Sam Allardyce and the ProZone generation a heart attack, but back in April 1967 it inspired Scotland to end the then-World Champions’ unbeaten run of nigh on two years, and Baxter to stroll around Wembley like he owned the place for 90 minutes, finding time to (among other things) play keepy-uppy while wandering down the left wing.The World Champions dethroned, unofficially at least, leads one to speculate that nine months earlier, had it been Scotland qualifying from UEFA World Cup Qualifying Group Eight instead of Italy – who pipped them to top spot by two points – this particularly galling English defeat could have come in a World Cup semi-final.

The Italians famously crashed out of the 1966 finals at the hands of Pak Do-Ik and North Korea, the penultimate game of a group in which all the matches were staged at either Roker Park (Sunderland) or Ayresome Park (Middlesbrough). While a ferocious atmosphere engulfed the Azzuri, it’s hard to imagine that it would have favoured the Koreans quite so much if 18,000 Scots had mobilised to see their side so near the border, especially given that 30,000 pitched up at Wembley the following year.

Out the twice-winners went though, and on went North Korea to rub Scottish noses in it yet further by perfecting ‘glorious defeat’ before them and losing to Portugal in the quarters. Eusebio and company went on to lose to England in the semis and the rest, as they say, has been the founding principle of ill-conceived arrogance for what feels like 40 decades, rather than a mere 40 years.

Throughout the 60s – an era in which the home nations played each other every year – it was difficult to separate the English and the Scots. With the exception of a 9-3 humiliation at Wembley in 1961, Scotland were competitive throughout the decade. In fact, the ten games played from 1960-69 saw them win four, draw three and lose three. Matches were ferocious, with nearly 100,000 cramming into Wembley and crowds of nearly 135,000 packing Hampden to the rafters every other year. Away wins were rare and have since become classics – Scotland’s most famous in ‘67 was by three goals to two, though received wisdom suggests they could have had more; England won 4-3 at Hampden in the pre-World Cup championship of 1966 and the Scots gained revenge for the humiliation of ‘61 with a 10-man (with no subs, Eric Caldow – who broke his leg – couldn’t be replaced), 2-1 win at Wembley in 1963.

A decent side then, were Scotland. None other than Bobby Moore opined that the 1963 vintage was the best team the country had ever produced, including as it did not only Jim Baxter, but Dave Mackay, Ian St John, Denis Law and Willie Henderson.The class of 1967 also boasted Paddy Crerand and John Greig (and of course, Jimmy Johnstone, though he didn’t play at Wembley), but mystifyingly, the Scots failed to qualify for any major tournament that decade. It becomes an especially troubling notion for a Scotland fan when considering the fact that the period between these two famous Wembley victories – with the side arguably at its strongest – included the qualifying campaign for the World Cup in England.

The qualifiers proceeded in a fashion that has since become painfully familiar. Italy topped the group ahead of Scotland by just two points, beating them in the group’s final game in Naples – a game Jock Stein’s men had to win 12-0 if they were to progress on goal difference. A ridiculous margin, yes, particularly against a side that had only conceded three in its previous five games. You can almost hear Craig Levein saying "at least it's in our hands"... so near, yet so typically far.

This isn’t really worthy of a gripe. What is, though, is the fact that the Scots’ real undoing was defeat at home to Poland in October 1965, having already drawn in Warsaw and beaten Finland twice. Travelling to Naples needing only a point would have been an entirely different story given that the Azzuri had been beaten at Hampden only a month earlier. Most painful was being 1-0 up against Poland until the 85th minute, when two goals in quick succession whipped the wheels off quicker than you could say ‘I hope this doesn’t become habit’.

This five-point palm exploding heart technique of a result (Scotland laboured on, but they were done for) ended Scottish hopes and was compounded by what was rapidly becoming a very significant problem, namely raising their game only on certain occasions. While Bobby Moore may have remarked upon the quality of the Scots, he also felt it necessary to offer up a theory that no doubt really stuck in the craw:

“For so long their football was retarded by the belief that beating England was all that mattered. They used to drop numerous daft results against foreign teams because they never charged themselves up to play with the same heart as they did against England”.

Moore might have been onto something, but this is a charge that can’t only be levelled at the Scottish. They might have been fanatically obsessed with beating England, but they also suffered from a very British tradition at the time in which teams from Europe’s eastern reaches simply weren’t taken seriously.

The classic ‘raising of the game’ was indeed the issue – and a similar lack of inspiration can be traced right through to the modern national side: stirring performances against World Champions at Hampden undone by struggles against a below par Czech side, travails against Liechtenstein, defeat in Georgia and THAT miss against Norway*.

Failure to qualify for ’66 was the meat of failure between two slices of success for the Scots at Wembley. But the glorious victories, if in vain for all but domestic bragging rights, bookended a sequence of events that could also have been crucial to Scotland’s World Cup hopes.

Sir Alex Ferguson said that Jim Baxter’s performance at Wembley in ’67 ‘could have been set to music’. ‘Slim Jim’ also scored both goals in Scotland’s win in ’63 and no doubt a fit Baxter, such as the one who took to the field in their first qualifier in October ’64, would have walked into any of the country’s national sides before or since.

As it was, Baxter played in only two qualifying matches – that first 3-1 win at home to Finland and later, following a serious leg break in December ‘64, in the Hampden win over Italy as captain. Laid up injured for four months, Baxter found solace in drinking. Drinking a lot. His fitness suffered, as it would, and Rangers sold him to Sunderland in May 1965.

Doubtless one of Scotland’s greatest players, Baxter’s genius could well have guided his country to a World Cup in 1966. After all, with him ever present in ’62, they’d come perilously close, finishing joint top of their group before losing a playoff to the eventual tournament finalists, Czechoslovakia.

So rather than a single significant ‘What if?’ moment for Scotland at a time when their fiercest rivals flourished, the country can look back on a whole decade of them. What if they’d qualified in 1962? What if Poland hadn’t scored an 86th minute winner at Hampden? What if Baxter had stayed fit and England’s embarrassment on their own turf had come in a World Cup semi-final rather than a Home Nations Championship?

What if, indeed. It’s a question that has led the way in Scottish football for some time and shows little sign of abating.It’s little solace to know that it even affected one of the country’s greatest generations.

*I STILL REMEMBER, CHRIS IWELUMO.

What If? #3 Wales: World Cup '58

2011-10-25T09:37:00.002+01:00

Head like a traction engine

We've kept you waiting a week for the next installment of our What If? series. And you'll be glad we did. Here's the ever-superb Andi Thomas of Twisted Blood on a forgotten Welsh golden generation.

Sometimes, a word or phrase acquires, through association, a kind of toxicity. Though it may come from humble or well-meaning beginnings, and it may seem innocent when considered abstractly, it is failure that corrupts. So Francis Jeffers, by flopping at Arsenal, forever poisoned “fox in the box”. No chairman would dare propose that his club “live the dream”, thanks to Peter Ridsdale. The allure of Ruud Gullit’s “sexy football” was washed away during the Derby in the Rain. And, perhaps most vexed of all, the disappointed trudge from the fields of South Africa finally put paid, once and for all, to the hollow braggadocio of Adam Crozier’s “golden generation”.
Of course, the idea of a golden generation was not originally an English one. In a footballing context, it was first applied, so Wikipedia tells us, by the Portuguese media to a collection of players – Luís Figo, Sérgio Conceição, Rui Costa, João Pinto, and the rest – that were not only sublimely talented but actually productive, winning back-to-back FIFA Youth Championships in 1989 and 1991.

Almost by definition, a golden generation should be trailblazers. They should be one-offs. David Beckham and his friends represented a generation not so much golden as gilt; shinier, yes, thanks to the 1990s, which saw the rehabilitation/gentrification (as you like) of English football via the sodden glamour of the Premier League, and all the subsequent celebritarian buffoonery. But England remained fundamentally much the same as what came before, and what looks to be coming afterwards – good, but not good enough – and the teams of Sven, Schteve and Don Fabio have done nothing to change that. Contrast this with, say, the Magic Magyars, or the Danish Dynamite, or the Swedish and sadly-truncated Yugoslavian teams of the early-90s: these are teams that stand above their predecessors, the better to cast long shadows on those who follow.

And they all fell short, for one reason or another. Whether good-but-not-good-enough (Sweden, maybe Portugal), inexplicably flawed (Denmark, maybe Portugal), unlucky (Hungary, maybe Denmark and Portugal), or geopolitically shafted (Yugoslavia) each of the examples above achieved enough to be recognised as almost-great, but never quite got their hands on the big shiny lumps of silver that matter more than they really should. To this list – a list of fascinating teams made all the more alluring for the lingering what-ifs – we can add Wales, who for one tournament, in Sweden, in 1958, held their own among the best in the world.

By rights, Wales shouldn’t even have been there. Europe’s eight places went to the winning teams in groups of three, and Wales, though they beat both Czechoslovakia and East Germany at home, lost their away fixtures and finished second behind the Czechs. But elsewhere in the world, Israel had emerged as winners of a ten-team Africa and Asia pool despite having not played a single game, as one by one their opponents – Turkey, Egypt, Sudan, and Indonesia – withdrew, apparently as a result of the fallout of the 1956 Suez crisis and subsequent war between Israel and Egypt.

An unusually sensible FIFA rule dictated that no team could qualify without having played a game, and so a special two-legged playoff between Israel and a UEFA runner-up was arranged. Belgium refused, but Wales accepted, and beat an amateur (and presumably by then seriously out of practice) Israel 4-0 over two legs to progress to Sweden. As qualifications go, it wasn’t the most convincing. It might even be the least. But it’s hard to imagine anybody in Wales really gave a flying one.

None of this sounds particularly golden, true. Yet there is context, and there is gloss. Firstly, of course, there’s the size of Wales: any country of (then) around 2.5 million people, whose people generally prefer rugby anyway, and whose premier clubs were at the time in the English second division deserve a slice of luck from time to time. Secondly, there’s the opposition: this was back in the days before the world was a small place, when crossing the Iron Curtain genuinely meant hostility and strangeness.

Thirdly – and most importantly, of course – there were the personnel. Three members of the 1958 squad – Mel Hopkins, Terry Medwin, and the prolific Cliff Jones – would go on to win the Double under Bill Nicholson at Tottenham. They were joined in Sweden by Jack Kelsey, title-winning Arsenal goalkeeper, and the elegant Ivor Allchurch, named by Bobby Moore as one of the best inside-forwards he’d played against. Jimmy Murphy, assistant to Matt Busby, was manager. And at the heart of the side, alongside his more-than-averagely-talented-and-comfortably-the-best-in-any-other-family brother Mel, was John Charles, the Gentle Giant: beloved in Leeds, adored in Turin, and unquestionably one of the finest footballers ever to play the game.

(Interesting aside: the 1958 Welsh squad contained three pairs of brothers: John and Mel Charles, Ivor and Len Allchurch, and Colin and Tom Baker. Not that Tom Baker. Having decided that the research is beyond me, I’m going to assert that this is the most fraternal a World Cup squad has ever been, and wait for somebody on the internet to prove me wrong. Also along was the pleasingly-monikered Ken Leek, who presumably doubled on mascot duty.)

Wales were drawn in a Group of Perhaps Not Death But Certainly Significant Inconvenience alongside hosts and eventual losing-finalists Sweden, Mexico, and Hungary. While the 1954 runners-up were not the side they had been – managerial genius Gustav Sebes had long departed, while Ferenc Puskás was also missing, having declined, along with Sándor Kocsis and Zoltán Czibor, to return to Hungary following a Honved tour to South America – several fragments of the Aranycsapat remained, including captain József Bozsik and England's nemesis Nándor Hidegkuti.

Wales conceded early to Hungary in the first game, before John Charles equalised just before half an hour. The game finished one-all, as did the next against Mexico, Wales having taken the lead after 32 minutes only to be sucker-punched in the 89th. Two points from two games was far from great, but Hungary lost 2-0 to Sweden, leaving the Welsh in second place going into the last round of fixtures. Hungary were one point behind, with Mexico to play; Wales played the already-through Sweden, needing to match the result to be sure of qualification.

It wasn't to be. Wales drew 0-0, while Hungary put four past the hapless Mexicans. Both teams had finished on three points, and goal average and goal difference favoured the Hungarians. But this was in a time before the invention of burnout, of tiredness, and of over-playing, so FIFA rules required a replay: a straight shootout between the Hungarians and the Welsh for the right to play Brazil in the quarter-finals. Hungary took the lead through Lajos Tichy, but Wales first equalised – a beautiful, dipping twenty-five yard Ivor Allchurch volley – and then Terry Medwin gave them the lead. Wales were through, and the tournament was theirs.

Or not. For in the playoff, Hungarian boots had connected time and again with the most divine shin bone of them all, meaning that Wales faced off against Brazil without John Charles in his tripartite role of captain, totem and talisman. Wales, with Charles on the bench, lost a tight game 1-0, a deflected goal from some 17-year-old scamp called Pelé, who faded into obscurity shortly after the tournament.

Would Wales have beaten Brazil if Charles had played? Maybe. They certainly came incredibly close without him. Mel Charles recalls that they hit the woodwork several times, and it’s not hard to imagine that his brother would have given an already good team that bit extra. Would they then have gone on to win the trophy? Again, maybe. They certainly pushed Brazil closer than either France or Sweden, who both succumbed 5-2 in the semi-final and final.

Perhaps significantly, Brazil scored at least twice against every opponent they faced bar two: Wales, and everybody’s favourite imperial swine England, with whom they’d drawn 0-0 in the group stage. Without wanting to suggest that these fancy foreign types didn't like it up them, this might betoken a certain weakness to football as played in these islands.

We’ll never know, of course. But it feels like reasonable inference where a team lacking its best player pushes one of the finest sides in the history of football so close. Pelé later acknowledged the closeness of the game, and mused that, had Charles been fit, “who knows what would have happened”. No less an authority than Brian Glanville agreed:

I still say that, if he hadn't been kicked to pieces by the brutal Hungarians in the previous playoff game, Wales could have won, because all sorts of very tempting centres were coming across the goal and John wasn't there to head them in.

There’s the rub with golden generations: no matter the talent, the nature of international football means that everything needs to come together at the right time. Ask Puskás; ask Johan Cruyff. Wales found themselves having to play the biggest game of their modern international history without the services of one of the finest footballers of his or any other era. If Charles had played – or if Pelé hadn’t, perhaps – how different might football history have looked?

Because that Brazil team is perhaps the rarest of things: the golden generation that not only could but did. Didi, Garrincha, Vavá and the rest won back-to-back World Cups in 1958 and 1962, and birthed the Golden Era. They exorcised the demons of the Maracanazo, that traumatising loss on home soil to Uruguay in the last game of the 1950 competition. They notched up the first and second of the penta. They made Brazil Brazil. It’s only a shame they had to stop Wales becoming Wales! to do it.

When Mel Charles returned to Wales, there was no crowd waiting to greet the team. No hordes of autograph hunters squirrelling beyond security guards. And when he made it back to Swansea station, he was greeted by the conductor. “Have we been on holiday again?”

What If? #2 Cantona Hadn't Signed For Manchester United

2011-10-14T11:30:00.007+01:00

Eric Cantona at Leeds in... '93?

Two Uniteds. Two sleeping giants. One enigmatic Frenchman. Magic Spongers welcomes Dan Forman whose parallel universe-centred debut is an absolute belter*

November 1992, Alex Ferguson's office. The phone rings.

"Alex, it's Martin. Listen, Leeds are on the line again. Howard Wilkinson wants to speak to you."

"Did he say what about? It better not be bloody Irwin again."

"No but he's very keen apparently. You're not going to sell him Denis Irwin are you?"

"No chance. But put him through. There's something I've been thinking about asking him anyway...

"Howard, how are you?"

"Good thanks, Alex, good, yeah. Look I know I've asked you about this before but Mel Sterland's got a knock and I'd really like to get Denis Irwin in, we need a right back and you know, with respect, Irwin's right-footed and well, you keep playing him at left back. The board's willing to pay good money this time and you could make a good profit and use the cash to buy a proper left back."

"Look Howard, I'm not even interested. Denis is a top lad, one of the best. He'd play anywhere for me. Ask George if he'll sell you Lee Dixon. He's always up for doing a deal and he got that kid in from Scandinavia last year, no idea why. But listen Howard, while you're on, how much would you want for Cantona?"

"Cantona? Are you pulling my leg Alex? We're the league champions and he's the guy that did it for us. He's brilliant, a winner, my talisman, a French philosopher amid the stodge of Chris Whyte humping long balls up to Lee Chapman. I'm going to build my next team around him, I've got some great kids coming through. I reckon Eric could be the guy to take English football to new heights of professionalism and technical excellence. I know the Irwin thing was a bit cheeky but were you really thinking I'd sell you my best player for a million quid?"

"Fair dos Howard, fair dos. I might put a bid in for Brian Deane instead."

"Yeah he's a good lad Deano, I've been thinking about getting him in myself."

June 1993. Ron Atkinson's Aston Villa are the inaugural Premier League champions. Arsenal have won both domestic cups. Having rallied into contention following the winter signing of Brian Deane, Ferguson's United fell backwards again towards the end of the season under the psychological pressure of 25 years without a league title and Atkinson's now legendary 'mind games' clearly got under Ferguson's skin. Ferguson refuses to resign but after lengthy consideration the United board decide to part company with him and - in a sop to unhappy senior pros in the dressing room - install Bryan Robson as player-manager. Later that summer Roy Keane signs for Blackburn after Robson tells him that he would be used mostly as a utility player to cover when "Incey is injured or when Brucey, Pally, Sparky or I have had a few too many on a Friday night".

August 1995. Jack Walker-backed Blackburn are now back-to-back champions. Robson has failed to arrest United's league title drought or his own on-pitch decline but retains the residual support of the fans following a 1994 FA Cup win and has the backing of the dressing room. Ince has signed for Inter Milan. However Robson is distrustful of introducing United's talented crop of youngsters such as Paul Scholes, who he sees as too lightweight for English football and not direct enough. Ryan Giggs is regularly left out for Lee Sharpe, whom Robson prefers for his early crosses aimed at his first choice front pairing of Brian Deane and Dion Dublin rather than Giggs' preference for cutting inside, playing a pass or beating a man. David Beckham is given one start away at Wimbledon but is hauled off after attempting an audacious chipped shot from behind the half-way line. Later that month he is sent for a second loan spell at Preston. After Ferguson opines that United will "never win anything with kids" only Nicky Butt is given a regular starting spot in place of Paul Ince. Gary Neville signs for Leeds.

July 1996. Britain is booming and with Sky TV money pouring in football is at the heart of a new pop culture at home and cool Britannia image abroad. The middle classes flock to the game with its all-seater stadiums and glamorous new Champions League. Wilkinson's rebuilt Leeds are again the league champions, pipping Kevin Keegan's attractive Newcastle, and - on the back of their success - are selling millions of shirts in Asia, funding a massive redevelopment of Elland Road and fuelling a financial dominance of English football. Robson's United are a less attractive prospect than Leeds' combination of Cantona and an exciting crop of kids, Keegan's Newcastle or Liverpool's emerging Spice Boys side and, with the costs of redeveloping Old Trafford prohibitive, a move to Manchester's planned 2002 Commonwealth Games stadium is mooted while Giggs joins Ince at Inter.

However Robson is boosted by his participation in England's Euro '96 campaign and, his own playing days having been curtailed by a career-ending knee-high tackle at Blackburn ("take that you cunt, not bad for a utility player" - Roy Keane will later reveal to have said to him), decides to bring Paul Gascoigne back to English football and sign Paul Merson to keep him company. But with a drinking culture still prevalent in the United dressing room this proves to be the worst possible environment for them and, after a disastrous run of results in mid-season, Terry Venables is brought in alongside Robson to help stave off relegation.

May 1997. Robson is relieved of his duties. Seeking to imitate Arsenal's success with an unheralded foreign manager who encourages clean living, Manchester United move quickly for Grasshopper's promising Christian Gross. Cantona shocks football and retires from double champions Leeds United to take up a post as creative director of the West Yorkshire Playhouse, the heart of an artistic and cultural revival in the city that has become the powerhouse of the northern economy.

July 1998. In a bid to revive the club's flagging fortunes, new United chairman Ken Bates (the head of a consortium backed by Fred Goodwin of RBS and US investment bank Lehman Brothers) installs Peter Risdale as chief executive and Glenn Hoddle as manager and embarks on a speculative spending spree designed to catapult the club into the Champions League, leveraged against future TV income and a plan to sell off Old Trafford after moving to the Commonwealth Games site once it has been rebuilt as luxury flats to be sold in the booming sub-prime mortgages market in Salford. Hoddle appoints Eileen Drewery as his assistant with responsibility for conducting all 'medicals' of prospective new signings. Recruits include Dean Richards, Seth Johnson, Robbie Fowler and Robbie Keane, who are lured with vast long-term contract offers. Keane declares himself delighted with the deal, saying he was always a Man Utd fan as a child.

May 1999. Wilkinson seals a decade of dominance over English football with a miraculous comeback in the Champions League final that completes an unprecedented treble and sends him to the Palace to arise as Sir Howard. However, while Cantona's stay in his new job proves to be short-lived (he quits before being sacked over a violent assault on a member of the audience sat in the front row), his influence on Leeds' football team lives on in the golden generation of youth team players including Jonathan Woodgate and Harry Kewell, and shrewd acquisitions such as Rio Ferdinand and - in a stunning coup - Andy Cole that he nurtured and inspired.

With Keegan now England manager and his recommended successor at Newcastle Alan Shearer not faring so well - and Liverpool's Spice Boys having imploded in a blaze of bad publicity (Stan Collymore's marriage to Victoria Adams ending in a messy divorce centring on dogging claims) - Wilkinson's spell is broken only by Arsene Wenger's arrival at Arsenal and, later, Roman Abramovich's investment in Chelsea, but he retires gracefully as one of the all-time greats and finest manager England never had. Ferguson has long since become a regular pundit on the BBC, in a deal arranged by his son and agent Jason.

*This piece was filed before we realised that the chaps over at The Dubious Goals Committee had got there first. But check theirs out here.

What If? #1 Yugoslavia: Euro '92

2011-10-10T16:00:00.002+01:00

Zvonmir Boban kicks himself into football folklore (he could play a bit too...)

In something of a coup for these fair pages, we've snapped up someone who actually knows what they are talking about and/or doesn't have to rant to get his point across. Ladies and gentlemen, to kick off a new series, here's Richard Hall on the Yugoslavia side that could/would have won Euro '92...

If you can, cast your mind back 20 years. To a time when English football had been dominated by Merseyside, not Manchester; when we got our news from teletext, not twitter; and when governments were contemplating crisis not among the banks, but in the Balkans.
In the autumn of 1991, Yugoslavia clinched their place in the European Championships, to be held the following summer in Sweden. Qualification was assured as a storm gathered in Europe. Over the next four years, it would unleash war and genocide in Yugoslavia, and break up a football team which could have dominated the international game during the last years of the 20th century.

In an era when just eight teams contested the European Championship Finals, qualification was no mean achievement. Especially for a team which, in England at least, was not rated highly. Four years earlier, Bobby Robson’s men blew the Yugoslavs away with four goals in the first 25 minutes of a decisive European Championship qualifier in Belgrade.

Nevertheless, by 1991 Yugoslavia were not a surprise package. They had reached the quarter-finals of Italia ‘90, with playmaker Dragan Stojkovic firing the team to victory over Spain in the last 16, before succumbing on penalties to Argentina. In that quarter-final the team was deprived of midfielder Srecko Katanec, who was omitted after receiving a threat of dark consequences if he took to the field. It was a forewarning of the political turmoil to come.

Yugoslavia were among the top seeds in the qualifying group for Sweden. But the team’s roots went deeper than that. Just 17 days before the national team’s capitulation to England in 1987, Yugoslavia’s youngsters lifted the World Youth Cup in Chile. They took a scratch squad, after suspension, injuries and club priorities had shorn the team of promising players, including Alen Boksic. Yet after defeating the hosts in the opening match, they marched through the group with two more wins, before 18-year-old Robert Prosinecki, the tournament’s outstanding player, inspired his team to victories against Brazil and East Germany in the knock-out stages. Prosinecki was suspended for the final against West Germany, but fellow midfielder Zvonimir Boban took up the slack, scoring Yugoslavia’s goal in a 1-1 draw, before slotting home the decisive spot kick in the ensuing penalty shoot-out.

After Chile, the youngsters had to bide their time as senior team coach Ivica Osim set about the task of qualifying for Italia 90 with a squad of established players. But Prosinecki, along with fellow members of the Class of ’87 Davor Suker and Robert Jarni, were slowly integrated into the senior team, and the trio went to the World Cup in 1990 – as did Boksic. But Zvonmir Boban did not. For a very good reason.

Yugoslavia comprised the republics of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovenia and Serbia, each with distinct political, cultural and ethnic mixes. The country had been welded together in the aftermath of the two world wars of the 20th century, and a third conflict – the Cold War – kept a lid on the simmering tensions, as the Soviets held Yugoslavia and the rest of eastern Europe together. But when the Soviet empire began to fall apart at the end of 1989, these tensions came to the boil again.

Bosnian Muslim nationalists called for an independent Bosnia; Croats were intent on establishing an independent Croatian state; and Serb nationalists were determined to dominate a Serb-controlled Yugoslavia. All were prepared to fight for what they wanted.

With communism swept away in Yugoslavia, nationalism was once again the dominant force. In April 1990, in their first multi-party elections since the 1940s, Croats voted overwhelmingly for pro-independence candidates – incensing Serbs in Belgrade.

Weeks later, Croats Dinamo Zagreb hosted Red Star Belgrade in a Yugoslav league fixture. Nationalist gangs on both sides clashed. Marshalled by warlord Arkan, the Red Star gang attacked, with the police doing nothing to protect the Croats. After violence spread to the pitch, Boban, Dinamo’s captain, took a flying kick at a policeman who was beating a Dinamo fan. TV cameras captured the incident, and Boban became an instant Croatian national hero. Unsurprisingly, the Yugoslav football authorities took a different view, and he was banned for six months, a period which included the World Cup in Italy.

War in the Balkans had not yet broken out but, with the loss of Boban and then Katanec, the effect of the coming conflict was already being felt by the Yugoslav national team.

The qualification series for Euro ‘92 began three months after the quarter-final exit in Italy. In the first tie against Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia took to the field with four Serbs, two Croats, a Serbo-Croat, a Bosnian-Croat, a Bosnian, a Macedonian and a Montenegrin. Despite the descent into war, Osim was keeping the team together. Even Boban and Katanec later returned to the squad. Half-way through qualification, they stood top of the group with maximum points. This included a backs-to-the-wall win in Copenhagen against group rivals Denmark, in which the team’s ability to soak up pressure and counter quickly with deadly force on the break was amply demonstrated. The team’s only blemish in qualification was losing the return fixture against the Danes.

But events were again overtaking Osim’s men. In June 1991, Slovenia and Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia. As a consequence, the team completed qualification without Slovenian Katanec, and Croats Prosinecki, Boban, Jarni and Suker. They would never play for Yugoslavia again.

Three clean sheets and 11 goals in their last three matches saw Osim’s depleted team top the group. The Danes could book their summer holiday on the beach. Or so they thought.

Following the declaration of independence, Croats and Serbs engaged in a brutal civil war. By the end of 1991, more than 10,000 people had died. Despite a UN-brokered ceasefire and peacekeeping plan, fighting continued – and Croatia was pulled into the war between Serbs, Muslims and Croats in neighbouring Bosnia.
On May 30 1992, just 11 days before the European Championships began, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution imposing sanctions on the combatants in the Balkan wars, and limiting participation in sporting events. FIFA suspended the Yugoslav football team from competition, and they were thrown out of the Euros. Denmark took their place. And , of course, the Danes went on to win the tournament.

Would Yugoslavia have triumphed had they been allowed to participate and call on players from all the republics? Perhaps. With the World Youth Cup winners coming into the side to complement an already talented and tested set of players, there is every chance that Osim would have struck a winning blend of talent and resolve, youth and experience.

The 1991 European Cup winners Red Star Belgrade, comprising 10 Yugoslavs, showed the potential that the players possessed. Although in the final against Marseille they killed the game and seemed intent from the start on playing for the penalties by which they would win the cup.

But it would be a shame if the image of that final were to obscure the talents of the Yugoslav players of that era. Brian Glanville’s ‘Story of the World Cup’ records Prosinecki, “splendidly creative in midfield”, the “heir-apparent” to Stojkovic. Darko Pancev outscored the rest of Europe with 10 goals in qualification for the 1992 European Championships. Boban and Savicevic were instrumental when Milan dismantled Johann Cruyff’s feted Barcelona Dream Team in the 1994 European Cup Final.

Yugoslavia were drawn in the World Cup 1994 preliminaries, but were suspended from the competition before qualifying started. The team would surely have progressed from a group which was won by a Greece outfit which went on to lose all three of its matches in the USA.

But by now there was no team. The UN resolution did not end the fighting, and war in the Balkans raged until 1995. As Yugoslavia splintered, Slovenia and Croatia competed in qualifiers for Euro ‘96. The Croats reached England, and were eventually eliminated in the quarter-finals by Germany.

Croatia and the rump Yugoslavia qualified for France ‘98. A Yugoslavia side boasting Mihajlovic, Stankovic, Jugovic, Mijatovic, Savicevic and Stojkovic reached the second round – where the familiar defensive reflex took over and they were eliminated by the excellent Dutch. Croatia, meanwhile, advanced to the semi-finals, avenging Germany on their way. Jarni, Suker, Stanic, Boban, Asanovic and Prosinecki all had their chance to parade on the world stage.

Having missed out in 1987, Boksic was absent again in 1998, suffering from injury. A Suker-Boksic strikeforce could have been lethal in France – but what if Dejan Savicevic or Predrag Mijatovic had been in the same squad? Of course it wasn’t to be. After the nationalist genie was let out of the bottle at the end of the 1980s, and following Boban’s public stand, a Yugoslav team drawn from inside communist-era borders had no future.

Osim offered valuable perspective: "Lots of people have been killed. The country was destroyed. Sometimes there are things that are more important than football.” But while no-one laments a lost Soviet team of the same era, the break-up of Yugoslavia robbed international football of one of its potentially great sides.
It is likely that the 1994 World Cup would have been the team’s peak. While 1990 was too early for the Youth Cup winners, by 1998 Prosinecki and Stojkovic were struggling for fitness, and the time had passed.
A team in 1994 could have lined up: Ladic (then age 31) – Mirkovic (22), Djukic (28), Spasic (28), Jarni (25) – Boban (25), Katanec (30), Stojkovic (29), Prosinecki (25) – Savicevic (27), Suker (26).
The likes of goalkeeper Omerovic (32); defenders NajdoskI (30), Bilic (25) and Stimac (26); midfielders Jugovic (24), Jokanovic (25), Mihajlovic (25), Zahovic (23), Asanovic (28) and Stanic (22); and forwards Boksic (24), Mijatovic (25) and Pancev (28) would have provided plenty of options to cover lapses in form and fitness.

Strong defenders, the discipline to carry out tactical plans, abundant midfield creativity, lethal finishers, strength in depth. This group had everything. It would certainly have given the Brazilian champions of Bebeto, Romario and Dunga a run for their money.

The 1954 Hungarians, the Dutch team of 1974 and the 1982 Brazilians are held up as the best, most attractive, teams never to have won the World Cup. At least the teams of Puskas, Cruyff and Zico had a chance. Hungary and Holland were both stopped by Germany. Brazil were beaten by Rossi. Yugoslavia were denied by history.

A Very English Upset

2011-10-07T17:13:00.001+01:00

"I'm quite good you know."

So here we are again. Another English qualifying campaign is set to come to a close and you could be forgiven for thinking that this had been the case a month ago with England’s 1-0 victory over the Welsh. Never ones for particularly long memories, most of the talk spewing forth from the frothing mouths of the English media collective seems to have centred on Wayne Rooney’s dad or Phil Jones’ debut. But England underestimate Montenegro at their peril.

For large swathes of our footballing media, it's as if Poland '73, Denmark '83, Norway '93 and Croatia '07 never happened. Crucially, the last English failure to qualify for a major tournament included various members of tonight’s squad. Let’s hope their memories aren’t as short as those of some of the journalists covering the game in Podgorica City Stadium, who seem to believe that Montenegro will take their foot of the gas in order to go full tilt against the Swiss on Tuesday.

Going into the game tonight shorn of first choice players Milan Jovanovic, Marko Basa and Nikola Drincic – all one booking away from suspension from the Switzerland game – at first glance it would appear that just the one Montenegran eye is on the England match, with the other trained firmly on securing a point against Switzerland to set up a play-off berth. However, any side that can boast players of the calibre of Juventus’ Mirko Vucinic , Fiorentina’s Steven Jovetic and Manchester City’s Stefan Savic should not be taken lightly.
And the Podgorica City Stadium is not a place for shrinking onions. It doesn’t take an apple to appreciate the threat posed by Montenegro in their own backyard. Of the three matches they have played at home in this qualifying campaign, the Montenegrans have won two, drawn one and conceded just once. Throw into the mix the goalless draw between England and Montenegro at Wembley last October and it makes a mockery of the fact England are 8/11 with most bookies to leave Montenegro with three points. A draw may be all the English require tonight but even that is far from a foregone conclusion.

Rewind four years. England v Croatia at Wembley. England require one point against a side that had already qualified and are clear favourites with the nation’s bookmakers, as per... You all know the rest. And remember, we have no David Beckham to rely on tonight *smiles wryly*.

One need only look across the channel for a more catastrophic end to qualifying. France needed just a point to qualify for USA ’94 and had a team punctuated with game changers such as David Ginola, Jean-Pierre Papin and Eric Cantona. France’s current boss Laurent Blanc is well aware of the dangers of overconfidence, himself a member of that side that contrived to lose its final two qualifiers and miss the plane to the States.
England’s form against central/eastern European opposition appears impressive on inspection. Bulgaria have never beaten them, nor have the Czech Republic, Slovakia or Belarus; Poland have only done so once, as have Ukraine. Faring better, however, are Russia with a 50% record, while the former Yugoslavia won four times in 14 matches between the sides, with England only winning five themselves.

Tellingly, England have scored in the first 15 minutes of every away game they've had in this group, as acknowledged by Montenegro manager Branko Brnovic. A cut and thrust approach to the opening quarter of the game may well be Capello’s best bet to kill off the tie. Start slow though and England risk running up against a side strong in defence who in Vucinic and Jovetic boast a defence-unlocking duo; it wouldn't take much of a leap of faith to imagine one of these two cast in the role of Mladen Petric this time round. Don’t say we didn’t warn you (we will delete this final sentence if England do get a point, as if it never happened).

Joo's A Crowd

2011-10-05T13:44:00.002+01:00

"Get Wayne Bridge on if you're desperate you fuckers."

“A man is known by the company he keeps,” goes the old adage. No less true in these cynical times is the fact that behind every greedy footballer is a greedy agent. When Sir Alex Ferguson launched into a diatribe about the shady middle men cluttering up the game at the turn of the year, the context was that a few months previous, his club’s most prized asset Wayne Rooney had come within a transplanted hair’s breadth of leaving for their city rivals. As well as Rooney, the player’s agent Paul Stretford came in for criticism from Sir Alex. Diplomatically calling Stretford’s influence ‘bad advice’, one winces when imagining what the Scot said about him behind closed doors.

Another agent who is no stranger to encountering the vitriol of his clients’ employers is the Iran-born Brit Kia Joorabchian. Joorabchian sprang to the attention of the English media back in August 2006 when it emerged that among the players whose economic rights he owned (under the auspices of some four separate companies) were the newly-signed West Ham duo Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano. The Iranian’s punt has paid off, umpteenfold. Mascherano went to Liverpool just five months after arriving at Upton Park in a deal eventually worth £18.6m. But it was Tevez who was the goose that laid the golden egg. Heroics in his first Premier League season meant that the Argentine’s stock rose dramatically. How Joorabchian must have rubbed his hands together with unadulterated glee as first United, then City contrived to make Tevez one of Manchester’s richest residents.

Ordered to stay away from Eastlands for two weeks following his outrageous petulance in Munich and with Manchester City’s HR and legal teams currently weighing up his future in the north west, Tevez is unlikely to be spending his fortnight off basking in the sunshine of this Indian Summer. But one issue stands out like a beacon in this Tevez saga. El Apache spent two years at Manchester United. Now, I can only speak for myself here but I’m pretty sure that if I hated a city, and for all intents and purposes it seems Tevez hates Manchester, then I would not go and sign a five-year contract for a different company in the same city. And I only earn slightly less than Tevez. Money, then, informed the move.

And who saw that money? Kia Joorabchian (as Tevez’s representative/owner). We are talking serious money too. A report from the Times suggested that the transfer fee involved an initial £15m payment, followed by two additional sums of £16m. This money was ostensibly paid into two offshore companies, but though the details were disclosed to the FA and Premier League, Joorabchian has never identified the beneficiaries directly.

It’s a handsome business. The investors, whoever they might be, bought Tevez’s economic rights from Boca Juniors for £14m in 2004 before effectively leasing him to Corinthians (a side Joorabchian’s consortium owned), West Ham (a club they bid for) and then Manchester United. Investors in the consortium in possession of Tevez’s rights have made a collective profit of at least £50m from the various fees received. Joorabchian, while he may not be directly involved with Tevez’s economic rights following City buying the player outright, continues to represent him and retains an interest to the tune of £3.5m should City win the Champions League.

To further muddy the waters, one of the clubs to allegedly table a £35m bid for Tevez in the summer were Corinthians, the side Joorabchian himself had intimate links with, dictating transfer policy through his role as president at Media Sports Investment – the consortium in charge. In essence, a transfer to Corinthians for Tevez would have represented an absolute masterclass in opportunism from his representative. From Corinthians to Corinthians (via London and Manchester) within the space of five years and tens of millions of pounds-worth of profit in the process. That Joorabchian managed to sell Tevez’s economic rights for as much as £47m, when United had previously been touted £25.5m is perhaps more a testament to Manchester City’s bulging pockets than his business acumen, but latching onto the least parsimonious club in world football was a coup nonetheless.

But a coup at what cost? With the threat of contract termination currently hanging over Tevez, Joorabchian may finally be feeling the heat for treating his client as a glorified beast of burden, albeit a beast of burden who is rich as Croesus. It doesn’t take too much imagination to reach the conclusion that the switch from the red half to the blue half of Manchester suited others far more than it suited the player in question. And I’m not just talking about Joorabchian. Remember the ‘Welcome to Manchester’ publicity stunt anyone?

Descriptions of Tevez’s personality, attitude and behaviour have been bandied about readily in the last few weeks, a ‘poison dwarf’ the most hand-wringingly righteous so far. Admittedly, City is the only club from which he has agitated for a move, which suggests that with something approaching relative autonomy (MSI’s third party agreement with West Ham gave them, and not the club, the say-so over Tevez’s transfer, while at United, the club decided he wasn’t worth the fee), he is disruptive. Family reasons may well be valid issues. His ‘representative’ could certainly be another.

Now that City own Tevez outright, Joorabchian only has his agent fees to fall back on and he isn’t going to make those with a client happily leading the line for a top-four Premier League side until the end of his five-year contract. No sir. It doesn’t take much to set a player off (see Paul Scholes’s recent comments) – the slightest hint of a lack of respect towards players told they are the bees’ knees 99% of the time can become, ludicrously, the most insurmountable of obstacles. You can bet your life Joorabchian 'can’t believe' his client has been treated this way and the phrase 'lack of respect' will appear a fair few times before he and Tevez finally blow out of town; presumably carrying bags marked 'Swag', owned by a consortium linked to Joorabchian.

Oh REF OFF

2011-09-29T19:02:00.002+01:00

PAY ATTENTION

It’s been two years since goal line assistant referees – those blokes that stand on the byline on one side of the goal like the kid in school who isn’t allowed to join in – were first trialled in the Europa League. It’s a testament to their complete ineffectiveness that we didn’t even notice their assimilation into Champions League fixtures until Danny Welbeck argued with one on Tuesday night. The reason for this argument? Not a penalty decision, or an incorrectly awarded goal kick. The ball went out of play by a fraction. Or did it? Apparently, by virtue of being right next to the ball, the human eye is impervious to slight of foot and fractional error. Yeah, right.

The assistant, assistant referees are completely pointless. There have been some great excuses for them since their inception too. "The referees behind the goal aren't there as a replacement for goalline technology: rather, they'll operate as a human camera,” said Hugh Dallas back in 2009. A human camera? What? So then they ARE replacements for technology aren’t they? What’s wrong with an actual camera? Actual cameras won’t slip over when it’s wet, or get distracted by people calling it a knobhead.

“During a normal match, when a forward and a defender run into the 18-yard box together, the referee will be behind them. Now he will have a colleague who can view any resulting challenge head-on. From the initial trials the presence of the extra officials also acts as a deterrent to pushing and shoving at corners and free-kicks,” Dallas continued. Oh, OK. I don’t wish to cast aspersions on officials’ ability to officiate, but I haven’t seen two individuals more ignored since Bushby and MacDonald had too much gin and tried to hold court at a party they hadn’t technically been invited to.

Martin Tyler ruefully commented that Manchester City might have had a penalty in the Allianz Arena on Tuesday “if only the goalline assistant had been on the other side of the goal”. Oh, BRILLIANT. So even with FIVE referees, ostensibly, there is a blind spot in which an incident can be analysed to within an inch of its life. Excellent news. Let’s tell UEF- actually, let’s not. We don’t need any more of the fuckers. Sooner or later it’ll just be a huge wall of referees all around the pitch, like a fucking dreadful wall of luminous yellow narcissists all obstructing each others’ vision and then booking each other as a result.

I can’t remember the last time I saw either goalline assistant either consulted or contribute to a decision made on the field. I personally think they’d be more use (and it would be more entertaining) if they just ran around behind the goal, flapping their arms and screaming ‘Oh my GOD! This is TERRIBLE!’ at the first sign of penalty box pinball. They don’t even get flags, they get little wands. Like shit wizards.

Or even better; we have goalline CHEFS. That’s right. James Martin, Rick Stein, Ainsley Harriot and Antonio Carluccio all having a cook off behind the goal as the crowd eggs them on. Picture how fantastic it would be to see Rory Delap’s latest trajectile vomit spewed into the Arsenal box to the accompaniment of Ken Hom trying to cook an omelette before Robert Huth clobbers someone.

Only with governing bodies as stubborn and arrogant as UEFA and FIFA would you get the decision that the solution to a part of the game in which costly errors are made is to bring in MORE of the fallibilities in question. It’s like trying to make the hurdles easier by putting more hurdles in it. It’s like a manager of a national team that struggles to score goals playing 4-6-0 in an important Euro 2012 qualifier. It’s like being sent out to get some apples because your Waldorf salad’s a bit oniony, but then coming back with two more onions which then just sit next to the bowl of salad, doing nothing other than acting the onion.

And they really don’t do anything, do they? They’re like rubbish inconsequential vampires who aren’t allowed on to the field of play unless invited, and would presumably be rubbish at biting people anyway because like wands instead of flags, they’ve been given stumps instead of teeth.

As one Uefa official said at the time of the assistant, assistant roll out: “[The] additional assistant referee won't be making decisions. He'll just be communicating with the referee through his mouth-piece. Sounds prime for Saturday Kitchen then as James Martin hears in his earpiece: “Ken Hom’s omelette was a little sloppy but he’s done it in 10.4 seconds, enough to get him on the leaderboard. Oh and Ryan Shawcross may have elbowed Bacary Sagna too.”

All Change On the Continent

2011-09-28T15:24:00.001+01:00

In amassing a collective 32 points and scoring a total of 41 goals between, the Manchester clubs have been the Premier League’s dominant forces thus far. If you don’t count Newcastle. But while all and sundry can only foresee the title race involving two Mancunian horses, it has been a little more difficult to translate such swagger onto the European stage, on which England’s current finest have thus far amassed a measly three points and five goals.

The foibles dismissively associated with each were conspicuous last night, as they had been in the first round of matches. United ‘looked shaky at the back’ and ‘weren’t strong enough in midfield’. Rio Ferdinand and Patrice Evra in particular had evenings to forget last night, the latter experiencing just the latest instalment in a fairly lengthy period of poor form. City were ‘unable to keep all their superstars happy’ – we don’t need to go into what happened there.

While domestically, these potential shortcomings have been overlooked in the wake of excellent form, the Champions League has the ability to exploit them, big time. And you can make all the excuses you want, but United have looked dodgy at the back all season. The 8-2 against Arsenal could have been far closer as the defending on both sides bordered on schoolboy. Chelsea were worth a point at Old Trafford. So irresistible going forward, United could be severely found out at the back by teams better equipped to do so than Benfica and Basel.

Perhaps United believed their own attacking press, though they still threatened in attack. At the back, they were certainly careless on too many occasions, as the manager himself said: "We played too many players forward, far too many, and though we prepared properly there is a possibility that playing a team like Basel, the players think they can do that. We left too many spaces between our midfield and back four. If we had concentrated on the defensive part we might not have had as many problems. Complacency may have been a part."

That said, the appetite to have a go at them doesn’t appear to exist at many Premier League clubs. A return to domestic duty against Norwich on Saturday should see a similar story to that which has framed their march back to the top of the league.

Would City, probably boasting the most formidible weapons domestically, ever really go out and attack United? Certainly not historically, but based on the game in Munich, Mancini might at least be beginning to consider it; Chelsea enjoyed some degree of success; Stoke had a go in the second half at the Britannia. In reality, it’s about balancing the pressure you can put on the champions’ defence without compromising the fact that they can rip you to pieces at will down the other end. Clearly, this is a particularly tricky task. But all the food for thought from United’s European exertions so far should at least fuel a bit more adventure (though Benfica was classic United away in Europe). You don’t have to be Barcelona to cause Manchester United problems, but you do have to be brave.

Admittedly, United’s first-choice team wasn’t used against Basel. City, who have the luxury of being able to pick three or four teams and call any one of them a ‘first XI’, suffered from a) playing an excellent Bayern Munich team and b) getting the balance of egos wrong for almost the first time this season (not that this is an acceptable excuse, we hasten to add). Oh – and c) continuing to play Gareth Barry, another example of the nominative determinism that seems so popular right now.*

Mancini’s will to attack Bayern was somewhat undone by the more ponderous nature of his defensive midfielders, one of whom was presumably meant to get close to Franck Ribery – with Nasri and Aguero stationed further forward – when he cut inside whichever full-back he was in the business of giving a torrid time. For Bayern’s first, it was Yaya Toure, a fabulous player but one with a turning circle akin to a wheelie bin, that couldn’t get near as Ribery skipped inside Richards. For their second, it was Edin Dzeko, taking it upon himself to chase back, who gave away a free kick against the overlapping Philip Lahm. One gets the feeling that Barry, completely skinned by Ribery (who else) earlier, would have fared little better.

In a football sense alone, Bayern deserved the win, even if City played well for the first 35 minutes or so. In a team harmony sense, Jupp Heynckes’s side were helped on their way by a crack that has had the potential to open into a chasm all season. There is no excuse for Carlos Tevez’s behaviour, especially if it undermines his manager’s game plan. It has oft been said that City ‘need to get the balance of egos right’, but the least they can expect is for some of the highest-paid players in the world to act (even semi-)professionally. It’s like turning yourself into an onion and rendering yourself completely useless for the chef’s finest apple pie just because you weren’t the first apple in the mixing bowl. Staggeringly selfish.

Anyway. Two very different competitions then, the league and Europe, and two very different outcomes for United and City so far. It’s hard to see anyone in England overcoming the Manchesters in the league and as alluded to earlier, most expect the title race to be a two-way fight. But the translation of their abilities into Europe has been tricky, though United have been the most suspect (City have played two very good sides indeed).

Admittedly, there aren’t many teams in the Premier League with the same kind of technical aptitude as those in the Champions League. However, those facing up to United and City should at least be inspired by the event s of last night and be slightly less in thrall of the respective arrays of attacking talents, given the apparent potential for both to err in defence. It’d be nice to see some more adventure from teams taking on the top two (or top few, even), rather than the crux of their game plans being firstly ‘not to get beat’ and then merely ‘to keep the score down’. We can but hope.

*Barry White = shite, in case you were wondering. ‘He’s absolutely Barry’ being an example.

A Tale Of Two Owens

2011-09-22T13:48:00.001+01:00

'If I can... just... get...the... *TWANG*'

Much like being on a night out with Magic Spongers, the prevailing attitude towards the third round of the Carling Cup among the so-called ‘big clubs’ often appears to be sniffy indifference; something to be endured and survived with as little serious investment of energy as possible. In the last few years, certainly, this has meant throwing bit-part and reserve players into the mix and tailoring a post-match response around how much potential they’ve got or how it was good experience but priorities lie elsewhere, really. ‘No disrespect to the lads that have come in’, one might say, completely disrespecting the lads that have come in.

Recent tradition then is for the matches to be billed as Premier League starlets against usually ‘plucky’ lower-league opposition, a sort of rubbish nursery version of the FA Cup, without the romance, excitement or interest. I don’t really know why this is, though we are still in that bizarre hinterland in which every evening game that kicks off in daylight or sunshine has the feeling of a pre-season friendly. However, this week, rather than the emergence of a particular one to watch or a huge upset (though special mention to Aldershot here, winners over Rochdale), it was a tale of the old guard rather than the new.

Particularly, it was the England old guard who stole the headlines. Michael Owen and Owen Hargreaves shone, while Steven Gerrard began his on-field rehabilitation and Frank Lampard... well, sat on the bench. But even Wayne Bridge played. Wayne Bridge! In a game of football!

Owen, of course, scored twice for United. Hargreaves scored on his debut and lasted 57 minutes for City. Gerrard, it has been said, was afforded an ovation by both sets of supporters when taking the field against Brighton – proving once and for all that the English a) love a good comeback story and b) afford plenty of respect to the game’s elder statesmen, then afford them plenty of platitudes for their appropriately regal appearances (see: David Beckham).

Of all those English players towards whose backs time’s winged chariot hurries ever nearer, Hargreaves is the one from whom we have seen the least, though he potentially offered (or indeed offers) the most. While Owen and Gerrard have had injury problems too, the dynamism is dwindling.

Not that this stops the outpouring of goodwill. A case is being made for Owen’s return to the England squad (see this Telegraph poll), quite ludicrously, while all the noises coming out of Anfield recently have been in relation to Gerrard’s return (see Dalglish salivating about his ‘talisman’). The truth of the matter is that neither of them will likely feature in the Premier League this weekend. Hargreaves too is back in cotton wool for the time being.

Presumably all three would rather be among the club personnel not required for nights in the Carling Cup. Gerrard is expected to return to first team action soon enough, but for Hargreaves and Owen this might be as good as it gets now. And like an ugly bloke getting some attention from a nice girl, they appear to be quietly grateful. They might have stolen the headlines, but there are many who would not be satiated by a stolen night in September. The two are a particularly rare breed – footballers content with their (significantly reduced) lot.

What makes the situation of the two Owens unique is that they have 131 England caps between them and yet despite neither being first choice at their club, not a mumble of discontent has passed either’s lips. When you contrast this with the prima donna behaviour that has become the rule rather than the exception in the Premier League, both men should be applauded. Indeed, part of their role at their new clubs is to set an example to be followed, a very noble pursuit football is increasingly offering to its ‘elder statesmen’. For all the speculation, abuse, salacious comment – you name it – when they were players, football (and sport in general) allows its former employees to grow old particularly gracefully.

Beckham, of course, perches on the throne of this particular conceit, furthering English football’s cause abroad presumably by looking gorgeous in a suit. But that aside, he could play. And we forget this sometimes. And so too could Michael Owen and Owen Hargreaves. And Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard. So despite the repeated calls of ‘change the record’ when these players hit the headlines, they patently hit the headlines for a reason. Their elder statesman tag is something earned through performing consistently well at the highest level throughout the previous 10 years and once acquired becomes a sort of passport (rightly or wrongly) to punditry/coaching/management, delete as applicable.

And you know the ones who are going to always be there throughout our lives too, like Transfer deadline day fervour or Iain Dowie. Basically the bulwark of the elder statesmen will be drawn from the ‘Golden Generation’…. Beckham, Gerrard, Lampard, Terry, Cashley, Neville G, Owen… and then throw in the likes of David James, Jamie Carragher, Joey Barton for good measure. The ones we hate from the above list, and there are standout candidates there, will grow on us. We won’t like this one bit but it will happen.

With every smile at a Gary Neville observation on Super Sunday, our hatred will dissipate, When Frank Lampard says something genuinely quite witty during the Manchester derby in 2019, we’ll turn to our young offspring and say: “You’re too young to remember the ‘one sits, one goes’ fiasco, but it was brilliant drama.” And from the resultant blank look flashed back from the little ‘un, we’ll find ourselves engulfed in memories of Beckham’s red card in ’98, the injury time madness of United v Bayern Munich in ’99, Istanbul ’05, the ‘Wally with the brolly’…

So when we see the emergence of Phil Jones at the heart of the Manchester United defence, people of a certain age (our age - 28) will see Lauren Blanc or Matthias Sammer gliding nonchalantly through midfield. Those slightly older will see Franco Baresi and those older still will see Franz Beckenbaur or Ruud Krol. And of course, the youngsters will see just Phil Jones. And if Jones fulfils his potential as a United and England regular, his place in the canon will be just as secure as his predecessors. After all, for every Shakespeare, Eyre and Bronte there will be a Lampard, Owen and Neville.

Overworked And Underpaid

2011-09-12T14:38:00.000+01:00

"I'm poor... SO POOR"

Rumour has it that when he was a child, Rob's parents considered selling their house to Niall Quinn. Luckily, that friendship has stood the test of time (and career trajectory) and 'Dr Quinn: Medicine Woman' - as he is affectionately known in the MacDonald household - was able to provide Magic Spongers with what REALLY happened at the Stadium of Light over the weekend.

Asamoah Gyan: Boss, have you got a minute? I need a quick chat.

Steve Bruce: Of course, son. Come in, shut the door. What’s on your mind?

Gyan: Well… I’ve been thinking about the last few months and money and stuff, and… I’m a bit worried about my budget, if I’m honest.

Bruce: You what?

Gyan: I’ve been having a lot of money going out recently and I’m not sure that I’m really able to cover it with what I’m earning.

Bruce: Really? Are you sure you can’t fall back on endorsements? Don’t you have any savings?

Gyan: Well, I did. But you know how it is. Sometimes living properly just costs money. Eating really healthily isn’t particularly cheap you know.

Bruce: But you get 12 meals a week provided at training and on match days by us. You shouldn’t be spending that much on food.

Gyan: Well that’s not it, is it.

Bruce: Well what is?

Gyan: Basically, I’ve been doing some work with the numbers and I’ve decided £45,000 a week isn’t enough. I mean, it’s not bad, but I need to do a lot of overtime at the moment to top up my overdraft or I have to pay bank charges. It’s like a pound a day, which is alright like, but it all adds up.

Bruce: So you want to try and negotiate a new contract with us?

Gyan: Well I was hoping… Is there any chance of a pay review in November maybe?

Bruce: No.

Gyan: I’m not just agitating for the sake of it. I’ve done all the sums. I’ve been on salary calculator.

Bruce: Salary calculator? Who told you to go on that?

Gyan: Michael Essien. He also said I should be aiming up to about £65k a week because [pulls scrap of paper from pocket]… I’ve got a zone three travelcard. I’ve got student loan payments. But then there’s that, right, and I’ve got savings targets too. In order to meet them I actually need upwards of £70,000 a week or I’m getting further into my overdraft.

Bruce: I don’t believe what I’m hearing.

Gyan: But you know how it is boss. I’m not old enough to even think about buying a house yet. My rent is 500 a month. Then there's travel, food, Orange Wednesdays. I’ve got a Cineworld card for the next 10 months as well.

Bruce: Are you serious?

Gyan: I can't live on Tesco chicken noodles anymore gaffer, I’m down to a tenner by the end of the month. And a fiver of that’s going on petrol this afternoon. And then I watched Daily Politics last week and I’ve got them telling me that inflation might hit 5%. So in real terms, I’m going to be worse off.

Bruce: So what makes you think we can afford to pay you more?

Gyan: How about 10 goals in 34 appearances? How about that penalty I scored in the World Cup after missing one? How about the fact my council tax is going up?

Bruce: And if we don’t, you reckon you can get it somewhere else do you?

Gyan: Well I don’t want to leave like – I've got a gym membership for £40 a month - but you forget about these outgoings. I've got Lovefilm. I like the occasional Chinese takeaway. It’s hardly a crime is it. But I could probably earn as much somewhere in the UAE or something.

Bruce: But the Premier League is the best league in the world son. You’re testing yourself against some of the real elite here. Would you rather have millions in the bank but no challenges to face?

Gyan: It's my flatmate's birthday on the 23rd too though, and I want to get him this book. It's just the one-off expenditures that get you. Even a card is like three quid nowadays.

Bruce: Well you just need to tighten your belt son. Go on Martin's Money tips.

Gyan: [writing] Martin’s…. Money… tips. Can I get cash off them? Quickquid have blocked me.

Bruce: And aren’t you even on Groupon? EVERYONE’S on Groupon. They’ll email you deals and stuff.

Gyan: I could try it. Is there a pawn shop in town by the way? I changed my phone but I want to keep the number and get a Blackberry. So that costs too.

Bruce: I’d try Cash for Gold. And send your old phone to Mazuma maybe?

Gyan: I could. But I really don’t think it’s going to be enough, all this. I only get like £90k a month after tax. And by the time I get it, I find I’ve already spent it. You know how it is.

Bruce: Have you spoken to John O’Shea? He does his weekly shop in Lidl.

Gyan: I think I’ve made my mind up boss. Do you think Abu Dhabi, or wherever I'm going, has a Groupon?

[sound of door slamming]

The Generation Game

2011-09-05T15:25:00.003+01:00

"Frank Lampard never played for Milan... golden generation my arse."

*Disclaimer. Some or all of what follows may be completely fictional and not represent in any way, shape or form the beliefs of Magic Spongers.

When Spandau Ballet wrote their seminal hit ‘Gold’ in 1983 about the so-called golden generation of Trevor Francis, Tony Woodcock, Luther Blisset, Paul Mariner et al, the fanfare was short-lived as England failed to qualify for the European Championships a year later. Though the song would live on in chain pubs across the land on Saturday nights, the golden generation proved to be of pyrite persuasion, shining brightly in the April sun in a 2-0 victory over Hungary, before succumbing to the talents of Michael Laudrup and Jesper Olsen at Wembley in September ’84 and ultimately petering out.

Of course, Spandau Ballet were not the first band to eulogise about a national team. That honour goes to Shirley Bassey, who sang the Anthony Newley/Leslie Bricusse-penned Goldfinger ostensibly for the James Bond film of the same name, but was, as Bassey would later confess, an ode to her beloved Wales. Her fatal error was, however, to confuse a golden generation with two good footballers (John Charles and Cliff Jones) and the Bassey-backed golden boys failed to qualify for every tournament they entered during the 60s.

Such confusion of notoriety with ability has long sustained the English and though the events of one afternoon in Bloemfontein, June 27 2010 led the Guardian’s Richard Williams to state: ‘There was no golden generation after all’, he was wrong. The widespread epitaphs for Goldenballs and his golden boys do not draw a line under this sorry saga.

Though the fading incarnation bid adieu in the weekend’s press might have been born from the mouth of Adam Crozier relatively recently, there is ALWAYS a golden generation. We had one in 1990. And again in 1996. And yet another from 2000 – until seemingly last Friday, when Frank Lampard was benched in Sofia. Which leads us to now. A ‘Croatia moment’ as we like to call it.

Bulgaria 0-3 England. Old heroes dispensed with, albeit through necessity rather than choice, and new ones forged amid the foreboding surrounds of the Vasil Levski stadium. The starting XI against the Bulgarians was: Hart, Smalling, Cahill, Terry, Cole, Walcott, Parker, Barry, Downing, Young, Rooney. Replace Terry with Jones and one of Parker and Barry for Wilshire and you have a new golden generation, the hallmark ‘injection of youth/talent’ that breeds optimism and gives rise to such terminology. It’s as if the old one never existed. And so let us here at Magic Spongers be the first to put a name to this team of world beaters: “The Platinum Pack.”

The similarities between The Platinum Pack and the last lot are stark: after a few wobbles, earn an impressive result in eastern Europe in the qualifiers to a major tournament, cue trumpeting of said team from perennial luminaries such as The Sun’s El Tel: “If you'd have said a year ago we would start in Bulgaria without Ferdinand, Lampard, Glen Johnson, Jack Wilshere, Steven Gerrard, Adam Johnson, Aaron Lennon, James Milner and Darren Bent, many Three Lions fans, including myself, would have feared the worst. But our display in Sofia shows how much Capello's squad has fattened up. England have always had a decent team, but now for the first time in a while it seems like we have a decent squad as well.” Pretty sure you were bigging up our chances last summer Terry? No? I must be mistaken.

Let us also bear in mind that England are not yet qualified. A win for Montenegro in Switzerland and victory over the English in Montenegro will leave Fabio Capello’s men second in the group on their head-to-head record. But no matter. ‘Rooney’s back’ trumpet John Terry and the Guardian’s Paul Wilson, who continues by praising Chris Smalling, saying that the “Manchester United defender's assured performance against Bulgaria illustrates a fresh outlook in the national camp”. The tell tale phrases are all here, including the assertion that ‘a wind of youthful change is blowing through the England ranks’, as well as the idle speculation, the context-free planning of the identities and positions of England’s next batch of as-yet unproven lions:

“With Jack Wilshere still to come back into contention and Scott Parker and Gareth Barry both performing well against Bulgaria there may not be an automatic return even for Steven Gerrard. On the other hand Chris Smalling's assured debut at right-back meant that England could keep defenders of the ability of Phil Jagielka, Micah Richards and Phil Jones in reserve, while Gary Cahill managed to mark his first England start with the opening goal.”

Disregarding the use of the phrase ‘ability’ and ‘Phil Jagielka’ in the same sentence, this is the kind of statement England could do without. No doubt the clamour for the Platinum Pack will rage away as the national team evolves, reaching fever pitch if the manager attempts pragmatism, helping nobody, a sort of inverse fight against the dying of the light as the press pack try desperately to snuff out the legacy of an era they had more than a little influence in cementing.

While the personnel changes might be refreshing, the outlook remains as stale as ever. Here’s the Mail’s Martin Samuel’s tuppence-worth: ‘This is a result that will be noted throughout Europe, despite the many flaws of the home team.’ He goes on to add: ‘So here we go again. Barring a dramatic failure to launch in the final two group games, England should qualify for the competition in Poland and Ukraine without suffering the tension of a play-off. And then the agony begins. We cross our fingers on the form and fitness of Rooney, and hope that players who look so fresh and positive now will not again limp into June gasping for breath and on a single good leg.’ Reading between the lines there, it appears we were crap in South Africa because we were tired. Odd, because I’m pretty sure that the final showcased five Premier League players: Nigel de Jong, Dirk Kuyt, Robin Van Persie, Cesc Fabregas and Fernando Torres.

In this embryonic stage it is clear that the fault lies with the media and not the fans. Every single person I’ve spoken to about the win in Bulgaria has said the same thing. That England played well against a poor side. A good win, yes, but not much more to be read into it. Not when you consider the sides England will have to get past next summer if they want to win the thing. But it seems some strands of the media cannot help themselves. As if the mantra “build them up to knock them down” is now second nature. And it’s started already. Watch it cultivated finely come Wednesday morning if we wake up to victory over Wales being achieved.

It’s like… (sharp intake of breath)… owning an apple that you think is the absolute business. You cannot understand why you have never won Apple of the Year award despite always being one of the favourites at the international tournaments. On paper, the apple is the best. It is shiny and symmetrical. But every year, the Spanish and the Brazilian, the French and the Dutch apples dominate proceedings and the English apple ends up, in the cold light of day, looking more like a shop-soiled onion than the proud apple it had once been heralded.

You may be thinking that the English never learn? Not true. If it wasn’t for the Sol Campbell disallowed goal at France 98, we’d have won the World Cup. If it wasn’t for Ronaldo getting Rooney sent off in 2006, we’d have won that as well. And if the only man in the ground who didn’t see Frank Lampard’s shot cross the line last summer had have seen it, we’d have gone all the way there as well. In short, we’ve always had golden generations and we always will. And if it wasn’t for those pesky cheating foreigners, we’d have the silverware to show for it too.

Oligarchs and Question Marks

2011-09-01T12:46:00.002+01:00

"Well this sucks"

Somewhere in the Mediterranean last night, a Russian billionaire strode on to the deck of his $1bn super-yacht clad only in a towel and angrily shook his fist at the moon. ‘Marquee!’, he shouted at the inky sky. ‘Fucking MARQUEEEEEEE!’.

Meanwhile, back in the UK, a wiry Portuguese with more tattoos than a man could realistically ever need walked into the largest marquee ever erected in West London; nay, the world, and felt pretty fucking small. ‘Don’t worry’, a weary Spanish voice assured him from somewhere underneath an enormous price tag. ‘It’s probably for the best’.

In 2011, Manchester City have spent £106m, or as we like to refer to it, ‘fuckloads’. Third-place favourites Chelsea, however, have now spent £172m in this calendar year and no one appears to have batted an eyelid. Well here comes Magic Spongers, eyelids fluttering like a desperate drunk student in a bar at 2 in the morning.

Now this isn’t about the fact that Fernando Torres is still trapped inside the universe’s largest marquee, but rather that the lack of invigoration throughout this Chelsea squad so far this season will surely have already alarmed the King’s Road’s resident oligarch. But the problem for Roman Abramovich is that while he impatiently demands the evolution of a rigid side still (yes, STILL) dominated by the ghost of Jose Mourinho, he is disregarding one of the great laws of our universe, namely that proper evolution takes bloody ages. Or if not bloody ages, at least more than a season or two.

This year has seen one of Chelsea’s biggest ever outlays on players and you can bet your life that Andre Villas-Boas has 18 months maximum to make it work. So far, the signs don’t look too good. The Portuguese continues to grapple with a problem baffling scientists for some nine months now – the Torres-Drogba conundrum – and has farmed his one source of genuine pace, Gael Kakuta, out on loan for another season. Any innovation in formation appears to have been eschewed in favour of the same old 4-3-3 and a reliance on messrs Cole and Bosingwa to provide any sort of width.

The ghost of Mourinho still hangs over this side. Chelsea are buying players who are just 'midfielders' or 'forwards', but not wingers, or players with the brio to operate between the lines. They have no definable playmaker or number 10, false or otherwise, certainly not if it’s safe to say – and we think it probably is – that Frank Lampard is not the player he once was.

Equally, the still very much alive ghost of Abramovich hangs over his managers as it has ever done. But how can the incumbent possibly flourish in an environment where you are sacked if you don’t win the league? Indeed, rather implausibly, returning a double doesn’t appear to be enough to keep your job.

Is Abramovich bankrolling perpetual failure then? If his managers feel they've no time to change things then it’s easily explicable why they persist. Few have tried to revamp Mourinho’s 4-3-3 and while Villas-Boas employed a similar system in a couple of different incarnations at Porto, at least there he had a forward in great form in Hulk to lead the line, not a goal-shy Fernando Torres or a disinterested Didier Drogba.

The signing of Torres might come to embody the whole Abramovich era. A striker who isn’t scoring cannot be persisted with forever and nor, it seems in the Russian’s mind, can a manager with such an embarrassment of riches but no Champions League trophy. Patience is not part of the owner’s unforgiving methods. If Villas-Boas is perceived to have failed though and is shown the door, where do Chelsea go next? Would anyone want to work somewhere they are constantly bombarded with apples, but only given an onion cookery book to work from, albeit the most expensive cookery book known to man?

It seems the Russian can’t decide what kind of club he wants Chelsea to be. Huge outlays to kickstart the Mourinho era were pared back as the credit crunch wiped out a percentage of his fortune, at which point it seems managers were instructed to work with what they had, for the most part. After that didn’t really work out (although it did really, if like most of us you consider a domestic league and cup double to be a success), the marquee went back up and in came Torres, who doubtless should have been followed by Modric, but has also been joined by a host of middle-value signings that all, as they say, add up. Like most clubs, the forthcoming financial restrictions should give rise to an interesting exercise in budgeting at Stamford Bridge.

Whereas Manchester United have started the season in sparkling form with home-grown and British talent catching the eye, one gets the impression that Abramovich would perpetually favour a Galacticos model, as if somehow the success is purer if your side contains Kaka and Ronaldo rather than Young and Cleverley. How the Russian must fume when surveying Manchester City’s squad, marquee-laden as it is.

Chelsea has long appeared an extension of Abramovich's ego, vanity project that it is – it’s basically his Kubla Khan and he will always favour a Shevchenko over a Sturridge. One imagines his favourite side ever was the Zidane/Figo Galacticos side – a dangerous blueprint, as we know.

At the very least though, players of the considerable ilk of Meireles and Mata should provide Chelsea with a creative spark, if Villas-Boas feels daring enough to use both, which he should. That said, Yossi Benayoun’s limited playing time when fit provides a cautionary footnote – there isn’t always room for one floating role in the Chelsea midfield, let alone two.

Changing Chelsea’s style of football is no easy task as recent history emphasises, but it can be argued that with his recent acquisitions, Villas-Boas at least has the potential to do so at his disposal. Whether he’s granted enough time to take the risk is another matter entirely.

Caught Knapping

2011-08-30T15:37:00.001+01:00

Redknapp: making like-for-like changes since 1983

Unless you were drunk, buried or temporarily without a head this weekend, you’ll know that the only scoreline anyone wants to talk about is Manchester 13-3 North London. More specifically, topics on lips principally include Manchester United’s youth-driven greatness, Manchester City’s money-driven potential greatness and Arsene Wenger’s selling-driven former greatness.

If Manchester United have taught the Premier League one thing so far this season, it’s that ideally you get your transfer business concluded as quickly and as proactively as possible. Sagas a la Fabregas, Nasri and Modric might be inevitable – you can’t force clubs to bid when they’re not ready – but playing those who do not want to play is unsettling and (leaves you) pointless.

The dangers of standing still while all around you are moving, particularly in an investment-heavy market such as the Premier League, are all too clear. Certainly Spurs, and maybe even Arsenal, have fallen behind Liverpool. Or at least if not, they are going to be playing catch up for the rest of the season.

Quick-fix, last-minute buying won’t necessarily rectify this. Even (and especially) professional footballers need time to settle in a new working environment, less so perhaps if you’re someone of Samir Nasri’s capabilities moving to play alongside David Silva, but certainly if you’re a player moving to a team with a different style or 'project' – compare Edin Dzeko last season with the player blossoming from a full pre-season this campaign, for example.

Arsenal and Wenger will recover – we’ll deal with that later in the week. The cheap, but rather dangerous laser pen of queries and criticism points far less favourably at England manager-in-waiting Harry Redknapp, given his unusually cautious forays into the transfer market thus far and Tottenham’s continued inability to formulate a plan B (or a plan B dressed so inexplicably as plan A as to be interchangeable).

It is disingenuous to say that Redknapp and Spurs are doing their best Juande Ramos impression (*smirks wryly*), bottom of the league after only two matches with no points and one goal. But while the identity and quality of their opponents might take some of the strain, the manner of the performances were far from encouraging, as was Redknapp’s opinion that a sub-par, disaffected Modric and the accompanying effect on the team dynamic was better than no Modric at all.

Progress in the Europa League (courtesy of a 5-0 win at Hearts – more strong evidence that the ‘P’ in SPL might stand for ‘pub’) is scant consolation and one would be fairly sure that Redknapp regards it as emphatically the wrong European competition to be involved in, certainly if Champions League football is to return to White Hart Lane any time soon. A long season stretches ahead for ‘Arry and while he isn’t displaying a similar weariness to the Italian he hopes to replace, every question about Modric or potential replacements seems to make him even more hangdog than before.

Signing the combustible Adebayor is something of a gamble when your other goal sources are all staying and short of form and fitness, though Brad Friedel is as safe a pair of hands as is available. The problems, however, aren’t only in personnel. Redknapp is addicted to 4-4-2 the same as we here at Magic Spongers are addicted to outlandish metaphor.

Basically, it’s like trying to persistently push onions through apple-sized holes, brazenly ignoring the fact that your rivals in the ‘pushing fruit and veg through holes’ contest realised long ago that while onions are fine for the onion-shaped openings, you might have to rethink when things get a bit tighter. And not replace the onion that didn’t fit the first four times with a BIGGER ONION.

Rafael van der Vaart’s position ‘just off the front man’ so far this season isn’t so much a tactical decision as an indictment of his disinclination to either attack the box when the wingers have the ball – as they invariably must when a 4-4-2 attacks – or to get back and join the midfield when they are not in possession. Ledley King is a fine player in anyone’s estimation but he cannot play more than one game a week. Does this disrupt the side? Is there any other club that would indulge the situation enough to find out while shipping out Jonathan Woodgate?

The last changes that made any real difference on the sidelines at White Hart Lane were the swapping of the dugouts for those bucket seats everyone seems so fond of. Redknapp doesn’t appear to have a back-up plan for those times when his wide players run up against brick walls, as they are increasingly doing these days. Perhaps full-backs have them sussed, but there is no response from the bench, aside from slinging Pavlyuchenko on up front.

This is not to say, of course, that Spurs will have a poor season. They still boast a squad that can be the ‘best of the rest’ and may yet finish above Arsenal. If Aaron Lennon can learn to run and look at the same time and Gareth Bale can play well for more than approximately 100 minutes a season, they will still have too much for most sides in the Premier League. The loss of Modric might hurt, but as Ledley King has said today, at least they’ll be able to finally get down to business. Where in the table they conduct that business depends on Redknapp’s ability to integrate his late signings and refine his approach.

The evidence so far is compelling. This season, Tottenham played a 4-4-2 against a better 4-4-2 (United) and a 4-4-2 against a better 4-3-3 (City). United’s superior fluidity in turning defence to attack did for them at Old Trafford and they were overrun by City in the midfield at White Hart Lane. Not season-ending fixtures in themselves, but in both games, Redknapp’s subs changed a struggling 4-4-2 into a... 4-4-2. Possibly an even worse one. We couldn’t help but feel we were witnessing a prototype England set up for those inevitable chastening efforts against Spain, Germany or the Netherlands in the years to come. And they, like Spurs, will be in danger of being left behind.

A Return To Civilisation

2011-08-22T15:36:00.003+01:00

"Wide son! GET IT WIDE"

It’s all getting a bit frenetic in the middle of the park. The winger battles to keep control under pressure, and by way of a lucky deflection manages to find his full back, who fizzes it in at the feet of his number 6, under pressure almost the instant the ball gets to him. It’s niggly in there. The ball breaks to his midfield partner, who, without looking up, drives it out first-time towards the full back on the opposite flank, in relative acres of space. Appreciative applause ripples around the ground.

The football fan, it is often said, is a predictable enough beast – at least inside any given 90 minutes, where the order of the day switches between bullish sentiment (when things are going well) and howls of derision (when they are, invariably, not). Certain incidents are more likely to yield vocal reactions than others. The swell of noise upon merely winning a corner, for example: we’ve all shouted ‘COME ON [team name]’ as if firing a cross in at a defence that has spent a good 20 seconds organising itself specifically not to concede is any more likely to lead to a goal than the original chance, which appears to have been defended pretty well in the first place.

Consider the encouragement that greets a long-range effort, no matter how much it troubles the goalkeeper, corner flag or those erstwhile patrons in Row Q. The appreciation of a crunching tackle; the disbelieving cursing when your mental midfielder gets booked for it. The grudging support for your centre-forward, replaced after 65 minutes, presumably because falling over and getting booked wasn’t part of the game plan from the outset.

All these things are likely to generate some applause. That ripple of clapping that we are all, for some reason, completely predisposed to join in with. Attending football is a habit; a supporter’s behaviour inside the ground even more so, all part of the ritual. It’s a pre-programmed experience and we all make the requisite noises on demand. Being part of the groundswell of noise is quite cathartic, at any rate.

However, this doesn’t explain why almost every single person in every single ground up and down the country decides that a pass to a full-back in space somehow warrants similar acclaim. It’s the footballing equivalent of me receiving a warm round of applause for managing to get into the building in which I work and find my way to my own desk. And sit down at it.

If anything, presumably, it’s the ‘return to civilisation’ ball. After the action in the middle of the pitch has descended into a complete free-for-all, the cool head that somehow manages to kick a ball in a straight line along a completely clear area of grass for 20 yards (AS IS HIS PROFESSION) is always warmly congratulated by those in the stands. Football fans love the restoration of order and it’s the most basic pass in the game that gives them that structure. We’re not nervous about a lucky break putting someone clean through anymore. Whatever inherent danger, whatever psychological torment was building in the central quadrant is completely diffused. ‘At least one of them can play a sensible pass’, we agree knowingly, as the full-back, having received the ball, smashes it either down the line or straight out for a throw-in.

Such is the power of this particular pass to settle aggravation that it should probably be recommended to Dave Cameron and the Metropolitan Police. If Cameron had wanted to restore immediate order after the riots he should have had a line of riot coppers recreating that very move and all the looters would have presumably stopped in their tracks and started politely applauding.

It's amazing that there are 16,000 coppers on the street when all that was really needed was 22 in each area – 22 in Brixton, 22 in Eltham, 22 in Tottenham, and so on. They do this move over and over surrounded by applauding looters, throwing in a bit of scrappy play in the middle when the looters start getting wound up… and then that 20-yard ball. Pure, orderly perfection. Any aggro is dissipated immediately. Midnight and across London all that can be heard is polite applause.

You’re welcome, Dave. You’re bloody welcome.

Anyway. Back to the football. As far as we can tell, this is a phenomenon chiefly confined to the British game, which must be related to the fact that it ends up giving the ball to a player who is chiefly expected to knock it long down the line towards a forward ostensibly shirking the stereotype of ‘lumbering number nine’ by ‘running the channels’. By which of course, we mean contesting headers slightly away from the middle of the pitch, so as to free up space for that classic ball out to the full-back to build from the ba… oh.

Reflections On The First Day Of The Season: Part Two

2011-08-19T09:38:00.000+01:00

'If only I'd won those first eight games'

Disclaimer: This isn't really about the first day of the season. Rob went off-message. That's just how we roll.

It’s always nice to see football back. It’s always nice to feel the flush of expectation on the first day, whether it’s over the fact that York might get promoted, Macc might finish somewhere that doesn’t end in ‘teenth’ or relegation and life will stop shitting on us long enough to let one, just ONE, of the £680 accumulators we routinely put on actually come in.

When you’re putting on an accy though, it helps to have some kind of form to go on. And that information isn’t really available at the moment. These opening weeks are viewed at something of a default setting. After all, football in the sunshine doesn’t really count, does it? If you don’t actually need a Bovril to thaw your organs – for it is more akin to anti-freeze than drink – it’s more of a pre-season friendly, isn’t it?

Even those great bastions of sporting expertise at Sky and the BBC smugly say that ‘there’s not much point looking at the table’ at the moment, even if they do carry on showing both the top and bottom of the league in question and encouraging fans up and down the country to look at the table. ‘For what it’s worth’, they smirk. It’s fine, because it doesn’t mean anything. The points don’t matter; no one ever got relegated in August, right?

Well no. But teams have been proper fucked in August. And that lackadaisical attitude soon fades when you’re bottom of the table after three matches having shipped seven and scored one. That away defeat doesn’t matter? Try telling that to the team who will now go without a win on the road until Christmas. The psychological implications of a poor start, or indeed a great start, are vast.

A case in point in the Premier League is Everton. More pertinent and pressing parallels can be drawn between Macclesfield Town, in their annual appearance on Magic Spongers, and Coventry City, in theirs. After two games, Macc had lost twice, conceding three. Coventry had lost twice, conceding two. On Tuesday, Macc won 4-0 at Hereford, Rob nearly had a heart attack and Macc were 15th. Also on Tuesday, Coventry lost 2-1 at Crystal Palace, and were suddenly second bottom of the Championship with no points and one goal.

It didn’t help that losing to two injury-time goals created the cruellest of circumstances, but it also didn’t help that this was now three defeats on the bounce. At Macc, the overwhelming sense was that the rot had been stopped. At Coventry, by contrast, the malaise was setting in. A similar unease must have pervaded at the Silkmen’s victims, Hereford United.

Paul Ince’s debut season in management is a lesson in runs, both good and bad, and also involves Macc, so is a shoo-in for use. Under Brian Horton and then Ian Brightwell, they won NO games from August to November. The club somehow won twice in the FA Cup before winning its first league game on DECEMBER 5th. After that they were unbeaten in seven, winning six league games and drawing one. That run kept Macc up after another run had threatened to completely shaft them. Another pretty dire succession of results towards the end of the season meant survival was still only confirmed on the last day. And it was a miracle they came out of it at all – just look at Lincoln City in League Two last season.

It doesn’t matter who you are, but the importance of putting together a decent run at some stage of the season is paramount. That’s not to say, for example, that Southampton will win the Championship. ‘Early days, innit’, everyone is entitled to say. And it is. But this time of year continues to be a great leveller for excuses. In reality, the situation becomes more desperate with each passing week.

‘Sure, we might not look like scoring a goal if we LITERALLY played from now until May, but it’s only August, so what does it matter? Plenty of time to turn it round’ Well, your team could have nine points, but it’s got none. One vowel might not be a cause for concern for you, but it will be at your club. You’ve essentially gone to the shops looking forward to getting a big bag of apples, but you’ve come home with a punnet of onions. And your attitude is what? Next time, you’ll definitely get some apples? You’ve not been to the shops all summer, but you’ll definitely be able to pick up some apples when you get into the swing of SHOPPING AGAIN? THE APPLES WILL COME? WAKE UP.

Form at this stage of the season is important. Don’t you think every other fucker who’s been lumbered with onions will be going to the shop too, just as desperate for apples? And when they see you coming, the bloke who notoriously cannot buy an apple, they’ll firstly be snapping up all the apples available and secondly will not be afraid to take apples off you in the 94th minute while making consoling noises about your ‘character’ and how if you keep working hard in the fruit and veg aisle, the rewards will come. Well they’re not your fucking psychologists. They’re the bastards who’ll be eating apple pie for tea.

Form might be temporary, but it’s vital to make the most of it. August can wreck your season as much as April.

Reflections On The First Day Of The Season: Part 1

2011-08-18T14:40:00.001+01:00

It's taken us almost a week to respond to the fact that the season is now up and running but we've woken up from our slumber. Adam Bushby gives his thoughts on a stolen afternoon in Kent.

I remember the date vividly. Probably because it was less than a week ago and my short-term memory is pretty much fit for purpose. August 13. And I can tell you exactly where I was. I was stood towards the corner flag, in the away end of the Stonebridge Road ground eating a burger. I heard a booming Yorkshire voice, spliced with bile bellow: “And you can take your fucking chewing gum out an all linesman. Take your fucking gum out and start doing your fucking job.” After I heard this abuse, I smiled. ‘Why is this bloke so bothered about the linesman’s chewing gum?’, I pondered. I was watching York City v Ebbsfleet in the Blue Square Premier League, it was 15 minutes in, and I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else. A new season has started. And I’m hooked.

Expectations at York are through the roof already this season after we recorded back to back wins in our opening two games for the first time since, I presume, ever. It really hasn’t been easy being a York fan in recent times, considering that the club almost went out of existence as recently as 2003 after being presided over by a pair of evil cunts straight out of a Marvel comic: first Douglas Craig; and then John Bachelor. But this isn’t a potted history lesson of one of the Conference’s bigger teams. What I wish to convey is that by eschewing the glamour of the Premier League every now and then, paying at the turnstiles (remember them?) and turning up at some tinpot ground in Kent, I felt like a modern day Yorkshire Don Quixote, embarking on another adventure that had the very real threat of ending in farce, tragedy, or most likely both.

I can only make a laboured apple/onion analogy to reinforce the point. Being a lower/non league fan is exactly like being handed a blindfold before you go into the apple/onion store and being forced to do your shopping in blissful ignorance. At the end of the day, only a handful of people are going to end up with a basket overwhelmingly full with apples. Some will have more onions, some will have less. But one thing is sure: you are going to get onions.

For me, everything is so much more vivid at a lower/non-league ground, although I appreciate I fancy myself as an aesthete. The tiny shack doubling up as a pisser. The little burger van, which I have to say was nothing short of superb at Ebbsfleet, genuinely. The tiny female steward who looked like Ronnie Corbett with a tache repeatedly telling the same bloke off for standing in an area not allocated for standing. And then there’s the action on the pitch itself. This season, we, as York fans, stand wholly likely to be subjected to some of the best football we’ve seen in years, judging by Saturday’s offering. It was with dizzying pleasure (for once) that the words “fucking hell” passed my lips when our new Portuguese winger Adriano Moke beat three men, for the umpteenth time. And then there was Jason Walker’s lovely little header for an injury-time winner that sent the 400 of us who’d made the trip to the arse end of nowhere mental. A worthwhile pilgrimage; this was our Mecca.

And the thing is, I know I’m not alone. I know that for every Patrick McLaughlin, Ashley Chambers and Matty Blair, there is someone going mental at an Adam Le Fondre goal, or a mistimed Lee Hughes tackle or an easy chance missed by Richard Cresswell. We’re all in this together, watching in the main, average football, in crumbling grounds with real character and no-one in Kuala Lumpur is going out and buying a Port Vale replica shirt.

I’ll tell anyone who’ll listen to jump on York to win the Conference this season. I’ve seen their odds plummet from 16/1 to 15/2 in the space of a fortnight and I’m worried I’m getting a little carried away. But you know what, if Rob’s beloved Macclesfield Town can score a goal like this, then really, anything can happen. Here’s to blind hope. Long may it continue.

A Skype Conversation About Rangers

2011-08-11T16:18:00.001+01:00

Mussolini gestures to Celtic fans

In the absence of writing any 'proper' articles, Bushby and MacDonald take a trip down memory lane.

[16:10:10] Adam Bushby: Remember Gattuso at Rangers?
[16:10:11] Adam Bushby: Eh eh
[16:10:14] Rob MacDonald: Yes
[16:10:17] Adam Bushby: Remember Basile Boli
[16:10:19] Adam Bushby: AT RANGERS
[16:10:20] Adam Bushby: DO YOU
[16:10:23] Rob MacDonald: They had a class side
[16:10:26] Rob MacDonald: For years
[16:10:29] Adam Bushby: DO YOU REMEMBER ALL THE PLAYERS AT RANGERS
[16:10:30] Adam Bushby: DO YOU
[16:10:34] Rob MacDonald: NINE YEARS OF THEM
[16:10:45] Rob MacDonald: And yet STILL shit in Europe
[16:10:52] Rob MacDonald: Every SINGLE year
[16:10:55] Adam Bushby: DO YOU REMEMBER HOW GOOD MICHAEL LAUDRUP WAS? WELL HE NEVER PLAYED AT RANGERS
[16:10:58] Adam Bushby: BUT HIS BROTHER DID
[16:11:02] Adam Bushby: AT RANGERS
[16:11:11] Rob MacDonald: REMEMBER RAOUL MOAT?
[16:11:18] Rob MacDonald: HIS FRIEND PAUL GASCOIGNE WAS THERE TOO
[16:11:20] Rob MacDonald: AT RANGERS
[16:11:21] Adam Bushby: REMEMBER MUSSOLINI
[16:11:23] Adam Bushby: AT RANGERS
[16:11:30] Adam Bushby: WITH HIS 'SALUTES'
[16:11:32] Adam Bushby: DO YOU REMEMBER
[16:11:33] Rob MacDonald: REMEMBER STALIN IN GOAL FOR RANGERS
[16:11:40] Adam Bushby: HIS 'GESTURES' TO THE CELTIC FANS
[16:11:42] Adam Bushby: HIS HAT
[16:11:42] Rob MacDonald: NOTHING GOT PAST HIM LOL!
[16:12:00] Adam Bushby: REMEMBER WHEN RANGERS GOT UDAY HUSSEIN ON LOAN
[16:12:16] Adam Bushby: REMEMBER EL HADJ DIOUF
[16:12:17] Adam Bushby: AT RANGERS

Samey Season

2011-08-08T11:10:00.000+01:00

Oh GOODY

With our record-breaking* Dickheads series out of the way, it’s time to get back to our pastiched, holier-than-thou, tiradey ways. At least there is some recognition on our behalf here, that we are pseudo pub know-it-alls. But a mission statement for the new season was needed all the same. To kick off this season’s coverage, it is probably apt that we begin with a meditation on how shit the Premier League is.

Is it just us, or is the top flight increasingly an over-produced, big budget Hollywood clusterfuck of an event that becomes a more abstract concept the more you remember picking Gavin Peacock, Matt Elliot and Muzzy Izzet in the same fantasy football side. For a start, the standard budget for fantasy football this season is £100m. ONE HUNDRED MILLION POUNDS. And the most depressing thing is, it isn’t even enough. It wasn’t too long ago you could buy Ian Harte, Paolo Wanchope and Francesco Baiano for LESS than it now costs to buy Jonathan fucking Walters.

Curmudgeonly? Maybe. Give a shit? No. There’s a reason we’re more excited about Macc and York here this season, respectively, and it’s not that the pies are cheaper and that if we lost our penchant for drinking, sitting and crisps we could probably get a game.

The Premier League is shit. And here’s why, specifically. Over-exposure. To elaborate, when Dennis Bergkamp came to Arsenal from Inter for £7.5m, I think I’d seen him play twice. I never liked watching Inter on Football Italia for some reason. I always preferred Fiorentina and Sampdoria because they had better shirts. Anyway, Bruce Rioch brings Bergkamp to England and when he turns out to be class, it’s exciting. Same deal with Thierry Henry a few years later when he finally fulfilled his potential. But probably more so with foreign players for smaller fees, like Eric Cantona and David Ginola. You might have seen these lads play once in a UEFA Cup game against Liverpool but that would be it. So you’d be swept away with the buzz created by those who had seen these players. World Soccer was a staple for keeping tabs on these exotic leagues full of exotic players.

We are bored of Fabregas, annoyed that Barcelona don’t ever get called up on their tapping up by the authorities, perplexed by Arsene Wenger’s transfer policy; wise to Man City’s. We cannot think of a more boring way to spend nearly £50m – we are looking at you Kenny Dalglish, though we do love Charlie Adam.

Slowly but surely, Sky started its goosestep across football coinciding with bigger and bigger pay packets and more and more coverage hours. All these things fed into each other to create the behemoth we see today, but inevitably with the over-exposure has come a weariness. The best thing to happen to the Premier League last season wasn’t Manchester United winning it or Manchester City getting Champions League football. It was watching Blackpool being on the wrong end of 5-3 scorelines after playing playground attacking football. We loved Ian Holloway for giving us that. Something different at last. That it was an eccentric, fundamentally English extravagance made it eminently more satisfying too. Holloway was our Marcelo Bielsa for a season. Ok maybe not, but you get the gist.

And alright, the Community Shield might have been a good game – everyone loves a good comeback after all – but you’re about as likely to see Fergie making three changes at half time in the regular season (and five in all) as you are to see the Premier League’s 39th game take place on the moon. Even if does sound like a great Nike advert. Which it doesn’t. It sounds like a fucking stupid advert, because how can you play football in an environment where the gravitational acceleration is a mere 16.7% of the Earth’s? It’d be like playing with a balloon.

But we digress. Get used to it.

The league’s personnel is largely unchanged and its home-grown players are gearing up for yet another season of the same. British players are on a carousel that starts and ends in England. And never leaves England. Jordan Henderson going to Liverpool for a potential £20m is not as mouth-watering a prospect as Gianfranco Zola holding up his brand spanking new number 25 shirt at Stamford Bridge. Today’s mass communication means that we are more familiar than ever with John Terry, Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard. With Stewart Downing and Darren Bent. With Kevin Davies and Leighton Baines. Special mention for honourary Premier League staples like Charles N’Zogbia, destined to forever move from relegation scrap to lower mid-table and back again. Special mention too for a supporting cast of all the other average Premier League players who do exactly the same, moving inexorably sideways to scrap for relative mediocrity for another season. We think Neil Redfearn started this trend in the modern era.

Familiarity has now bred contempt, for us at least, and consolidation is tedious. Maybe we are old and cynical**. But until our football culture changes and we see Jack Wilshire at Real Madrid lining up against Josh McEachran at Inter (and El-Hadji Diouf finally retires), we will continue to post these sub-literate rants. You’ve been warned.

* It didn’t break any records

** There’s no maybe about it

Dickheads #13 - Arsene Wenger

2011-08-05T10:17:00.000+01:00

What the hell just happened?

Closing this series, it's a welcome back to Magic Spongers for Drew Kearns, on a mission to make you spit your Friday brew all over your keyboard with this tirade about the Professor...

Dickheads. The world is full of them. When confronted with one such being I usually respond by placing them ‘on the list’. And the list is long. Louis Walsh, Daniel O’Donnell, Piers Morgan, H from Steps, George Lucas, Cliff Richard, Kim Bauer are but a few luminaries present. Unfortunately, the world of football is just like the real world and also full of dickheads: Glenn Hoddle, John McGinley, Robbie Savage and Bolton’s Lofty the Lion mascot all rest in the football volume of the list. But one name stands out above them all. Family, friends and people I’ve stood next to in the queue at Tesco will know where I’m heading with this. If there is one thing I hate in football today, it has to be Arsene Wenger, Arsenal manager and luminary dickhead. As the wife pointed out this season while watching the Gunners’ FA cup game against Manchester United: “Not even Spurs fans hate Wenger as much as you do”. This is very true. I shall attempt to explain.

It has been abundantly clear for years now that Arsenal CANNOT win anything if they CANNOT defend. To do this, they need a good solid goalkeeper and a pair of disciplined centre halves who CAN defend. This is not rocket science, hell this isn’t even finding out which room the rocket science lessons are in. This is basic football management. Arsenal last won a trophy in 2005 (the FA cup on penalties against Manchester United). Pretty, precise football indeed – but what has it achieved? His side were far more successful when he himself adapted a more rugged approach. Adams, Keown and Vieira were the cornerstone of his most successful side. It is not a coincidence that since he flooded his team with a plethora of identi-kit small, nimble midfielders they have struggled to compete for titles and trophies.

Despite his lauded intellect, he appears to fail to understand that as technically proficient as his mini-me players are, they must play against the likes of Blackburn and Bolton. It’s developing a team to beat those sides on a consistent basis which wins league titles. Not passing team x off the pitch. He’s tried creating an uber-skilful side, but the shame was that it played Barcelona in Europe last season and in the words of the great Jamie Redknapp, they were ‘literally passed to death’ – or as we say in English, ‘murdered’. Arsenal were so one dimensional and lacked any backup plan in the Nou Camp that Nasri ended up at left back and Van Persie’s position became more akin to a hostage situation than the lone striker role. Before he got sent off, anyway.

Let us remember, pertinently, that Barcelona – Wenger’s perceived ideal – press and defend like no other team on earth. They also have a goalkeeper who reassures his defenders. Wenger appears not to realise that success is achieved when you beat the opposition you play against, not by playing in a style which you feel is superior to the rest. And by god does he feel he and his team are superior. Such monumental arrogance from a man whose side lost their last final to Birmingham City, who were later relegated. Never has a Bluenose win brought me such satisfaction. Allow me to remind you, as well, that this defeat was self-inflicted – by some pretty piss poor defending. Funny that.

At the start of the season there was an incident which neatly and perfectly encapsulated the true and outstanding nature of Wenger’s dickhead status. The incident to which I refer revolved around his comments on other team’s approach/style/tactics, this time aimed at Stoke. Even as a fiercely committed Wenger disparager, I was stunned to read his comments about Stoke and their “rugby” tactics. Now I don’t like Stoke any more than the next man having endured the worst 90 minutes of my entire life watching them play my lot at Molineux the season before last. It was truly awful stuff. I’ve never before or since simply chanted ‘football’ to taunt opposition fans. But I’m a paying punter, whereas Wenger is a manager of a PREMIER LEAGUE FOOTBALL TEAM. The world would hope that we should conduct ourselves in different ways, respectively. His comments led me to thinking whether there had ever been a more blatant attempt by a manager to influence officials before games.

Wenger was calling on referees to identify and punish what he feels are illegal challenges on goalkeepers. Here he was pre-empting what may happen in a game and expecting a particular decision and outcome based on his interpretation of the rules. For me, this was the very definition of bringing the game into disrepute. These comments came after the Stoke v SPURS game. Arsenal weren’t even involved! Yet Wenger felt he had reason and justification to comment.

Stoke, as you would expect, made an official complaint to the FA. The result? The FA decided there was no case to answer. And we all know how many dickheads work there.

Wenger genuinely feels football should only be played one way. That way is his way and it is right. He simply cannot comprehend that the game could possibly be played in different styles with different tactics. It is this very fact that makes football the game we all know and love. Sure, Barcelona are most football fan’s fantasy, but if every side played like them then we might as well move to the States and support a franchise in the NBA. Football is all about light and shade; the big against the small. Style looks good but substance also matters.

One final thing. It happens less now than it used to, but what the hell was the ‘I didn’t see it’ stuff all about? Did the dickhead really think we would swallow that horseshit? He’s studied the opposition late into the night for two weeks. He’s compiled several dossiers for his players to read and remember. He’s worked tirelessly on the training pitch to fine tune the complete passing game. He lives and breathes football. Yet when the team he is in charge of is actually playing and they or the opposition are in the penalty area he suddenly recognises an old friend in the crowd. Or pops off to buy a £6 hotdog.

And, at exactly the same time he is reminiscing and getting misty-eyed about his University days or wiping the mustard off his shirt, a key and fundamental incident always seems to happen on the field of play. It is a shame therefore that he is now unable to comment or offer an opinion on whether his useless defender did indeed hack down that Everton midfielder in the box in the last minute with the game tied. I mean, if nothing else the sheer repetition of such events is unlikely. Surely Arsene himself must begin to think this was becoming more than a coincidence. All these friends suddenly appearing in the crowd. At Highbury, at the Emirates, Old Trafford, Villa Park, Anfield... oh hang on. He was lying? Really? For all that time? In public? To the press, the TV viewers, his players, the opposition, his fellow managers, the supporters of his team – who pay his wages? Lying to them all? In the vain hope of squirming himself out of the situation he was in?

Well he or one of his players fucked up. Rather than take responsibility and discuss the issue he would say he didn’t see it. That’s gutless and embarrassing. Dickhead.

Football and football teams need a combination of styles to be successful. Wenger’s falsely-held belief that his approach is better than everybody else’s hasn’t just cost Arsenal trophies over the last six years, but resulted in the top tier of the English game becoming weak, shy and precious. This is the real reason for my Wenger rage – that and the stupid, idiotic, ridiculous fucking awful ‘sleeping bag’ coat he wears every game. Dickhead.

You can direct your ill-considered responses at Drew on Twitter

Dickheads #12 - Luis Suarez

2011-08-03T09:47:00.003+01:00

Dream destroyer

While neutrals everywhere cried into their beer, one man went into Pantomime villain mode and another man has never forgiven him. Please give a warm welcome to Magic Spongers to Jonny Sharples who can be followed here.

It was Friday, July 2 2011 and I sat at home in a knock-off Ghana shirt bought from the side of the road in Accra. I was swearing quite a lot. A hell of a lot. I was angry, I was upset and I'm not even Ghanaian. I can only imagine how much a native of the country feels about him but me? I hate Luis Suarez.

England had been knocked out five days earlier, uninspiring as standard, but I'd never really been supporting my own country. I'd jumped aboard the Ghana bandwagon early, my sister lives in the west African country, I'd drawn them in the work sweepstake and they were playing some lovely football. Nobody had expected Ghana or Uruguay to be contesting a match to be in the last four of the World Cup but they were, and Ghana deserved a place in the semi finals.

Sulley Muntari had scored a long range effort that took Fernando Muslera by surprise, Diego Forlan had scored a goal that left Richard Kingson hanging in the air for what looked like moments. Other than that the game was forgettable. Until minute one hundred and nineteen that is when the Africans battered the Uruguay goal and Dominic Adiyiah's header was surely about to guarantee Ghana a spot in the final four, African's first ever World Cup semi finalists. I was one step closer to the jackpot. My sister was one step closer to being caught up in a wild Accra street party. But then, then, Luis Suarez handles the ball on the line and denies a clear goal. Out comes Olegario Benquerenca's red card and Luis Suarez's rodent like face pleads innocence.

Up steps Asamoah Gyan to thunder his penalty against the crossbar. The camera goes to the Uruaguayan bellend still stood on the sidelines and in a cuntsplosion of excitement, he is seen jumping for joy. The handball isn't the reason I hate Luis Suarez – it was a "natural reaction" (as natural as it can be to punch a ball away when your ratty little face is merely inches behind) – the reason I hate that fucking prize prick is because of his celebration of Gyan's miss. Why was he even there? Why wasn't he in the changing rooms? Why did the fourth official (Alberto Undiano if you want to boo him at some point) allow him to be stood there? What a monumental bellend Luis Suarez is.

Ghana went on to lose the penalty shootout (although Gyan stepping up and superbly placing his into the top corner was inspiring, I can only imagine he imagined wee Luis' face in the angle) and Suarez claimed his was the real Hand of God and he was a hero to millions of complete twats in his home land. Thankfully Uruguay went on to lose their next two matches (to the Netherlands and Germany) and Ghana won their place in the hearts of the world.

But it doesn't stop there, oh no, Luis Suarez decided to come over to England (but not before biting an opponent whilst still at Ajax) and play for a club I despise more than any other; Liverpool. And just when you think you couldn't hate him even more, hearing his voice pronounced in a Scouse accent makes it fucking grate. His first "goal" for Liverpool was an own goal by Andy Wilkinson against Stoke by the way, just so you know.

You know you hate someone so much that you will gladly boo them when you're sat on your own playing Football Manager, you know you think someone is a fucking dick when you're winning on FIFA and they score and you immediately turn the game off... both of these things are occurrences in my life because of Luis Suarez and his stupid fucking face.

Luis Suarez, I fucking hate you. You cost me money. You look like a rodent. You've affected my DNF% on XBox Live. And you're a massive, massive prick. But hey, you play for Liverpool and this is your year...

Blooper Mario

2011-08-02T11:22:00.001+01:00

Oh MAN UP

So Mario Balotelli’s unhappy is he? What a massive shame. What a change from his normal sunny disposition, too. Truth be told, you wouldn’t think he had many reasons to be unhappy. Admittedly, he has attached what appears to be a strip of Velcro to his head, so maybe he’s unhappy about that. No? Maybe he’s unhappy because the press won’t get off his back, or because someone left kippers in his Maserati. Maybe it’s because he’s been done for parking offences 27 times. Maybe it’s because he just can’t park at all and he needs to use those mother/baby spaces at Asda.

All this might be true, but the official reason for Balotelli’s latest bout of the sulks is because he doesn’t like Manchester. A city, lest we forget, he has already lived in for a year. A city, lest we also forget, he is being paid somewhere in the region of 130,000 excellent reasons every week to like just fine. But no. Not enough for Mario. It was enough for Bushby, Mario, when he moved from York to go to university there. He adapted just fine. MacDonald grew up there. He managed. Sort of.

This is a clear sign of a man clearly at odds with his surroundings, hailing from Brescia (though born in Palermo) as he does, but it’s also a clear sign of a man who has failed to conduct the requisite groundwork on his new home. For example, the Trafford Centre has a Laser Quest AND a cinema. A fucking Laser Quest! You don’t know you’re born son. Rudimentary research would also have told you about the delights of Affleck’s Palace, where you can buy an inordinate amount of those stupid fucking chicken hats you are so fond of.

Balotelli’s ignorance just smacks of a man who’s never experienced the sheer joy of paying £1 for a bottle of Carlsberg at Fifth Avenue. £1.50 for a Jagerbomb? And the city isn’t ‘to your tastes’? What kind of idiot are you?

Such a staggering lack of insight into Manchester’s potential can only come from a man who has never, ever been either down the world-famous Curry Mile in Rusholme or had his taste buds teased by Raj’s kebab shop on Oxford Road. A man who’s never been for chips and curry sauce in the Northern Quarter.

Haven’t you seen that Hilton thing, mate? It’s fucking UPSIDE DOWN.

There’s a bar down by Castlefield which used to be owned by Mick Hucknall. INTERNATIONAL MUSIC STAR MICK HUCKNALL MARIO YOU ARROGANT CLOWN.

‘It rains all the time’ – oh boo fucking hoo. You’re in ENGLAND. It rains fucking everywhere here pal. Move to West Brom. Or Sunderland. I haven’t heard Pablo Ibanez moaning about the Midlands or Asamoah Gyan slagging off Tyne and Wear. Then again, I hear Gyan is a big fan of Mowbray Park. So yeah, Manchester’s the problem isn’t it. Complain about the shit weather all you like but don’t lay the blame at Manchester’s door. Do you want to win trophies or not? Yes? Well shut the fuck up and get used to the fact that most of them will be heading to Manchester for the next few years and that means you might have to train inside for one or two days more a week than you might ‘down south’ or ‘in Italy’. Twat.

Dickheads #11 - Defensive Midfielders

2011-08-01T11:33:00.005+01:00

That sort of player?

Another day, another dickheads piece and another Magic Spongers debutant. Here's James Tyler of the fantastic Unprofessional Foul who can also be found on Twitter, where you should follow him, now.

Ever been at the seaside and watched a bully crush a child's sandcastle? Feels awful, doesn't it? It's cruel and crude, but the real disaster is when the ocean comes and washes the crime scene away. In this tepid analogy, we've all built plenty of castles and seen them rudely destroyed, and it never gets easier.

Taking it one step further, the defensive midfielder can be cast as the bully, the ocean wave, the beach, and the dastardly god that defined the entire scene. Forever wrecking anything and everything on the pitch, they're the pox that makes simpering aesthetes whimper and whinny. Clamp down on an ankle, snap a tendon, pop the ball with a well-aimed, vicious studs-up lunge. Keep the physios busy and the magic spray constantly deployed. Karl Henry. Lee Cattermole. Javier Mascherano. These are the men that I hate for the pain they inflict on the average game.

Now, I'm not a complete sucker for something pretty and cute and passy-passy, dainty and delicate, amazing as it can be, but I do rankle at the sustained savagery that the Cattermoles of the world inflict over 90 minutes. It's effective, but tremendously negative, the cold antithesis of what used to be the game's innate attraction.

As a kid, swooping through alleys and aiming volleys between parked cars, we tried vainly to emulate the majesty of bicycle kicks, Le Tissier's long-range blasts, and anything John Barnes ever did on the dribble. That's the entry point to this glorious game, right? We pick up on the fun, and not the tendon-destroying madness. We want to be the classic No. 10 weaving upfield, gliding past defenders, and receiving all the praise. Did we ever try to mimic the sins of Andoni Goikoetxea, like the one that shattered Bernd Schuster's knee or cracked Diego Maradona's ankle?

Of course not, because those are distinctly grown-up pursuits, a bit like when our socially conservative parents would laugh at our left-wing rants at the breakfast table, all the while warning us that some day, we'd be just like them. We'd understand. We'd get it.

Frankly, I don't ever wish to "get it" in that sense, because I much prefer the version of the game that favours creation over decimation, joy over cynicism, and pleasure over the frigidity that overwhelms whenever watching Stoke City rumble and wrangle an opponent.

But that's just me. Defensive midfielders can be nifty when they choose, but the run-of-the-mill clogger hell-bent on poison and pain? I'd rather have my tibia cracked by Karl Henry than be forced to watch them on the pitch.

Dickheads #10 - Roy Keane

2011-07-28T10:15:00.001+01:00

"Stick it up your bollocks, Mick"

Over to Ian Walsh of the rather excellent Touchline Views, WHO IS A MAN UNITED FAN ALRIGHT SO DON'T EVEN START WITH US.

Before I begin, a little preamble. When I mooted the idea of choosing Roy Keane for this series it seemed to cause hysteria among a couple of Manchester United fans (the club I also support). But then, I’m not one to pander to the demands of others and have no shame or remorse in saying that Roy Keane is a dickhead of the highest order.

Never in my few short years of watching football has a player wound me up as much as Roy fucking Keane. Now, in everyday life, I consider myself to be a man with a level temper – it takes quite a lot to provoke me or rile me. However, at the very mention of Keane’s name I am filled to the brim with bile, mainly as a result of some choice actions during his playing career.

Bit by bit, Keane has fucked me off quite a lot over the years. Even now I can see that snarling face of his. Keane was a brilliant footballer on his day, no doubt, but when tempers frayed the ugly side of Keane emerged, the side that used to fuck me off.

Let’s leave aside the abuse of referees and some of the callous, cynical acts he committed on the pitch on a weekly basis. For me, there are three main reasons Roy Keane is a dickhead, each of which I will go through in detail below:

1. 2002 World Cup – Saipan
I am not only writing this as a Manchester United fan, but also as an Irishman, and some seem to forget that Keane divided us as a nation when he decided to walk out on his country in 2002 after a bitter row with Mick McCarthy. Here are just some of the many words he had for the coach:

"Mick, you're a liar... you're a fucking wanker. I didn't rate you as a player, I don't rate you as a manager, and I don't rate you as a person. You're a fucking wanker and you can stick your World Cup up your arse. The only reason I have any dealings with you is that somehow you are the manager of my country! You can stick it up your bollocks."

This, for me, is where my hatred began - of all the times to fall out with the hierarchy, don’t choose Ireland’s first World Cup since 1994. Who knows, with Keane there we might have gone further than being knocked out on penalties against Spain. And it isn’t even well executed. ‘Stick it up your bollocks’? Completely mindless. Fuck off.

2. Alf-Inge Haaland
The ugly side to Keane usually simmers away beneath the surface for a couple of weeks or months, but in this next case did so for four years – revenge was what he wanted against Alf-Inge Haaland, and revenge is what he got. We all know the tackle I’m talking about – it ended Haaland’s career. What a way to have your career ended – by a thug looking for revenge – a disgusting, despicable act. AFTER FOUR YEARS? Has Keane shown remorse for what he did? Has he hell. He takes a certain sense of pride in it all, as he wrote in his autobiography: “I'd waited long enough. I fucking hit him hard. The ball was there (I think). Take that you cunt. And don't ever stand over me sneering about fake injuries.”

What a monumental DICKHEAD.

3. Eventual departure from Manchester United
Keane was the master of his own downfall. Let it never be said that on Sir Alex Ferguson’s watch any one player is bigger than the club – Keane’s exit is testament to this.

When our team plays badly, we armchair pundits are quick to criticise certain individuals for the way they have performed – that is, after the manager has been in and torn strips off them first. No doubt there are plenty of disagreements within the team, too. Personally, I believe criticism of your own team-mates is something which should be done in private – what goes on in the dressing room stays in the dressing room, and all that.

An explosive interview with MUTV, in which Keane savaged his team-mates after a 4-1 defeat against Middlesbrough was seen as one of the final straws. Some of the quotes to emerge were: "I wasn't surprised by the result”, and "I had been expecting one like this”.

That was before he laid into the squad: "There is a shortage of characters in this team. It seems to be in this club that you have to play badly to be rewarded. Maybe that is what I should do when I come back. Play badly."

Rio Ferdinand was one to feel the full force of Keane’s words: "Just because you are paid £120,000-a-week and play well for 20 minutes against Tottenham, you think you are a superstar", while Darren Fletcher, John O’Shea, Kieran Richardson and Alan Smith were also criticised. For somebody who was meant to be a leader and club captain, Keane didn’t show much leadership. In fact, he showed completely the opposite, painting the picture that the club and dressing room were in disarray.

I could also mention his criticism of his own supporters: “Away from home, our fans are fantastic, I'd call them the hardcore fans. But at home they have a few drinks and probably the prawn sandwiches, and they don't realise what's going on out on the pitch.”

I don’t imagine this is going to go down particularly well with the staunch Manchester United fans, and those who were fans of Keane’s contribution to the club, which was immense. But, in short, from my point of view, throughout his career Roy Keane was a bully, a thug, and most pertinently, a dickhead. *braces for numerous attempts at career-ending tackles*

You can go in on Ian dreadfully late on Twitter.

This Be The Curse

2011-07-26T13:45:00.006+01:00

"He fucking IS better than Ngog"

In some sort of shite exclusive, the poetic ramblings of Adam Bushby and Rob MacDonald (because we were bored at work).

This Be The Curse

They fuck you up, do Yeovil and Hull.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They tempt you with their lascivious pull

And then concede at quarter to.

But we were done in by the ref

By fools with old-style flags, the jokes,

Who half the match seemed fucking deaf

And half as blind as Berti Vogts

Fan hands on misery to fan

Bloated and distorted by the spring.

Forsake the Bovril and three-match bans

And take up fucking cycling.

An anthology of our rip-offs of famous poems will be available from all good bookshops in the Autumn.

Dickheads #9 - Kevin Muscat

2011-07-25T14:09:00.001+01:00

Getting somewhere near the ball for a change

To kick off this week of Dickheads, it's over to Chris Lines of Narrow the Angle. Shouldn't be many dissenting voices on this one...

I’ve no beef with hardmen in football. Occasional moments of brawn and skulduggery give the game a juicy bit of edge. If you play the ball then there’s nothing too wrong with being fairly physical, provided you’re not jeopardising the safety of your opponent. But there’s reasonable force and then there’s downright dangerous.

Kevin Muscat is not just a hard player, he’s an absolute animal. A snarling, ticking time bomb of a man, seemingly hell bent on raging against anyone and anything that crosses his path. Innocuous incidents can be enough to cause the red mist to descend (and in Muscat’s mind, the forecast is usually for heavy fog and the horizon a shade of deep rouge). A tricky winger giving him the slip, somebody fouling him a little bit, a raised eyebrow – in certain games you can see it coming. And then it’s just a case of how soon somebody is going to get horribly clattered into.

Muscat and his ilk are like dinosaurs in modern football, and the sooner all of his type get the hell out of the game the better. Hard tackling: good. Dangerous, thuggish, career-threatening (and, in one case, career-ending) challenges: shameful. Go away. You are neither appreciated nor wanted.

I initially decided to write this piece because I’d read that Muscat had retired. Turns out he hasn’t – he’s changed his mind and returned to the suburban Melbourne side where it all began for him, Sunshine George Cross FC. A team with a name that manages to be both pleasant and heroic – two adjectives that will never be used to describe Kevin Muscat.

Fans of the teams Muscat has played for – such as Wolves, Palace, Millwall and Rangers – might argue that Muscat didn’t get sent off every week and most of the time was just a fully committed professional, albeit a tough one. But Muscat always had a dash of psychosis lurking within him. The capacity to see red and lose all control of his actions sets him apart from your average hardman. Roy Keane showed it on one or two occasions in his career (notably on Alf-Inge Haaland’s unfortunate knee), but Muscat has lost control again and again. There are so many incidents that it goes way beyond coincidence or misfortune, to the point of making you wonder how he was never banned from the game permanently, or at least for an extended period of months. With Muscat on the opposition side, players took to the field knowing that their livelihood was in considerably greater jeopardy than on the average Saturday.

Fans of Bournemouth, West Ham, Blackburn and Charlton will remember Matty Holmes as a tricky, likeable and slightly built left midfielder of some considerable skill. But he was never the same again after being on the receiving end of a vicious tackle from Muscat in 1998. Initially there were genuine fears that Holmes could lose his leg in the aftermath of the tackle. Thankfully that wasn’t necessary, but Holmes had to endure four operations on the leg and received in the region of £750,000 at the High Court in lost earnings. As a Bournemouth fan and admirer of Holmes myself, this is probably where the seeds of my intense dislike towards Muscat were first sown. But the opinion I formed of him at that time has not changed in the 13 years since. If anything, he’s become dirtier and more unhinged the longer his career has gone on.

The Holmes tackle was not an isolated incident. Craig Bellamy in his Norwich City days and his Australia teammate Stan Laziridis have both felt the full force of unsavoury and controversial Muscat challenges in their time. Laziridis, in an article in the Australian press this year, bizarrely spoke out in defence of Muscat, saying that he’s a completely different character of the field. To this I would say: who the hell cares? I don’t give a monkey’s if he’s constantly kissing babies off the field, rescuing kittens from tall trees and giving all of his wages to an injured koala fund – he’s a bloody dangerous player to have on the football pitch. I was delighted when he left English football for the A-League’s Melbourne Victory in 2005 – it meant there was no longer any danger of him doing damage to a player in a team I follow.

In 2001, when Muscat clattered Christophe Dugarry in a friendly – yes, a friendly – against France, leaving a deep imprint in the Frenchman’s leg and putting him out of action for three months, Roger Lemerre summed up the Australian’s thuggery, saying: “Football is not a game of skittles, but I'm deeply unhappy about that tackle. It was a close match and it should not have been tarnished with such an act of brutality."

And when Ashley Young was warming up on the pitch ahead of making his professional debut for Watford several years back, Muscat approached him during the warm-up and told him that he’d break his legs if he went past him during the game; a delightful way to speak to a young trainee. What a role model. As it turned out, Muscat did not get the chance to break Young’s legs, as he managed to get himself sent off before the youngster’s introduction as a substitute.

Once back in his homeland, Muscat showed no signs of calming down. Yellow and red cards still seemed to follow him around, and late January of 2011 saw him inflict another disgusting tackle on an opposition player – Adrian Zahra of Melbourne Heart – having already been sent off in his previous appearance.

The challenge on Zahra was a disgrace. And in this age of instant communications, social networking and Youtube, the challenge was shown repeatedly around the world – finally highlighting to a global audience what a hazardous and reckless man Muscat can be. The footage shows Muscat unrepentant, hollering abuse at the referee as he brandishes the red card, complaining to anybody near him that he got the ball, incredulous at the decision. True football fans have long known what Muscat is capable of, but this tackle now means that the casual armchair fan is well aware of it too. He got an eight-game ban for his troubles. Good. I’d say that was lenient. Zahra’s lucky he can still play the game after that.

So what crumb of comfort can we take from this cowardly, borderline-psychotic man’s career? Well, laughing at the misfortune of others is pretty damn cowardly too (though not as spineless as some of Muscat’s tackles) so let’s do that, shall we?

In 2004, Muscat captained Millwall to the FA Cup Final for the first time in their history. But guess what? He missed the final through injury. Ha!

And when Guus Hiddink took over as Australia manager in 2005, he promptly dropped Muscat from the squad – good old Guus, he knows a liability when he sees one – and Muscat subsequently did not get to enjoy the honour of going to the 2006 World Cup Finals, the first time Australia had qualified since 1974 and only their second appearance ever. Your heart bleeds for him.

So you go and play for your boyhood team, Kevin. Go and turn out for the side that your father is still involved in the running of, and make out like it’s some quaint little curtain closer on a brilliant career. I’m sure A-League spectators and players won’t miss you any more than those in England haven’t missed you.

I pity the poor teenage amateur wingers getting paid next-to-nothing that you’ll be kicking up in the air. I hope you collide with an advertising hoarding and do both your cruciates, you pathetic coward. Oh, and by the way, you were never very good at football either.

Follow Chris on Twitter @NarrowtheAngle

Dickheads #8 - ITV's Punditry Team

2011-07-20T14:49:00.003+01:00

Pure evil

Here's the other, slightly better half of Magic Spongers, Adam Bushby, on his more-than-just-an-aversion to three men on channel three...

"[Watching him is] like being stuck in the buffet car of a slow-moving train with a Toby jug that has miraculously discovered the power of speech… A talking Toby jug full of steaming hot piss.” Comedian Stewart Lee on Adrian Chiles.

I am 27. I earn an average wage only made average by the overtime I put in. I would say I am slightly better than average looking; women would disagree.

Adrian Chiles is 44. He earns £1m a year, which is above average. He is below average in terms of looks because he looks like a potato that a child of below average intelligence has drawn a face on.

He is a below average human being so handsomely rewarded for being such that sometimes, in my lesser moments, I want to build a life-size reconstruction of his face out of mashed potato, kiss it, and then smash it to bits with a rounders bat. That I have yet to do so speaks more for the wonders of modern medicine and alcohol than it does for my peace of mind.

Chiles earns his crust by heading up a triumvirate of tossers on ITV Sport of which the other two are Andy Townsend and Gareth Southgate. But I’ll get to them a bit later on. At its peak, ITV’s commentary is truly devastating. It is little less than an avalanche of shit, swallowing all in its wake and coating the most benign of intentions in a thick layer of excrement. I like to call this effect ‘The Wall of Shite’. It works in exactly the same way Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound did in the ‘60s. Dense, layered, unblinking, resounding. But rather than sound, the effect is to overwhelm the viewer with a splattering of bullshit. *Affects best Anton du Beke voice* “Bring on the Wall… of Shite.”

Watching Adrian Chiles in full flow is like sitting with the mate of a mate no one likes at a party. He is nondescript and shit and you want to punch him in his face, but of course you can’t. And he won’t shut up. And then a really tidy bird comes and sits next to you and she seems keen, but Adrian won’t shut up and keeps hijacking your jokes, somehow managing to flip them on their head so they are no longer funny. He keeps talking about all the ‘mad’ things he does when he’s drunk and how all his mates think he’s ‘mad’ and before you know it the girl has made her excuses and fucked off and you are sat on the sofa with this complete dickhead and he WILL NOT LEAVE.

It’s like a rugby team full of twats has been told to make a shit little mascot in their own image. He’s like a kid who is about eight, so they aren’t even cute anymore, saying or doing something really fucking annoying over and over again because they think it’s funny but it isn’t funny is it. He’s like a dripping fucking tap that won’t turn off. He’s a mouldy onion in a fruitbowl full of glistening apples. Adrian Chiles is the peawet on a fish supper: only popular in one pocket of the country and reviled everywhere else. Green, disgusting and irrelevant. THAT’S YOU ADRIAN.

Chiles has essentially been ruining large swathes of my life for years now. He ruined Match of the Day 2 for me with his ‘banter’. He ruined the African Cup of Nations for me. He ruined the 2006 World Cup and Euro 2008 for me. He continues to ruin any match I am forced to watch on ITV by saying things like, “look at her in the crowd, she looks bored”, or “look at that fella with the facepaint”, or “you can still buy pints in German grounds”. If I wanted to hear a no-mark tell me his no-mark opinions I’d listen to Talksport. Or I’d go to a pub.

Chiles seems to have hoodwinked major television networks into paying him vast sums of money because he supports West Brom, which I think, was once the sole achievement on his CV. Fucking brilliant. Well done ITV.

On to Southgate. When Gareth Southgate bears his massive fucking gnashers, I always get an intense feeling of dread. Like he is sucking all the intelligent football observations I have (yes, sometimes I do have these) out of my brain and replacing them with a tepid larvae of unsubstantiated, turgid footballing bullshit. It is like he’s vomiting on my face and brain incessantly. It’s predominantly his voice that gets me. It pierces my skull like endoscopic surgery. And he bores me to tears. He never says anything I didn’t already know. And he says the things I already knew in this sort of nasal dribble piss of a voice that sometimes makes me hate not only him, but football and myself.

The Guardian’s Barney Ronay got it pretty much spot on when he once described Southgate thus: ‘…Scrubbed and primped, [he] increasingly resembles the kind of upmarket and slightly sneery serial killer who wears a cravat and sits in his palazzo listening to Mozart. For the sake of balance though, I do agree wholeheartedly with the new initiatives to be rolled out by the FA for youth development, overseen by head of elite development Gareth Southgate. So I suppose I’ll let him off. He still annoys the hell out of me though.

And then there’s Andy Townsend. I actually expect him to start flinging shit around the studio one day. “Look at me,” he’d yelp. “I’m literally sat in my own shit.” The joint king of the literally with the imbecilic Jamie Redknapp, Townsend is the antithesis of what a pundit should actually be. Dull, cliché-ridden, Premiership-obsessed (and all the trappings of ‘passion, hard tackling and commitment’ this brings) and ineloquent. The man is such a dickhead that he turned up to the Napoli v Liverpool match last season looking like… well judge for yourself.

I like to refer to Townsend as the ‘ghost of Andy Townsend’ in that he haunts more or less my every waking hour. Popping up at the vending machine at work and saying stuff like “get it up to the big man” or growling at me in the bogs: “You need to put it in the mixer”. Fuck off Andy and go and haunt John Inverdale or Jim Rosenthal.

In his playing days, Townsend et al used to label Graeme Le Saux ‘gay’ because he read the Guardian. Wear your ignorance like a badge of honour Andy. And boy, is it one large badge. You massive dickhead.

Harder to forgive for me is that everything on ITV’s commentary package is reduced to binary definitions and received wisdom. So all Brazilians have flair, all English players are fair, all African defenders are naïve, all Chinese are inscrutable and the Premier League is the ‘toughest and best in the world’. And you know for a fact that if England meet Germany again in the knockouts in the Euros next year, all three will bleat on about England being ‘better on paper’ and John Terry, Frank Lampard, Rio Ferdinand, Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney ‘walking into any other team in the world’. You know that if Manchester United come up against Barcelona again in this year’s Champions League, Townsend will explain that the Catalans ‘don’t like it up them’ and would advise that the best course of action is to ‘get in their faces’. Its some sort of reverse self-fulfilling prophecy whereby the more they say it and believe it, the less true it becomes.

My rant is almost at an end, but let me leave you with the sort of symptomatic, anodyne, witless nugget of shit that Chiles will come up every three minutes. It’s the World Cup second round. England v Germany. More than enough has already been made of the ‘history’ of the fixture. Patrick Vieira praises the management style of Fabio Capello – strict, disciplined, organised. Chiles settles in his chair, leans forward… ‘But you wouldn’t want to go on holiday with him.” No one moves. Silence descends. Adrian fucking Chiles, ladies and gentlemen. He’s no Des Lynam is he.

See the brilliant Stew Lee talk about Adrian Chiles among other things (Chiles crops up about 5 mins 40 seconds in).

Dickheads #7 - Alan Shearer

2011-07-18T12:21:00.002+01:00

'Hands up if you're a dickhead'

After Greg's Crazy Gang piece caused such a furore in south west London last week, we thought we'd piss off the north east this time. Welcome to Magic Spongers Mr Ryan Hubbard, who can be found at the excellent Ryan Hubbard's Modern Football and on Twitter.

I'm not really a man who hates people. I'll generally try to be nice to everyone I meet; even Nottingham Forest fans. Sometimes. But occasionally there are some people who get right on my tits. Wayne Rooney, Neil Warnock and Jedward to name a few; they all have the ability to do my nut right in - but I can cope with their minor dickheadedness. However, there is one man who stands hair, head, shoulders and, as Ramon Vega found out, elbows above the rest. Alan Shearer is the biggest dickhead I have ever had the misfortune of seeing. It has nothing to do with the fact he's a Newcastle legend; there are legends at Leicester too. And Newcastle is definitely one of the friendliest places that I've had the pleasure to visit. But there are many, many reasons why I reckon Alan Shearer is a dickhead.

I can live with the fact that he tries to style his hair like a cross between Tintin and fat Ronaldo at the 2002 World Cup, while ending up with a bald patch resembling the Solent. I can also live with his embarrassing, and somewhat “dad-like” attempts at warbling through Elevation by U2. I can even just about get over the fact that it was his needless foul that stopped us beating Argentina in 98.

What I can't stand about Shearer though, is that this is a man so clearly up himself, he feels he deserves to be paid for his appearances on Match of the Day based on the fact that he scored a few goals for England, while his lack of knowledge of the game – and indeed his unwillingness to learn – is testament to how big the cock on his forehead actually is.

Take the infamous Hatem Ben Arfa incident. If you were given money to talk about football, you would endeavour to know at least a little bit about the subject in hand. Shearer's displays on Match of the Day are reminiscent of Frank Abagnale Jr's attempts to be a doctor; but at least Abagnale made an effort. Even if Shearer had made up some total bullshit about Ben Arfa, at least I might feel our license fee was justified. But now, I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels like we're effectively paying the wages of a man who can't even be bothered to spend five minutes looking on Wikipedia to find out about “his supposed team's” latest signing.

I hate the fact he stumbles through every broadcast, sometimes edging in to make a comment which would make a five-year-old cringe. His ‘Turn up, state the fecking obvious, and then piss off home’ attitude is the sole reason I can't bear to watch the BBC's flagship highlights programme. I'd even put up with watching fucking Colin Murray.

"Casillas stood there with his legs.”*

Did he now? Well maybe that's why he's the first-choice keeper for the national team. God knows how they ever coped with that keeper who stood on his arms. Thanks for that amazing insight on how he managed to keep the ball out of the net, Alan. Now fuck off, so I can watch football on a Saturday night again.

It pisses me off that everyone in the FA sucks up to him. His kick on Neil Lennon's face during a 1998 league game against Leicester should have saw him banned; however Shearer's cry-baby attitude of “If you ban me, I won't play at the World Cup” forced the FA to back down and clear him of any wrongdoing. Shearer claimed he was trying to free himself after being tackled by Lennon; but if you can't free your leg without kicking someone in the face, let's face it; you're a bit of an idiot.

I also can't stand it that the man comes across like he is so mind-numbingly boring. He admitted to celebrating winning the Premier League by creosoting a fence. Creosoting a fence, for fuck's sake. It's probably a good job we didn't win the World Cup in 98, or he might have gone and cleared the guttering. Or – and I know this is pushing the boundaries, but – maybe he'd have painted the guest bedroom. Miserable fucker.

I hate him for his “jump, elbow and complain” style of play, which if anyone other than South Coast Head had tried, would have seen more cards flying around than a fucking Paul Daniels show.

He used to squirm his way in with referees, pretending to be their best mate; before getting the arse if one of them dare to give a decision against him. And most annoyingly of all, he's given almost god-like status; whereas he should be remembered for being a moaning, mardy, dirty bastard who scored a couple of goals.

So here's to Alan Shearer. A man which I abhor to an extent in which I feel the need to scream a tirade of “Fuck off you twatty bastard!” at whichever medium is displaying his stupid, cunty face.

And don't even fucking get me started on his twattish “pointy” celebration.

*Actual quote from Shearer on a save by Iker Casillas from Arjen Robben after last year’s World Cup final

Dickheads #6 - The Crazy Gang

2011-07-15T11:38:00.003+01:00

Greg Theoharis of Dispatches From A Football Sofa makes his debut for Magic Spongers and as Jamie Redknapp would say "he's literally had a stormer". Here's why the Crazy Gang weren't loveable rogues at all...

“If God had wanted us to play football in the sky, He’d have put grass up there” – Brian Clough

Trawling through the channels the other day, I happened upon a vintage episode of ‘Gladiators’. I was immediately transported to a time, pre-pub age, when my Saturday evenings revolved around the steroid-pumping sweatfest being sandwiched between the twin guilty pleasures of Baywatch and Blind Date. So, paralysed by nostalgia I ended up watching. I’d forgotten. Oh had I forgotten. Because just as the commercial break came around, that cacophonous, mangled, ridiculous cry emanated from a man who quite unreservedly and unashamedly deserves the title of ‘dickhead’. John Fashanu. “A-wooooooo-gaaaaa!” From that point on, my day was ruined, consumed with memories of that vile period in the late ‘80s through to the mid-‘90s, otherwise labelled ‘The Crazy Gang Era’. Allow me to repeat. Dickheads.

I’m not talking about AFC Wimbledon or MK Dons here; they are very different incarnations. I’m talking about that rabble that inexplicably resided in the top division during the aforementioned period, populated with the likes of Fashanu, Vinnie Jones and Dennis Wise; ‘model’ professionals one and all. Dickheads.

Why so much bile? Where do I begin? How about Gary Mabbutt’s cheekbone which collapsed under the full force of ‘Fash The Bash’s’ elbow in 1993? While I’m sure Fashanu did not intentionally seek to reduce half the Spurs captain’s face to putty, it nevertheless perfectly encapsulated the ethos of this team who made such a big noise about their limitations as footballers and taking pleasure in taking down the ‘Big Boys’ a peg or three. Even his nickname sends shivers down my spine, celebrating as it does the latent brutal thuggery that the team made no apologies for.

I may be accused of being a snob here but I don’t care. I’m an aesthete. I like football played on the ground, intricately and balletically. But I also appreciate that due to resources, finances and players at a club’s disposal, the dizzy heights of tika-tika can’t always be scaled. Wimbledon had to do what they had to do. Just as Joe Kennedy, father of JFK, amassed a huge fortune on the back of Prohibition in order to get his son to the White House. Just as Michael Corleone in The Godfather had to assert his authority by having his brother ‘whacked’. Just as Rebekah Brooks had to sell newspapers by…oh. There’s a problem here, isn’t there…

It wasn’t the manner with which Wimbledon played football that made them truly reprehensible, however much I personally despise the long-ball ethos propagated by Charles Hughes and his disciples. What I hated about this team was the complete and utter disregard for anybody who wasn’t in their ‘gang’. It was a culture propped up by television puff-pieces in which the ‘Crazies’ performed a series of ‘hilarious’ practical jokes on interviewees, as we saw the likes of Jones and Wise cackling and gurning in the background like a pair of barely literate mud-creatures.

Somehow the media at the time seemed to want to package them as lovable scamps, thumbing their noses at the aristocrats of the top table. When they defeated Liverpool in the 1988 FA Cup Final, John Motson crowed that “the Crazy Gang have beaten the Culture Club”. That’s one in the eye for show-offs with the ability to pass and move as well as you effeminate types with a penchant for eyeliner then.

Wimbledon were not lovable. They were not scamps. They were not even anarchic punks, ripping up the establishment. They revelled in their own inability to grasp the basic aspects of the game and they turned football for a time, into a gladiatorial sport (I’m aware of the irony here). I remember Fashanu in some talking-heads show about football’s hardmen a few years back gleefully telling of how he would routinely be called over to referees and asked to have a word with Jones before he did some damage to an opponent. Politely agreeing with the official, Fashanu would then turn to Jones and tell him to carry on what he was doing. Dickheads.

The seedily iconic image of Paul Gascoigne’s testicles being gripped in the vice of Vinnie Jones’ hands has become a metaphor for the ‘don’t care who you are’ attitude promoted by Wimbledon at the time rather than being interpreted as the actions of the proverbial school bully seeking to destroy and intimidate the natural, instinctive playing genius of a man blessed with infinitely more talent. Gascoigne was said to have begged not to go out for the second half of that match, his face wet with tears.

It’s baffling that such a Neanderthal would have been so rewarded in subsequent years with a modest Hollywood career, despite a propensity for biting peoples’ noses off. But then again, I’m sure the proportion of people who have seen him flex his thespian muscles in films such as Tooth, in which he played a character quaintly christened The Extractor, are probably as intellectually poor as the attendance figures at Selhurst Park in the mid-nineties. And although he has shared screen-time with the likes of Nicolas Cage and Angelina Jolie and has an FA Cup Winners’ medal, it doesn’t change the fact that he’s a dickhead.

People love an underdog. I get that. Unless you’re a Liverpool fan, you probably loved Crystal Palace in 1990 after that semi-final. Or Hereford United or Chesterfield or any other team who on their day, can upset the balance of power. Wimbledon may have done that during their pomp but they also gave credence to the notion that a pack mentality is somehow justified when there are no other means of expression.

If there was an evolutionary scale for football whereby today’s Barcelona would represent fully evolved man, Wimbledon would be at the other end, with the apes, baring their arses and juggling their balls.

In other words, just another episode of Gladiators. Dickheads!

Go follow Greg on Twitter, here @gregtheoharis. Now.

Dickheads #5 - Diego Maradona

2011-07-14T11:10:00.000+01:00

'Music loud, and women warm, I've been kicked around since I was born'

A warm welcome to Jake Harrison, whose distate for Diego has NOTHING to do with 'that goal against England', alright?

When I was growing up, there was always one name, one footballer in particular that really riled my Dad. This man’s name, when mentioned, was always accompanied with the word “cheat” – along with other, more colourful phrases – so I pretty much grew up thinking that this man was the footballing equivalent of Satan.

Of course, my father conveniently ignored the fact that Diego Maradona was a phenomenal footballer. “Dad, look at this video – look at this run!”, I would gleefully exclaim, wishing that he would at least appreciate one of the finest players ever to grace the planet. “He’s still a cheat”, he would reply, somewhat dishearteningly.

I can usually ignore all of the negative, off-field aspects of a fantastic footballer, because it is their football that I care about, nothing else. The Hand of God doesn’t really rile me all that much – I wasn’t born in 1986, but if I had been I like to think that I would have focused more on his second goal rather than his first. Or maybe I’d have focused on Shilton being beaten to the ball with great ease by, comparatively speaking, a dwarf.

But even putting aside that infamous goal – Diego Maradona is still an almighty dickhead.

Undoubtedly, Maradona had talent. But I cannot be alone in thinking that, because of either personal issues or problems with drugs, it really was a waste of talent. He was addicted to cocaine from the mid-1980s until 2004, allegedly first using the drug in 1983, while at Barcelona. He was at one of the best clubs in the world, a club with such great history and with such loyal fans, but he still didn’t realise what he had.

He ruined parts of his professional career with drugs, which not only resulted in lengthy bans but also affected his ability to play the game. His attitude to football and life, quite frankly, stank.

I mean, for fuck’s sake, he was mates with Fidel Castro! He owes Italy around 37 million euros in taxes and refuses to pay it, and he once shot a member of the media. These aren’t antics that can just be laughed off – these are appalling actions, even for someone as stupid as Maradona.

Despite these betrayals and the I-don’t-give-a-shit outlook on life, Maradona is still worshipped as a God in his homeland – and my word, does he know it. He has a general “I’m Diego Maradona so you should listen to me and make me coach of your team” kind of attitude. He’s so arrogant. Now, some will say he has the right to be that arrogant, but he really doesn’t. No one does. Not THAT arrogant, anyway. The fact he’s so gifted yet so flawed with such easily-remediable issues makes me hate him even more – the ungrateful bastard.

He’s a loudmouth, always giving his opinion on everything, most recently criticising national team manager Sergio Batista for “ignoring” Carlos Tevez. He’s always chirping away. Just shut up Diego.

And, let me just remind you, these criticisms are coming from the man that oversaw Argentina only just qualify for the 2010 World Cup and then looked on as Messi, Mascherano, Higuain and co were embarrassed by Germany in South Africa.

Due to Maradona’s complete ineptness as a manager I actually felt sorry for Messi. I felt sympathy for the best player of this generation! Esteban Cambiasso was left at home while Martin Palermo went to the World Cup, clearly for sentimental reasons. It’s the sort of decision you’d get on Football Manager. It’s idiotic. Messi and the whole of Argentina were let down by Maradona.

Many onlookers laughed at Diego’s attack-dominated side, in fact most were positively beaming at the sight of a rotund Maradona wearing a suit on the sideline with a beard that made him look like a drug-addled Father Christmas and celebrations that exposed the limitations of said suit.

He let Argentina down, he let himself down; turning what could have been a pristine career into a drug-fuelled, ego-topped life. He had the world at his feet and all the wealth and love that any individual could ever wish for – but he took his career for granted and threw it all away. Well, some of it.

All of you nostalgic football fans can ignore the complete twattish-ness of Diego Maradona, but the fact that he had so much quality but turned to drugs and alcohol and then continues to be one of the most arrogant and “outspoken” (definition: needs to learn to keep his mouth shut) men alive makes him even more of a dickhead for me.

And again my hate for him has nothing to do with the Hand Of God. Nothing. Nada.

Ok, maybe a little. What a cock.

You can check out Jake's excellent blog here and follow him on Twitter @jake_harrison92

Dickheads #4 - People who wave at television cameras at football matches

2011-07-12T10:09:00.002+01:00

A pair of dickheads

He's one of the best things to happen to football since Brian Barwick's Root and Branch. And he works for us. Ladies and Gentleman, the ever-excellent Andi Thomas of Twisted Blood fame.

What you are about to read runs counter to almost everything I hold dear, not only in football but in life. If I have any kind of creed, or overarching principle, it is that you shouldn't judge something, or someone, without first making at least some kind of attempt to understand the context. Obviously, this needn't be much effort – it doesn't take long to get a decent grasp on whether somebody's a twat or not – but it should be some, and it certainly shouldn't be done on the basis of a momentary television shot. Indeed, I've written about it at length elsewhere.

But with that in mind …

... anybody who waves at a television camera while they're at a football match is a dickhead.

There are, of course, different kinds of dickheadery at work here. Generally, the camera will do some pre-game crowd shots, in an effort to bring the viewer at home a little bit of the “atmos” to spice up the warm lager and crisps. There'll be a slow trail along the front row of the stands, goons leaning over and gurning like tragic casualties of the second summer of love. There'll be a few Look! A man with a flag! A woman with facepaint! A child with ADHD! moments, in which families and friends will contort themselves for the pleasure of the glassy-eyed televisual overlords.

But that's all build-up nonsense, and can be dismissed as a minor form of dickheadishness. After all, you’re probably drunk, or hyper, or nervous, or whatever. Being a pillock passes the time.

Then there’s the celebratory waver, dickheadus jubilatus. If anything, this is even more understandable than the preceding clownishness: you're winning, so you want to rub it in the face of the world. People do strange things in the grip of victory. Once watching a game in a pub, a last minute winner suddenly found me outside and a fair distance down the street, jumping around like a delirious gibbon. Not sure how I'd got there, and not sure what I've done if I'd seen a television camera. Waved at it? Fucked it? Set it on fire? Who knows. But I digress.

The third kind – the worst manifestation of cranial cockery – require some introduction. Let's assume that if you're at and watching a football match, then you care – that is, unless you’re press, in which case you’re working, or you’re there on a corporate junket, which is a rant I’ll reserve for Magic Spongers’ “Cunts” series. Prices for the kind of matches that end up on television being what they are, the era of the casual ‘well, I like football, so I’ll pop along to Old Trafford, even though I’m a Coventry fan’ attendee are all but over.

So you care, but you’re losing. Losing hard: outplayed, overmatched, humped into oblivion. You’re sat there, gazing into the middle distance, seconds after the last glint of the possibility of a rare comeback was snuffed out by your fumbling inadequacy of a winger treading on the ball. And you see, out of the corner of your eye, a television camera nosing toward you, the calm, unblinking eye of the world turned, just for a second, towards your grief.

And you’ve only gone and fucking waved.

Now, a loss – a proper gutshot of a loss – feels, in the moment of defeat, something akin to bereavement, only with worse language. So, would you wave for the camera at a funeral? And while this sounds like an over-the-top comparison, the analogy is sound: if you're at an event that you're emotionally involved in, and it's not going your way, you owe it to yourself to respond appropriately.

Otherwise, why are you crying? Why are you even there? What is the point and the purpose of your existence, if your allegiances, affections – if your very identity – can be bypassed in a second by the slim chance that someone might catch a glimpse of your gapingly vacant face? That’s why it’s called the idiot box, you know: it lobotomises people on both sides of the glass.

As an aside, this is why relegation makes for such excellent television. Not for the schadenfreude -- that only comes when it's somebody you loathe, and nobody has that many rivals that they can be crowing every year -- but because it's the one time that football fans disregard the cameras, disregard the celebritarian tyranny of the lens, and really care. Real tears. Real despair. Real pain. It's not pleasant, rivals excepted, but at least it's honest. At least it’s true.

I know this sounds like a rant about proper and not-proper ways of supporting a team, but it’s not. I don’t give a toss how you deal with loss, or how you demonstrate your joy, whether you go to every reserve match or only watch the televised games. Whether you live in the shadow of your stadium or on the other side of the planet, the world is big enough for you. But if you think of yourself as a fan of a football club – if you define yourself, at least in part, by an entity that you dreamed of playing for, that you waste your weekends watching, that you will defend against any and all who would besmirch its good name – then you owe it to yourself to sit there and cry like you’ve just sent your favourite goldfish down the porcelain highway to heaven. No matter if there’s a camera pointed at you.

Otherwise, you cease to be yourself. You become a parody of your own nature: the dancing, shouting, whooping proof of your own irrelevance. You become a dickhead.

Dickheads #3 - Arsenal; Or The Axis of Evil

2011-07-07T10:09:00.000+01:00

"I'M A DICKHEAD"

Rob was so angry when he wrote this that he doesn't remember half of it. Like the Incredible Hulk, but not green, muscular or remotely moral.

About 10 years ago, give or take, Arsenal ruined English football forever. That may seem unfair, but I don’t care, because this isn’t a piece about rational appraisals of footballers. This is a piece about wholly irrational hatred and more specifically, the fact that the Arsenal back four of Winterburn, Adams, Keown and Dixon or as I shall refer to them from here on in, the Axis of Evil, are dickheads.

While I say ‘wholly irrational hatred’, I have at least attempted to come up with some footballing opinion to go with the fact that I think Winterburn looks like a startled pug, Adams like someone’s held his face over a candle for too long, Keown like a bar of soap with some pubes stuck on it and Dixon like the only man in the universe I want to punch more than Adam Bushby. Hence the whole ‘ruining football’ prefix.

The irony is I don’t particularly care for English football. I actively dislike its stupid bloody ‘passion wins out’ identity. So by extension, I shouldn’t care that the Axis of Evil are responsible for its decline into the shambles we see before us today. But God, I really hate them.

Without the Axis of Evil, or as some people like to call them, ‘the best back line Arsenal have ever had’, this ludicrous fascination, this endless fixation with no-nonsense, ‘firm but fair’, tough tackling, sweating, swearing, brave (BRAVE!) leadership stereotypes would never have been cemented in the English psyche to such an extent that its lack of presence in a football team is INSTANTLY seized upon as evidence of weakness.

‘Oh, but Rob…’, people will say, exasperated, ‘but Rob, what about the do-or-die attitude, the never giving in, the inspirational example set to their team-mates, the confidence given to players further up the pitch to play great football on a solid foundation?’. And I will say ‘I don’t care, because they are dickheads and the only strikers the Axis of Evil ever had to worry about were the dinosaurs, the dying breed of another ineffectual, embarrassing stereotype, the ‘English centre forward’’. It’s fine playing against Alan Shearer when you’re a big fucking lump, Tony Adams. But try playing against someone like Fernando Torres in his pomp, or Lionel Messi, when you have the TURNING CIRCLE OF ONE OF JUPITER’S MOONS, MARTIN FUCKING KEOWN. You should’ve been nicknamed Eddie Stobart, you lumbering cunt.

Now believe it or not, this piece isn’t entirely accurate. From memory it was relatively unusual to see the Axis of Evil all on one team sheet, presumably because Keown was so shit. So perhaps I should differentiate between the ones I don’t really like – Winterburn, Dixon and Adams (I don’t remember having anything against Steve Bould… the fact that his surname was near enough to ‘bald’ was probably enough) – and the one I actually think is a dickhead – Martin Keown.

I think that horrid little threesome are vastly overrated. Winterburn just strikes me as an angry, aggressive and short man. What did he do? What did he actually EVER do? Even though they were all shit, he was shittest. Dixon doesn’t really register, but he’s a smug fucker and he appears to like Colin Murray, so that’s enough for me. Adams – well, I respect him for Sporting Chance, but when your managerial win percentage is 27% across three jobs it’s time to think that MAYBE YOU SHOULDN’T BE A MANAGER TONY.

AND I HATED THE ‘FAMOUS’ OFFSIDE TRAP. PUT YOUR ARMS DOWN, YOU DICKHEADS.

Ahem. On to Keown. Back in September 2003, I definitely hated Arsenal and their defence in particular. But Martin Keown wasn’t happy with simply absorbing my teenage disgust and letting me move on with my life. Martin Keown didn’t want me to grow up ignorant of the sheer, bile-soaked hatred I have been doused in ever since. Not for me the sunshine, meadows and rainbows of an innocent youth. NOT FOR ME MARTIN KEOWN. NOT FOR ME. BECAUSE OF YOU. MARTIN KEOWN.

In September 2003, September 21st to be precise, in a few short minutes, Martin Keown summed up everything wrong with football in a quite ludicrous display of posturing, shouting and borderline assault that wouldn’t be out of place in a Magic Spongers editorial meeting, were such a thing to exist.

This, friends, this action of basically jumping around like an aroused monkey who couldn’t tell the difference between a pile of shit and a banana but was delighted, really fucking delighted that it turned out to be a banana and he didn’t have to eat shit in front of his mates, was a new low. This was a man celebrating a 0-0 DRAW. A man celebrating the fact that for 90 minutes, he had elbowed, kicked, sworn and hoofed the ball into Row Z for the sake of a goalless draw and for some reason feeling some sense of entitlement and vindication when his opponent missed a last-minute penalty – an outcome he had absolutely no effect on, beyond spouting presumably thoughtless, ill-informed abuse from behind the taker. I WISH van Nistelrooy had scored, you dick.

‘Yeah, take that Jonny Foreigner, how dare you dive and cheat and try and sneak an advantage when you are playing in England? How dare you come over here and do that? How dare you pull shirts and play right on the last shoulder when you know that an arthritic snail would give me a run for my money before I just smashed fuck out of it? How dare you make a meal of something Patrick Vieira’s done to you? This is ENGLAND. I AM ENGLISH. I AM EVERYTHING WRONG WITH ENGLISH FOOTBALL. I AM A DICKHEAD.’

And whose little weasel face is that in the background? Oh it’s ASHLEY COLE. *applauds*. Well done dickhead. It’s good to know Keown retired with such an able deputy in the sodding ranks, isn’t it.

You got a 0-0 lads. Well done. You should be fucking ashamed of yourselves.

Dickheads #2 - Sky Sports News, Transfer Deadline Day

2011-07-05T17:00:00.000+01:00

You're a BLOODY LIAR

A warm welcome back to Magic Spongers for Dave Hartrick, who takes up the baton of rage and fury and smashes Jim White firmly over the head with it.

Firstly, let me make something very clear, I genuinely love Sky Sports News - it soundtracks at least three quarters of my day every day.

However…

For two days a year it’s absolutely unbearable.

It’s a nonsensical maelstrom of bullshit, hyperbole, hypocrisy and people in coats reporting from car parks. It’s a mess of half-stories, whispers, wind-up merchant agents and made-up text messages. It’s a forced Andy Burton wet dream wrapped up in over-the-top Sky Sports wrapping and we’re supposed to enjoy it.

I am of course talking about the ticker-tape parade of drivel in celebration of transfer deadline day – the culmination of the on-screen countdown that’s been running for far too many weeks already.

If you need any further confirmation of the general bell-endery that surrounds ‘Deadline Day’, I would draw your attention to the following transcript from any one of the last four of the bastards. Our players are usually two male SSN presenters (because the day is suddenly and inexplicably no place for women – a rule I believe they call the ‘Keys & Gray Dictum’) in identikit Jamie Redknapp black suits, white shirts and thin black tie combos.

For the sake of the piece we shall call them ‘Steve’ and ‘Tony’. To their right sits ‘Randy’. He’s a liar.

*Any likeness to actual SSN presenters is coincidental…ish*

Steve: Just 20 minutes left of the most nail-biting, gut-wrenching, exhilarating and bowel-movement inducing day of your life folks, it’s transfer deadline day again

Tony: Deadline day Steve

Steve: Thanks Tony, let’s cross immediately to Randy who’s keeping an eye on several phones, all but one switched off

Tony: To Randy Steve

Randy: Yes and as usual I can tell you there’s activity all over the place, I have literally just received one text message and it’s telling me that if I order a medium Dominos Pizza tonight I will get another for half price… but unfortunately, terms and conditions do apply

Steve: Fascinating Randy, any actual transfer activity?

Tony: Actual transfers Steve

Randy: Well as per usual I can tell you several professional footballers are watching and texting in – hello to you Bobo Baldé, and if you keep playing with it like that, Tony Dorigo, it’ll drop off

Steve: Any news on any of the head-exploding, knee-capping, body-poppin’ deals you were telling us about?

Tony: Body poppin’ Steve

Randy: Not so far, but I’m confident the Messi to Wolves story has got legs; it’s deadline day so Darren Bent should be going somewhere; and we’re not far from knowing if Bobby Charlton is interested in the move to Manchester City

Steve: Have you got anything worth crossing to you for since we last did so 10 minutes ago?

Tony: 10 minutes Steve

Randy: Just the pizza

Steve: Sounds delicious Randy, speak to you soon so you can lie to us some more. Now let’s catch up to our army of roving reporters, who’ve seen more action than that shit house Kate Adie and a wasp on speed combined this crashing, banging and walloping transfer deadline day. First let’s go to John in the North East, any activity to report John?

Tony: To report John?

John: Well as we know, Newcastle United completed their final transfer three weeks ago, have issued a statement saying their business is done, have shut and locked the doors at St James Park and the training ground, switched the fax machine off and left no one in the office to conduct any sort of transfer what so ever… but saying that, I do think there’s more to come from them before the deadline Steve

Steve: And anything else to report from the area John?

Tony: Anything else John?

John: I miss Darren Bent

Steve: Sky Sports’ very own John in the North-East there, literally lashing himself to something solid as the hurricane of transfer deadline day madness cranks up another gear. Now Manchester and to Colin; any news?

Tony: Any news Colin?

Colin: We know Bobby Charlton is mulling over City’s offer and another report suggests that the entire Barcelona and AC Milan first teams are about to move to Eastlands for something in the region of the total debt incurred by Germany during both World Wars. I have also been told by City officials that I’ve parked my car in an illegal space and it will get clamped, but that’s so far unconfirmed Steve

Steve: Manchester City, in your face like a low-slung bass, don’t imitate just innovate, transfer deadline day – the greatest day of our lives. Now to Craig in the Midlands; what says you Craig?

Tony: Says you Craig?

Craig: Well hold onto that desk with both hands, wrap your legs around something solid and tell your best friend to run to your house and hide your porn: Steve Sidwell has been spotted sofa shopping in Sutton Coldfield

Steve: DFS or Sofa World Craig?

Craig: DFS Steve and we are led to believe they have offered him a role as a junior salesman with an impressive and achievable bonus structure based in both sales and customer experience

Steve: Bend me over and perform a prostate exam, the Sidwell deal will explode all over your face and leave you feeling like a plasterer’s radio you lucky, lucky people, Sky Sports News, transfer deadline day, bang

Tony: Plasterer’s radio Steve

Steve: Well thanks for that Craig, I’m so excited I’m positively erect. And now to Clive on the South Coast, verily I say, how does the brightest of days blessed by the Sun God Ra’s bounteous generosity find you Clive?

Tony: Sun God Ra Steve

Clive: Well Steve, despite playing in Bristol, David James has spent the day driving in and out of Portsmouth’s car park. We think he’s either about to sign a £125,000 per week contract with Pompey or he’s taking the piss, but either way he’s run over my foot twice

Steve: Clive’s foot shattered like your spines under the weight of all the transfer goodness we’re shitting on your chest you lucky, lucky viewers. Fred in London – Fred, what’s happening?

Tony: Shitting chests Steve

Fred: No word yet on the 1.2 million strikers approached by ‘Arry Redknapp Steve, although we did hear that a deal for Ade Akinbiyi could be close as ‘Arry thinks he ‘can do sumthin wi the boy’. At Chelsea we believe Roman Abramovich could be on the verge of signing the entire Russian ballet and possibly Neymar, the deal for the ballet closer to conclusion. At QPR, we hear Damon Hill’s close to signing on the dotted line and West Ham are preparing a structured deal for Benni McCarthy’s unpaid food bill at the local Nandos – come back to me on that one, it could run and run

Steve: Anything at Arsenal Fred?

Fred: No

Steve: We’ve splashed our transfer juice all over you and it’s now time to cross to Big Ben like it’s New Year’s Eve because we are THAT arrogant about our coverage of the end of World War Three, or as some idiots call it, the transfer deadline

Tony: Big Ben Steve

Big Ben: Bong… Bong… Bong… Bong… Bong… Bong

Tony: Bong Bong Steve

Steve: And that’s it, the excitement’s over and female presenters allowed back on the station, we’ve quite literally shat ourselves all over the transfer news ticker

Tony: Shat ourselves Steve

…and end scene…

Sky Sports News 363 days of the year?

Excellent.

Sky Sports News for the 2 transfer deadline days?

Dickheads.

Dickheads #1 - Graeme Souness

2011-07-01T10:45:00.002+01:00

WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?

Welcome, fans of edgy and angry ranting, to Magic Spongers' new series, creatively entitled 'Dickheads'. Hate someone? Yeah? Good. This is the place for you. First to take the torch of fury for a run round the block is our friend Alex Bingle.

Being a teenager is full of traumas you wouldn’t wish upon anyone, or so I am told by Glee and Dawson’s Creek. Why can’t they just tell the truth: that we are (or were) simply young, pubescent and constantly horny? Do they ever portray how football can make you more miserable than any break up from your girlfriend of two weeks simply because her feelings have changed? Do they ever mention how Manchester United were doing their best to ruin my life back in 1991 (and still are) just because they are Total Bastards?

No. But ok, perhaps that’s a little over-dramatic. When you’re this good looking, Liverpool’s capitulation that began circa 1991 doesn’t weigh on your mind too much and as a teenager I learned to put up with the taunts of United fans by reminding myself that most of them were only Utd fans when they were winning. Which was most of the time, but hey, I had to have something to go on. But I hate Man Utd and I hate pretty much everything that the goes with them. And, if I was asked to write an article about who I think is a dickhead, you’d immediately expect me to write about someone from that Stretford cesspit. Ryan Giggs, for example, you are an overly hairy bastard who shags his brother’s wife and should have chosen England. That is my gripe with you. I hate you. But you aren’t a dickhead. David Beckham, you are a good-looking twat with magic hair that does anything you tell it and always tipped me well when I served you in Alderley Edge. So also not a dickhead. I’m not doing very well so far.

Sir Alex “Whinger” Ferguson, chewing your fucking gum, whinging that you are always hard done by when quite frankly we all know you have the referees in your back pocket (this hasn’t been proven yet and is merely me venting so please don’t sue me). Yet I kind of respect your ability to get inside my head and make me so angry I could scream. If you were manager of my team I would love you.

Rio “Fuck-up” Ferdinand. Where do I start… most overrated defender of the last 20 years. Yeah, you are good but you are not THAT good. Prone to big mistakes and an arrogance that makes me want to smack you in the face. You celebrate every goal like YOU scored the goal. I hate that and I hate you. But you’re actually a decent bloke who just loves his football; you aren’t really a dickhead.

Gary Neville. Now you ARE a dickhead. You have no redeeming features and I shudder to think that you might be punditing/co-commentating on Sky Sports next season. Could they pick a bigger dickhead? Probably not. You are one, end of story. But still, this article is not about you mainly because you are SUCH a dickhead that I refuse to give you the satisfaction of winning something, even if it is a “biggest dickhead” award.

I’ve decided that football’s biggest dickhead has nothing to do with Man Utd. I’ve surprised myself there, I’ll admit. I have weighed up the possibility of laying into Arsene Wenger, but I will leave that job to someone less bitter than myself. What about Drogba?! I hate his head and his stupid hair and the fact he is massive yet falls over at the slightest touch. He embodies things I hate seeing in football by trying to cheat. But what annoys me most is that he doesn’t have to cheat because he is excellent. William Gallas, you lost your right to be considered anything other than a dickhead the day you had your one-man attack of petulance and decided to protest at the full time whistle. I was cringing at that act more than the tackle that broke Eduardo’s leg. What a dickhead.

With all the dishonourable mentions off my chest, I can reveal the three footballers who actually top my list all have played for Liverpool. I’m not the kind of fan who turns on his own team, in fact, ask anyone who knows me, I am overly optimistic about the abilities of Liverpool’s players and would never vacate my seat (my armchair) before the final whistle. But maybe like the slightly pubescent, angst-filled teenager in Dawson’s Creek I have overwhelming sado-masochistic feelings towards my own. And here they are. The wall of shame. Fucking dickheads all.

3. Phil Babb

I have nothing against you as a player; you did your best for Liverpool in your time at the club. I applaud you. However Phil, you once started on me and my friends in a bar in Jesmond, Newcastle. Granted someone shouted “Phil Babb you cunt”, but seriously Phil, did you need to create a scene? Most normal human beings would laugh that off and frankly, I expected more control from an average Premier League footballer who was PLAYING FOR SUNDERLAND BUT ON A NIGHT OUT IN NEWCASTLE. Expect some grief you tool! You aren’t even that tall and intimidating and you would have been battered (not by me I must point out). What a dickhead.

2. El-Hadji Diouf

Bought on the back of a performance that can only be described as ‘good’ against an abject French side in World Cup 2002, Gerard Houllier decided Diouf was the answer to Liverpool’s problems in front of goal and in doing so decided against signing Nicolas Anelka. Diouf did little then and has done little since to endear him to football fans in this country and north of the border. Described by Jamie Carragher thus;

"In all my years at Anfield, I have never met a player who cared less about winning or losing. His name… still makes even the toughest Liverpudlians shudder in fear."

Call me biased, call me naïve, but if Carra says so, it is true. I dare anyone to disagree.

It actually sickens me to think that this arrogant, spitting upstart ever wore the Liverpool shirt. Not only was he a complete waste of space, but he didn’t even try not to be a waste of space. And Diouf has done nothing but aggravate Old Firm tensions further since his foray in Scotland. His attitude to the game, other professionals and fans is a disgrace and his arrogance about his own abilities deluded. El-Hadji Diouf, you are a dickhead.

1. Graeme Souness

Anyone remember Ali Dia? Of course we do! He played 20 minutes of football for Southampton before Souness realised he wasn’t actually a footballer. How could anyone possibly sign and play a person without checking that he is actually a footballer? I can understand a Sunday league football team manager being hoaxed into playing someone who has never kicked a ball, but a Premier League manager? It is so laughable that whenever I feel sad (normally set off by thinking about Liverpool’s 20-year slump), I think of Ali Dia making an absolute chump out of Souness.

In 1997, GRAEME, you went to Benfica and took with you Steve Harkness, Gary Charles, Michael Thomas, Mark Pembridge, Dean Saunders and Brian Deane. I can only imagine the faces of the unsuspecting Portuguese fans turning up to see that bunch when they could have had Deco, who you refused to sign. That’s right, Deco, who went on to play 154 times for rivals Porto, scoring 32 goals, winning Uefa Club Footballer of the year in 2004 and playing 75 times for his country. You decided against buying him. Souness, you are rubbish. Imagine if you had overlooked and refused such a rare talent when you managed in England? Oh wait… you already had, you fucking imbecile.

I will just make a point at this lull to my rant that I wish I had been around to see Souness in his prime, lifting the European Cup for the Reds. I’ve seen videos and he was clearly a world-class footballer and my feelings towards him would be a little less enraged if I could have seen it.

Anyway Souness, you ruined Liverpool you dickhead! You had a chance to buy ERIC CANTONA and you turned it down. I could scream every time I remind myself of this. Who did you buy instead? Paul Stewart. I wasn’t even 10 years old, but I could have told you that was a bad idea. And you sold Peter Beardsley… bad idea. And you sold Ray Houghton… bad idea. You ruined us! I can’t even watch you being a pundit because I don’t believe that anything you say is the slightest bit credible. I would sooner listen to my 10-year old self because telling the world that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are better signings than the idiots you purchased at the time was absolutely correct.

You bought Paul Stewart for £2.3m six months after Platini offered you Cantona on a plate. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? He cost Leeds £900,000 and Man United £1.2mn. Combined, that is less than Paul Stewart cost. And your reasons for refusing to sign Eric? For the sake of dressing room harmony? You IDIOT. You were so busy throwing tea cups at Ian Rush that you didn’t see past your own arrogant, angry Scottish moustache. Either that or you were scared that Cantona would throw them back. Well Graeme, I would throw teacups at you and all, and my collection of Monsters In My Pocket too, because you ruined my childhood more than my mum did when she threw my Monsters In My Pocket out saying that I was too old for them.

You can't find Al on Twitter because he is a dinosaur. Just follow us instead. We'll see he gets your abuse / envelopes full of poo.

War and Pearce

2011-06-14T10:37:00.006+01:00

The results are in. The Root and Branch is officially over and luckily for Magic Spongers, it has achieved absolutely fuck all. Stuart Pearce gave us a glimpse into the future of English football at the very top level on Sunday. And it is marvellous, we have to say. "When you have reached pass number five, punt it long. You will then not see the ball for two minutes. In this time, show passion and pride; the Bulldog Spirit if you will. Get ball back. Repeat".

The Barcelona way of playing is, of course, impossible to replicate. That's why Juan Mata and Javi Martinez, of Valencia and Athletic Bilbao respectively, looked so much like their English counterpa... oh.

Of course, no one’s suggesting England can become Spain, or indeed Barcelona, overnight. No one’s suggesting that’s necessarily a likely or even desirable state of affairs. But it is time to stop making mindless, generalised excuses about foreigners, predominantly that they are all sneaky cheating bastards, while harking back to the good old days and saying that they can never match the English in terms of traditional values and so their success – or England’s defeat – is not really par for the course. At this juncture could somebody PLEASE explain to us how exactly one measures passion?

The biggest protagonist of this leading up to the under 21s game the other night was their coach, Stuart Pearce. Not exactly a progressive, admittedly, but successful enough with young English players. A bit of open-mindedness on the cards perhaps? Not a bit of it:

"To try to ask a different individual to play a Spanish style or an Italian style, or even an Italian player to play an English way, is not workable”, Pearce asserted. "You have to understand the strengths that you have within your squad and within your team and that's what we've continually tried to do over a number of years. That's why, at this moment, we're ranked No1 in Europe."

Now this would be very true, were it not for the fact that it is utter tripe. You can't play like the Spanish if you're not from Spain? So why are Lionel Messi, Dani Alves and Eric Abidal in the current Barcelona side? And here's one for you - that Barca side that beat Arsenal in the 2006 Champions League final had just three Spaniards in the starting XI. Three years later in the final against Manchester United, it was six.

Sure, you can’t turn an onion into an apple by sticking a stalk into its head and drawing a little appley face on it. But you can make it behave just like an apple by chopping it up and throwing it in your fruit salad. It might not be palatable at first, but wait until Heston Blumenthal gets his mitts on it and EVERYONE will be going nuts for onion pie. Pork and onion sauce. Onion turnover. You name it.

"We have a great team spirit", fans are often reminded by the national teams’ representatives. Oh right. In the absence of talent, it's nice to know they all get on. Even Martin Tyler couldn’t resist some misty-eyed reflection during the Spain game: "Older viewers will see that the old values are now no longer enough". Sorry Martin? The old values? That used to WIN US EVERYTHING? Do me a favour. Unless, of course, we are talking about those tournaments that took place entirely on paper, in which England were VERY successful.

So Spain were class in 1970, 1974, 1978, 1982, 1986 and 1990 were they? Only two of those are since my birth, but I’m fairly sure I’d have heard if they’d won anything of note prior to that. Before the Spanish won the World Cup last year, their record in the tournament since Italia ’90 was: quarter final, group stage, quarter final, last 16. Not completely dissimilar to England’s is it. So it WOULD appear, shock horror, that innovation CAN be made. A new style CAN be achieved. And that might seem like a bit of hard work, but the sooner people like Stuart Pearce are removed from this entrenched ‘English-ness’, the better. It is becoming an embarrassing excuse that simply does not hold any water.

If the denouement of the farce in Bloemfontein is ‘rely on passion to get you through’, the English are doomed. You will always have the Pearces of this world in charge at youth level whose greatest values are pride, passion, pace, strength. Technically deficient but REALLY proud. REALLY passionate. LOVES ENGLAND. Him and Ian Wright. They LOVE England. Get Wrighty and Brighty in, get them playing with passion. Passion seemingly being directly proportional to first touch and awareness.

The evidence against this blinkered view is stark. To call a certain style of play ‘the Barca way’ or ‘the Spain way’ is disingenuous. The ‘Barca way’ was a system put in place in the 1990s by Johann Cruyff at a specific club, though its precursor 20 years earlier at Ajax wasn't too shoddy either. The ‘Spain way’ (and this might seem obvious. BECAUSE IT IS) is different and it has to be – it’s not like Spain are meeting up more often than national sides elsewhere, for example. Some of Spain’s best players against England aren't at Barcelona at all: Juan Mata (Valencia), Javier Martinez and Ander Herrera (both Bilbao). Which while frightening, because they are ALL playing that way now, also proves it CAN be done across the board and not just in Arsene Wenger’s mind.

England exhibits a very peculiar form of protectionism on this. The whole setup appears far too stubborn to even try and implement a regime change in this country, even though ANYONE who's been successful in the last few years has embraced a new style or at least been prepared to try something different (Germany, as well as Spain, are the often-cited example).

The only way it could be implemented is if the FA took a massively more hands-on approach at centres of excellence – so the 'Arsenal way', to borrow a phrase, could be used across the board. The best thing that could happen to the country’s national setup is that Wenger becomes Director of Football in a similar way to Gerard Houllier in France back in the day.

But it would come as no surprise to see the power brokers of English football close ranks were this even suggested. Few fans outside of north London like Wenger; fewer still would have him in charge of defining their national identity. 'He's too soft. His players can't handle themselves. We'll get bullied in internationals. We need some steel and passion and experience to win something’.

The English obsession for playing big lads is partly an obsession that performance in elite sport somehow equates to physicality. Of course, international footballers should be fit. And strong, to an extent. But the game at the very top is scarcely designed for strapping strikers and commanding centre back presences anymore, although in the Premier League this invariably helps. In Europe and on the international stage, smaller teams like Spain (Argentina won’t be far behind here either) will just go down under any pressure and a foul is always given. Which, we’re fairly sure, defeats the object of packing your team with brutes.

The biggest lesson to be learnt here is probably in the misuse of Paul Scholes at international level. Supremely gifted and criminally underrated at his peak, though not by his peers, a succession of English managers shunted him out to the left to make more room for Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard to try and work out who stayed and who went. The one man with the ability to take a ball under pressure anywhere on the pitch and whose immediate thought wasn’t to launch it 40 yards into touch and he’s stuck on the left wing. Incredible. This cannot be allowed to happen with the genuine talents of Jack Wilshire and Josh McEachran.

It would be apt to end with some words from that most Spanish of Mancunians. Speaking to Sky after the England v Spain game, Scholes explained: "When you see a team like Spain and Barca do five-yard passes, they’re not trying to do anything flashy but everything they do is effective. These players are so confident on the ball they’ll take the ball anywhere, and they’ll play all day and they can make you look silly."

"When I was with England it was like 'come on, let’s get stuck in to them, lets tackle them’. But you just can’t get near them to do that and as long as we carry on like that, there’s not much of a future for us.” Sobering sentiments indeed.

The English Patience

2011-06-08T14:45:00.004+01:00

You can’t hear it in the car park. You poke your head around the door to the club shop, but nothing. Through the sliding glass doors and into reception, you can’t hear it. Going up the stairs and into the bowels of the stadium, slowly a dull thudding starts to play on the eardrums. Along the corridor, it’s now clearly in earshot. Past the gym and along to the manager’s office, a repeating bang-bang-bang, of forehead on wood, is clearly audible. Through the door and the manager is sitting there, Premier League scout opposite, looking exasperated.

“I don’t understand”, the manager says. “He’s a kid who’s hardly ever played for the national team, who’s never played in the Champions League, who doesn’t have any medals, who’s never moved clubs so has no sell-on clauses and who hasn’t played 100 club games in his career yet. And he’s worth MORE than £10m?” “But boss”, the scout says, exhaling with the air of a man about to attempt to explain the finer points of physics to an intellectually reticent monkey – this isn’t going to make sense, but it’s fundamental truth – “he’s English.”

English indeed. Who would have thought that nationality, a pointless human stereotype in itself, could be enough to automatically inflate your Premier League transfer value as a sportsman by two, three or even four times? Particularly, and you might be aware of Magic Spongers’ fairly strong opinions on this, when the nation you are associated with has suffered years of ignominy on the international stage, and to bring things bang up to date, hasn’t won a home game in four attempts.

The natural step would be to ask if this peculiar anomaly affects the transfer fees of Englishmen moving out of the Premier League, but for the fact that a) hardly any do and b) David Beckham categorically does not count*. Maybe Michael Owen (£8m to Real Madrid) and Jonathan Woodgate (£13.4m) are decent examples, but all they really prove is that Real were in an era where they would’ve thrown £5m at a bag of chips if it was in the news that week. Actually, it also proves that English players don’t last long before coming home for yet another sizeable fee, whereupon they become perma-crocks (honourable mention for Owen Hargreaves).

So this is a peculiarly Premier League phenomenon. What a surprise. It can’t be that the league’s self-importance knows no bounds, can it? What possible advantage exists for the club to spend all the extra money on specifically an English player? It’s not as if there aren’t players from other nationalities with extensive experience of the Premier League these days. While there might be notional restrictions on academies, there are no limits to the amount of foreign players you can buy into the first team. It is also pertinent to point out here that however well-intentioned the homegrown players rule is, brought in at the start of last season, the eight ‘homegrown’ players in question in each squad of 25 do not even have to be English (read more here).

Richard Scudamore never once mentions 'English' players when dwelling on the rule. He states: "It will encourage youth development and the promotion of young players," and then adds: "It's a rule which we think will give clubs an extra incentive to develop players, and to make a better return from their investment in youth." That it was the Premier League that enforced this seemingly pointless rule merely adds weight to the Magic Spongers-endorsed Pull Your Finger Out Of Your Arse campaign aimed at the FA (Trevor Brooking notwithstanding).

As is no doubt obvious, this particular article has been brought about by Liverpool’s signing of Jordan Henderson for £20m, which may or may not include David N’Gog moving in the other direction. Now that amount of money on a young English midfielder might turn out to be value, it might not, but at the moment it seems a very hefty price tag when you consider Mesut Ozil (after a stellar World Cup) cost Real Madrid approximately £14m and Wesley Sneijder (just a stellar player in general) moved to Inter for 15m euros. It's as if... takes deep breath... I went to the local greengrocers and started squabbling over an incredibly nondescript domestically-grown onion with another customer, even though said onion costs £8 and is clearly inferior to the ones for 30p in the next basket that come from Germany and the Netherlands.

The BBC report on the transfer trumpets that “Henderson's [potential] acquisition fits in with Liverpool's policy under Kenny Dalglish, director of football Damien Comolli and owners Fenway Sports Group to pursue young, and preferably English, talent”. One argument here, of course, is that it benefits the national side for a young player like Henderson to be at a club like Liverpool. Fair enough. But considering Liverpool don’t really need him, well stocked in this area that they are – a strategy also apparently being applied to their pursuit of Charlie Adam – how will it benefit him to spend more time on the bench than he will on the pitch?

As if that wasn’t enough, this happened today an all. Blackburn had set Jones’s release clause so high because they knew the market would bear it out. Both he and Henderson had four years left to run on their respective contracts, so compensation was clearly an issue too. No doubt United had to stump up the maximum to gazump interest, as the Guardian says, from Liverpool and Arsenal.

United have previous, but paying just £6m for Javier Hernandez and, even more at odds with tradition, only a reported £8m for Chris Smalling, it seems strange for Premier League clubs to be squabbling over specifically English talent like this. Especially when Michael Mancienne has moved to Hamburg for £1.75m, exiting a contract with Chelsea that would have expired in 2013. Hmmm.

This isn’t to say there are no talented English players worth tens of millions, or that the Premier League is any different from any other market in prices being determined by supply and demand. Quite why the demand and therefore transfer fees for young English players is so high among exclusively English league clubs is what never ceases to amaze.

If the caveat applied to the chasing of young English talent is that they are hungrier for success, then a laboured analogy with Bushby and MacDonald’s Saturday night pulling attempts would blow that little gem right out of the water. Clubs that have have enjoyed success in recent times in the Premier League have not done so due to their proclivity towards English footballers. And the club that has fielded the most English players and found success over the past decade or so – Manchester United – either paid huge fees for their Englishmen (Ferdinand, Rooney, Hargreaves, Carrick) or saw them brought through the youth system in the 90s (Scholes, Nevilles G&P, etc).

A peculiar phenomenon then, this doe-eyed pursuit of young English players, when all it really amounts to is a costly transfer fee for players who will once more be absorbed into the Premier League tapestry and by virtue of being bit-part players at their clubs, become bit-part players for their country, which will in turn continue to be bit-part players in tournament. It doesn’t only apply to the juniors either, with ludicrous valuations the norm for perennially English transfers like Scotty Parker (allegedly available for £15m, previous price tag £6.5m), James Milner (£26m including Steven Ireland), Darren Bent (£18m) and Gareth Barry (£12m).

Does it make any sense? Of course it bloody doesn’t. Hooray for the Premier League.

*In that his category is not ‘footballer’ per se, but more ‘actually a lot like one of those blokes off an American football team who comes on and occasionally kicks the ball, but richer and with other interests. Like flying all over the world and saying “you know” a lot’.

Managerial Merry-Go-Round

2011-06-06T14:10:00.002+01:00

Silly season is here again, says Drew Kearns. But it's not just the players taking the bloody piss...

June 2nd 2011. Remember this date when you pull on that new replica shirt in August as it was the day silly season started this year. With Mark ‘Sparky’ Hughes resigning/leaving/quitting/gardening/not renewing his contract at Fulham, the bi-annual merry-go round begins. January flirts with the idea of mass movement in the world of football, but even with the introduction of the winter transfer window it doesn’t hold a yellow ticker to the beast that is the summer months - a barren wasteland for all football fans where rumour, gossip and inaccuracies grow like wildflowers.

Fuelled by 24-hour news, Twitter and the like it’s become something of a sideshow to the season and indeed the football (remember that?) itself. Usually this centres on players, after all they play the game, they earn the money and it’s their faces we watch kissing/swearing at cameras throughout the season. However, a concomitant trend has developed. Not to be outdone by their playing staff, the gaffers are beginning to fight back in the crazy summer months. Enter Sparky.

As far as I can gather, he had a verbal agreement to sign an extended contract for another two years at Fulham. He went on holiday, had a change of heart and walked away from the club. His contract for the season was up so he had the right to do exactly that. But when doing so he released a statement which was part banal, fan-pleasing stuff but also a kick to the groin the Welshman would have been proud of during his playing days, citing how he is a young manager and wants to “further my experiences”. Jeez.

Quite frankly, I admire anyone who thinks so much about themselves. I certainly don’t have that level of confidence. I certainly wouldn’t have it if as a manager I had won absolutely nothing. Like Mark Hughes.

Common sense tells me that if he wanted to further his experiences he could have done a lot worse than stay at a stable, well-run and established Premier League club, who are in Europe next season, and actually try to win something. He decided not to. Pleasingly, his manner of departure appears to have scared Aston Villa off signing him (although whether they will come back for him when the terms of his Fulham contact expire on July 1st remains to be seen). Nevertheless, more owners of football clubs should consider the way (and reasons) a manager leaves his former employers.

Chelsea have no manager, Villa also and now Fulham. Brilliantly, Fulham are now being linked with Martin O’Neill whose last job was at Villa, a club he walked out on citing lack of ambition – couldn’t make this up really could you? You could easily win an argument if you felt Villa were a ‘bigger’ club than Fulham. So O’Neill going there is a delicious twist in the summer silly season. My head spins with it all.

I fear certain managers are getting a little carried away with the shiny world of the Premier League. They would do well to remember all that glitters is not gold. Usually I would criticise the owners as not enough of them back their own choice of manager through tough times. However, the power seems to be shifting. Similar to the players, who are able to dictate their terms to clubs who are compelled to comply (Rooney, Tevez et al), managers are now beginning to head down a similar path. Citing ceilings, a lack of funds or ambition shortfalls, managers are all too often walking away and leaving clubs.

Very rarely in these cases have circumstances changed significantly at the club under their management. What better way to make your mark as a manager than to move a club like Fulham on to bigger and better things? This takes time and stability. Managers walking away give themselves no chance of making any such impact. I would like to see a ban on player and manager movement during the season. Owners would have to choose more wisely and plan for the longer term. Managers wouldn’t be able to leave clubs mid-season and, therefore, in the lurch. Players would have less power when trying to renegotiate contracts in January. Everybody knows what they start with and that has to be enough. Suddenly the skill and art of football management from the top down would become a talking point, not who X wants to go sign for in January.

Manchester United have been the most successful club in the country for the past 20 years not because they have had all the best players, spent the most money or even had the best manager, but because they have had stability. Ferguson has made mistakes. He’s now made two tactical errors in two separate Champions League finals, losing both games, but quite rightly there isn’t a hint of change.

Chelsea and Manchester City want what United have, but fail to identify the key ingredient to success in football. Get a good manager and back him – for a long time. Stoke with Tony Pulis, Everton with David Moyes and dare I say it, Mick McCarthy at Wolves (more on him in a minute). These are clubs and managers alike realising their relative size, strengths and ultimately ambitions. The winning of trophies is a distant memory for these clubs (in some cases very distant, and with the exception of Stoke’s run to the FA Cup final), but they each accept what it takes to work towards getting closer to that elusive goal. Build slowly, carefully and consider that the devil is in the detail, and the chances are you will be building something of real significance and importance for the manager, club and fans to be proud of.

Both McCarthy and Hughes have managed their countries. Both are a similar age and have similar managerial experience in terms of clubs and time managed. They are cutting their teeth in what could be lengthy managerial careers. Yet their approach appears are starkly different.

Hughes is seemingly happy to jump from club to club in an attempt to find a place he feels he deserves and more pointedly deserves him. McCarthy took a big personal hit at Sunderland and grafted his way back. I have thoroughly enjoyed supporting Wolves under McCarthy as well. We play with passion, pride and commitment. Simple qualities but under the God-awful Glen Hoddle (another manager more concerned with his ego than staying somewhere and building success) these were alien to all at Molineux. McCarthy has assembled a group of players I am proud to support. A group who clearly care about the club, the fans and each other.

McCarthy improves players. George Elokobi, Stephen Ward, Karl Henry, Matt Jarvis – all have made huge strides as footballers under the Yorkshireman’s tutelage. Three of those four are now internationals. We’ve been promoted to the Premier League as champions and remained there long enough to be stating our third season in the top flight this August. McCarthy has turned the club around. I supported Wolves under Hoddle, but I loved them before. Now I love them again under McCarthy. His commitment to the club and his job is reflected in the way the players play. In short, he won’t walk away – and he’ll be remembered for that very fact.

Euro Revision #5: Manchester United v Real Madrid 2003

2011-05-27T10:14:00.000+01:00

It's part five, which means handing over to In Bed With Maradona's Dave Hartrick...

Manchester United 4-3 Real Madrid, April 23 2003

The problem with the Champions League is that until the latter stages there are far too many mismatches. Every year the draw comes through for the groups and all we can look forward to until the next round is Barcelona waltzing through six games in which they’ll never be required to shift in to top gear. Yes, we love the Caligula style orgy of football as up to eight games are screened for us to red button to and from, but in reality, for every shock there’s 30 games that equate to a little kid swinging punches but being held at arms length by a teenager.

So why do we love the Champions League so much if there is such an obvious but unavoidable flaw in the competition?

Simple – wade through the group stages and we come to games like this one, the real deal if you will, Manchester United vs Real Madrid, two giants of the game with a penchant for attacking football thrown together. The anticipation alone as soon as a draw is made is enough for the football junkie to develop a noticeable twitch.

Now there is no denying often these games are disappointing but that’s usually as a result of the saturation coverage pre-game - no match on earth could live up to the 1000’s of words some are subjected to – and in many cases hindsight and review shows more merit than first afforded. However some live up to the hype without a second viewing. Some even surpass it.

And so we come to a fresh April’s evening at Old Trafford.

Now there were two subplots here from the word go, the most prominent being United’s battle to fight back from a starting position of 3-1 behind. With that precious away goal some gave United a fair chance but defensively they could be frail. Real’s Galaticos would have to be marshalled far better than they had been in the first leg, where Figo and Raul had punished Barthez’s indecision and a United backline affording them far too much respect.

The second subplot was a previous Champions League game in 2000 in which United had been hopelessly outclassed. The home leg in particular had exposed United’s naivety in refusing to change their game in Europe. Despite a 2-3 scoreline suggesting a close game a last minute Paul Scholes penalty had given the result a false air, especially when considering they had been 3-0 down.

So the media machine was growling at it’s loudest and a look at the team sheets bears out their hyperbole. On the pitch at Old Trafford at the same time would be the likes of Zidane, Veron, Ronaldo, Scholes, Guti, Van Nistelrooy, Figo, Giggs, Carlos and coming on from the bench for a sensational half an hour with something to prove, David Beckham. This was the starriest of match-ups and as a neutral you could only hope the stars aligned to give us something special.

And for once they did.

It’s easier to talk about this game in its different elements rather than a whole review as such. For starters Ronaldo’s hat trick was a thing of absolutely beauty. His first showed his terrific vision and accuracy to beat Barthez on the run from the edge of the area, the second his predatory instinct and movement to be in the right place to finish Roberto Carlos’s cross and as for the third? Power. His breath-taking, absolute, injury defying and frightening power.

You want more than one of the stand out performances of one of the greatest strikers of all time?

How about 30 minutes of a rampaging, stung in to action David Beckham. Relegated to the bench and with rumours of a deteriation of his relationship with Fergie and a potential move in the air, he came on for Veron and preceded to throw himself into the game. Having only been on about 10 minutes or so he lined up a free kick that looked like an exercise in massaging the Beckham ego. Completely the wrong side for a right footer and well wide of Casillas’s right post, it had row Z written on the ball in permanent marker. Defying the odds Beckham pulled it over the wall and into the top corner as an absolute slap in the face to those of us who dared to doubt him. In the pantheon of great Beckham free kicks, this remains my favourite.

More?

How about as a one-off stand alone game this being just about the most typical of all Manchester United performances. Brilliant on the counter, slightly complacent at the back but more than that, at 4-1 down on aggregate still they kept coming. At no point did Real run away with the game despite their huge aggregate advantage, United took on a Los Blancos side used to lauding it over domestic opponents and never let the tie die. 4-3 on the night, 5-6 in the match overall, Real had never run as hard before and wouldn’t again all season.

Not enough?

What about a legacy then. It was the game that allegedly earned Beckham his dream move to Real Madrid to join the other Galaticos. In half an hour he had proved there was more to his game than selling shirts to Japanese tourists.

It was also the game that allegedly convinced Roman Abramovich that buying an English football club was going to be his next major purchase. The match has repeatedly haunted Chelsea managers as they fail to match the game’s attacking swagger and if things continue to run to form, it will continue to do so for a long time to come.

I could go on but just watch it – you’ll soon understand why it was such an affecting night at Old Trafford. Despite all the drama thick in the Manchester air my favourite moment remains a substitution. Job done and feeling the pace of such a high tempo game, Ronaldo was taken off with about 25 minutes to go. The Old Trafford crowd rose and gave the striker a standing ovation in unison, it had been a special performance from a special player that transcended the rivalry. For a sport so regularly derided for producing some of life’s most unsavoury moments, it’s also important to note it can provide some of the highest respect.

If you've not already been to In Bed With Maradona, we recommend you do so immediately. You can also enjoy Dave's many pearls of wisdom / stark raving madness on Twitter @Hartch

Euro Revision #4: Liverpool v Chelsea 2005

2011-05-26T09:22:00.002+01:00

Pure evil

...and here's the other half of Magic Spongers Adam Bushby

Liverpool 1 v 0 Chelsea: Champions League semi final 2nd leg, May 2005

Mine is a tale of heroes and villains. I’m looking at YOU Ľuboš Micheľ with your stupid squiggly bits on the letters of your name. “Why do you mock this poor man so savagely?” I hear you all ask. I’ll tell you, I sneer, in a really smarmy kind of way. Ľuboš Micheľ is a former professional referee. Ľuboš Micheľ was in fact ranked the world’s second best referee in 2006. Ľuboš Micheľ was the man in charge of the second leg of Liverpool v Chelsea and ruined it for everyone by not sending off Petr Cech in the fourth minute of the match and consequently awarding Liverpool a penalty, which, I think I’m correct in saying, Steven Gerrard would have placed to the left of substitute goalkeeper Carlos Cudicini and thus provide the catalyst for the largest win the Champions League semi-final stage had ever seen. Bear with me.

We all remember Istanbul. I remember going nuts in the Footage pub, Manchester, while my girlfriend at the time had a panic attack, we all got covered in beer, and bizarrely, I was struck on the head by an orange chucked (I presume by a covert United fan) from the balcony. A truly wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime experience was had that night. Let me explain at this juncture that I’m partisan because Liverpool are ever so slightly my second favourite team, edged out by the briefest of margins by my hometown side, York City.

However, it isn’t one night in Istanbul I wish to reflect upon but the tie that took place one round previous. To this day, no amount of partisanship on my behalf can cloud the still perfectly reasonable amounts of righteous fury that course through my veins when anyone mentions the so-called ‘ghost goal’ that Luis Garcia scored that beautiful Tuesday night in May. I’ll be honest here. Garcia’s shot didn’t cross the line. Gallas clears it before 100% of the ball is over and it shouldn’t have been given. WAIT, I HAVEN’T FINISHED YET. BUT… watch the video, I implore you. Cech wipes out Milan Baros. He is the last man. It is a red card and a penalty. And it was the villain of the piece, one Ľuboš Micheľ, that prevented you, dear reader, from seeing an absolute whitewash that night at Anfield.

“Where’s the evidence?” I can hear one of you shout as you wonder why you even bothered to read this piece in the first place and probably remark to one of your mates sat next to you “Magic Spongers really isn’t as good as it used to be.” Well, my friends, the proof is in the pudding. In about the 12th minute Didi Hamann hits a speculative long ranger (see 1:00 here). As you can see, Cech deals with it comfortably. But would Cudicini? Of course not. He lets it through his hands and its 2-0 Liverpool. The Kop goes apeshit. “Hamann with a tackle that TURNS INTO A GOAL,” screams Clive Tyldesley.

Now, sticking with that video, look at the magnificent Djimi Traore tackle on 1:41. In reality (ie what actually happened), the ball goes straight to John Terry who bravely passes it forward. But, and it’s a big but, what would have ACTUALLY happened if Ľuboš Micheľ had done his job properly was that Chelsea, already stretched due to their lesser numbers, had over-stretched themselves like a huge collective groin strain. The Traore tackle runs past Terry and Baros is onto it like a flash. Three touches later and it ends up in the Chelsea net. 3-0 Liverpool and they are coasting.

We see Eider Gudjohnsen receive the ball about 40 yards out on 2:06 when of course, in the alternate reality, THE REALITY THAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED BUT DIDN’T DUE TO A LAPSE IN CONCENTRATION/BOTTLE BY A CERTAIN LUBOS MICHEL (NO I DON’T KNOW HOW TO DO THE SQUIGGLY BITS IN CAPITALS), Gudjohnsen NEVER received the ball here. That last Chelsea move never happened. What actually happened was that Gerrard made one of his trademark lung-busting runs through the Chelsea defence and then hit a stunning thunderbolt of a shot from the edge of the box, beating Cudicini with ease. Sensational stuff and Liverpool are 4-0 up.

In some bizarre quirk though, the Lampard freekick DID still occur (on 2:15) but the result was very different. Jerzy Dudek (a man who actually deserves squiggly bits on his name, Ľuboš Micheľ) still makes a fine save but this time keeps the ball in play. The ball breaks to Igor Biscan who, spotting Cudicini miles from line, attempts an audacious chip from 80 yards. The result is one of the finest goals ever scored at Anfield. Ever scored in the Champions League and ever scored EVER. An 80-yard goal for fuck’s sake. By Igor Biscan. But you never saw it because of one silly boy. Ľuboš Micheľ.

On 2:50 we would have seen Djibril Cisse score a wonderful overhead kick that exploded off his foot and left Cudicini rooted to the spot rather than the tame and frankly quite shite header we actually saw. 5-0. After Tyldesley nearly shits himself when six, SIX added minutes are announced, Ciise adds a sixth and Anfield is in raptures. At 3:28 we see Cech make a fairly routine save but as we now know due to me telling you, Cudicini has had an absolute mare and he spills it for the Frenchman to smash in. “Is there still time for another, a record breaking seventh?” Andy Townsend never actually asks incredulously because of the behaviour of Ľuboš Micheľ.

Fast forward to 4:35. Carlos Cudicini runs out of his box and attempts to leather it, frustrated and embarrassed at the thrashing his side have received and knowing there are mere seconds left. But he misjudges it. Having sliced the ball with the outside of his right foot, the backspin produced is sufficient to send it flying far, far over his head and into the unguarded net. The most ridiculous own goal you are likely to see. And an own goal that will never grace one of those hilarious own goals and gaffes DVDs thanks to Ľuboš Micheľ.

“But you’re a Liverpool fan. You won. Why do you even care?” someone calls out at the back. I care because I am a massive stickler for the rules. I care because I don’t like listening to arseholes who tell me it was never a goal and Chelsea would have gone on to win. I mean, think about it. Every Chelsea sub would not have been possible for crying out loud. Every corner would never have happened. Or may have. That’s the head fuck. The half time team talks would have been vastly different. As it is I still have to listen to Chelsea fans preach to me how it was never a goal and that it would have been so different if it had never been given. I agree wholeheartedly with that of course but for very different reasons. Saved a 7-0 spanking you’d think they’d be grateful for losing by just the one!

After the event Ľuboš Micheľ said “I believe Chelsea would have preferred the goal to count rather than face a penalty with just ten men for the rest of the game. If my assistant referee had not signaled a goal, I would have given a penalty and sent off goalkeeper Petr Čech.”

WELL YOU SHOULD HAVE MATE. YOU SHOULD HAVE. LIVERPOOL WOULD HAVE WON 7-0 AND I’D HAVE NEVER HAD TO WRITE THIS ARTICLE. OR MAYBE I WOULD HAVE AND WOULD HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT AN ACTUAL 7-0 WIN THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

Euro Revision #3: Manchester United v Barcelona 1994

2011-05-25T09:14:00.004+01:00

Lee Sharpe receives his first England cap. A proud day.

Over to Magic Spongers' very own Rob MacDonald...

Manchester United 2-2 Barcelona: Champions League Group Stages, October 19 1994

When I was very young, I was in Cub Scouts and we got to a Cup Final. 4th Wilmslow v 1st Lindow I think it was. As a boy it was a confusing time – why was this game different? How would I feel if we lost? How would I feel if we won? What the fuck are those numbers for? (To this day I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of 2nd or 3rd Wilmslow, though I remember 1st, 4th, 5th AND 6th. Did 2nd or 3rd Wilmslow even exist? What? Why not?).

More importantly though, our team had to name our favourite players for the matchday programme, which was actually more an advertising booklet for all the Dads’ companies with our names in the middle and a strange anecdote in which our manager accused us, his own team, of ‘leaking goals like a damaged sieve’.

Most of my team mates were United fans. You could see this in their ‘favourite player’ choices – Eric Cantona, Bryan Robson, Mark Hughes (it was 1993 I think) – even our defenders all loved Cantona. And you could tell the best players around at the time because their names repeated down the page. Except for one. ‘R MacDonald’, it said. ‘Position: Left Midfield’. ‘School: Gorsey Bank’.

‘Favourite Player: L Sharpe’.

So there it is. My favourite player was (is) Lee Sharpe. The answer to all those left-wing problems England used to have, but who loved getting smashed a bit too much to really be involved. My favourite European Cup game naturally includes ‘Sharpey’, and the fact that it also involves a smorgasbord of luminaries including Romario, Hristo Stoitchkov, Ronald Koeman and, er, David May, is largely irrelevant.

Many years ago, after Sharpe had scored two goals as United won away at Villa Park, Sir Alex Ferguson suggested that there was something special about games ‘under the lights, when the pitch is fantastic’. He was spot on, too, and though obviously a lot of European matches take place under floodlights and on football pitches, this United game against the Barcelona dream team in 1994 was particularly good. Mainly because of Sharpe. He fucking LOVED massive games. Even though he never really played in any.

You can see the main highlights here. The first inclination that it was Sharpe’s night came as he skipped past whatever hapless right-back Cruyff had entrusted with the most thankless job in European football (some no-mark, probably) and delivered a BRILLIANT cross onto Hughes’s head. Here was the sudden realisation, to a 10-year old, of what a brilliant cross looked like. Sharpe was actually the best crosser of the ball at Man United, a fact that everyone seems to have forgotten, probably because some ponce who used to be in the Spice Girls turned up in Predators. Or something.

Hughes’s header is textbook too. So is the goalkeeper’s ludicrous token attempt to change direction as the ball goes past him. Here was the sudden realisation, to a 10-year old, of what a ‘continental goalkeeper’ looked like. It makes it look a much better goal too. But that cross is still ace.

Sharpe skinned Barcelona pretty much every time he got the ball. The goal – THAT backheel – was the crowning glory. How good is Ince driving through there? HOW GOOD IS THAT FINISH?! Take that, Thierry Henry and Nwankwo Kanu. That’s how you score a cheeky backheel. And how good is that second token despairing dive? YOU ARE NOT GETTING THAT SON. NO CHANCE.

The best bit of all of it, as with any old European clip, is Brian Moore’s commentary*. “A super strike again!” he crows. TOO RIGHT BRIAN. IT’S THE BEST GOAL I’VE EVER SEEN. “And a smile that says ‘We’ve done it!’”. YES WE HAVE. WE HAVE DONE IT! Perhaps it’s a measure of United’s modest ambition in Europe at the time that an equaliser at Old Trafford in Europe was akin to ‘doing it’ (their hopes in the group stage were effectively ended away at a Jesper Blomqvist-inspired IFK Gothenberg), but whatever.

Lest it be forgotten, wing duties at United used to be shared between Sharpe, Ryan Giggs and Russian sprinter Andrei Kanchelskis. Sharpe, on occasion, kept Giggs out of the team. Oh aye. But the truly great are always truly flawed. While Giggs is still a mainstay of the Manchester United midfield, while Kanchelskis is now, respectably, manager of FC Ufa in Russia, Sharpe has taken the road less travelled. Celebrity Love Island. Celebrity Wrestling. Dancing on Ice. Coronation Street. Jayne Middlemiss. Abi Titmuss. Not for him the perverse, self-obsessed world of modern football. Not for him a superinjunction following the gross misrepresentation of his life in historical television series ‘Sharpe’.

NO! LEE SHARPE WILL NOT GO QUIETLY INTO THE NIGHT, FRIENDS.

NO! Lee Sharpe would much rather go out onto a playing field and smash fuck out of some sheds.

What a hero. What a game.

*The very best bit, I have to admit, is actually David May’s quite ludicrous foul on Stoitchkov at 1.26 in the video. THAT is the best bit. What is he doing?