Author: bowlingatvincent

Playing to the Gallery (the book!) – Grayson Perry.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

As I write that mixture of shock, anger and frankly depressive disquiet prevails. In an extraordinary week for world affairs – I’m thinking Paris and Nigeria here – my own daft orbit has swung wildly between healthy titillation and Appalled of Pembs.

Before the irreligious scumbags from Boko Haram and (who knows? Al Qhaeda?) did their work in Africa and North West Europe, I’d been enjoying that simple pleasure of reading something upful. Despite being conflicted about that book’s place or relevance in a) my head and b) the Universe right now, I intend to go on abard it anyway. Because whilst this book is not remotely about the means by which we oppose radical Islam, it does contain truths about making meaning which I believe powerfully relevant – always – and maybe particularly when homo sapiens lurches back towards the swamp.

Please listen while I say this: there are rich and beautiful things (that I am happy to call invincible) which can represent us humans with a kind of defiant grace. We need these things – let’s use these things.

The book is Grayson Perry – Playing to the Gallery.

MAKING MEANING.
Grayson Perry is a funny old bloke. Maybe that’s not an appropriate start – not for a kosher look at yer average book on Art Theory. Except that this book, unsurprisingly, is like him, Grayson, an engaging mixture of colourful parries and friendly fends around what’s real or profound or material in life and in contemporary art. It’s an antidote to cynicism, full of good-natured one-liners aimed at the various intellectual stratospheres we space-hop through together. It’s therefore not (al-ley-luyah!) any of the following; arid, dull or impenetrably dense. In fact there’s a kind of juvenile (and I think I do mean that in a good way) zeal running through; playful, yes, but defiant about the integrity of most contemporary artists and the nobility of that calling.

So the essence of ‘Playing to the Gallery’ is lightly campaigning, de-mystifying, educational veering-to-populist rather than cerebral. The cover spiel makes plain that this baby is certainly not
sucking up to an Academic Elite.

No. It ain’t. ‘Playing to the Gallery’ is anti-pomp and anti cobblers. It’s full of friendly exclamation marks (marked down, I know, by the intelligentsia) and arguments deflowered where possible of their museum-speak to welcome in – indeed to really encourage in – the or’nary human.

Some facts. This book is lifted from or sculpted out of the Reith Lectures that Perry gave in 2013. If you listen to the first of them on the BBC Radio Four website then once you’ve have cringed your way through Sue Lawley’s prolonged itemisation of his clobber, you will be immediately immersed in a whole lot of love for the man. There are cheers and gales of laughter. He rips it up as well as reveals, or proffers insights. It’s a hoot.

The book isn’t a word-for-word re-run of those gorgeously garrulous lectures but that’s absolutely where it’s centred. Containing chapters named for the four performances at the lectern, ideas fleshed out a little or trimmed of the live banter. The book could be either a souvenir for those who loved the lectures or a touchstone (perhaps) independently.

Perry immediately (in a prelude called How much?!) de-Ivory Towers the scene by relating the epiphanic tale of how The Archers revealed to him the profound integration of contemporary art into general life. But, typically, this is the springboard for a declaration of faith –
If there’s one message I want you to take away it’s that anybody can enjoy art and anybody can have a life in the arts – even me! For even I – an Essex transvestite potter, have been let in by the art world mafia.

Sure, he’s saying, the art world may seem to want to exclude us normal folks, to sieve us out via the intimidating glamour or bewildering language or obscure purpose of its protagonists but it’s possible – and indeed necessary and nourishing – to get the fuck in there(!)

Democracy Has Bad Taste concerns that thorny-delicious debate over judgements on quality –
what are the criteria… and who tells us it’s good?

I suspect elite level academics may disagree but it is my contention that Perry is no mug. He appreciates well here, the conditioning and the self-consciousness of the novice viewer and the uppity, sometimes excluding brilliance of the Art Circle.

(Nowadays) To judge a work on its aesthetic merit is to buy into some discredited, fusty, hierarchy tainted with sexism, racism, colonialism and class privilege. It’s loaded, this idea of beauty, because where does our idea of beauty come from?

We are thus rallied towards rather profound questions on validity and – dare we say it? – truth.

In Beating the Bounds, Marcel’s Duchamp’s position at the very birthplace of much of our angst is considered. The magnificent subversion-of-all-things that was Duchamp’s urinal – his declaration that anything was art that an artist chose to be so – is revisited repeatedly to ask questions about where modern(ist?) notions of legitimacy have come to us from… and where they have travelled. Ultimately, Perry’s wonderfully circular story of how Duchamp’s urinal was effectively lost (and its significance almost wasted) before a potter was commissioned to re-make one from grainy photographs is one of the highlights of the book.

In this second chapter our quirky pal Grayson cracks the whip – and I do mean that – so we have a bitoffalarf as we are bundled round the problems or undiscovered joys of the parish. Perry offers further ways in to the arguments around where art is at… and how we might recognise it.

Refreshingly, there are few conclusions anywhere in this mini-tome; the artist does suggest, however – in Nice Rebellion, Welcome In! (Chapter Three) – that

I don’t believe there is an avant-garde anymore…
He goes on

But if we are at the final state of art then I’d like to end on a positive note and quote the philosopher of art Arthur C Danto. He said ‘If the age of manifestos had a political parallel in ethnic cleansing, then in the age of pluralism we have a model of tolerant multi-culturalism.’

Whoa. The Age of Pluralism – multi-culturalism. I can see in the art world this may be or this may seem how things are moving. Wow.

This may be an appropriate moment for me to close the book and gaze wistfully into the middle distance. Then say something unwisely woolly and positive. So, being positive, I will.

I believe in Grayson Perry, the Essex trannie/good bloke/artist. I rate his work more now than before – because I am understanding better. I have always shared his conviction – expressed in these lectures – that we the audience might have to put a little work into appreciating art. That there is value in that effort, in part because what is revealed includes the life-affirming notion that most artists are genuine, committed people looking to share meanings with us and, who knows maybe offer leadership, sustenance or hope in a mad, mad world.

I for one hold up my fist, my torch, my pencil for that aspiration against the horrors of un-love, of intolerance and extreme bigotry.

Fabulous and flawed.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

A pro-logue.

I’m kinda down on footie despite being totally steeped in it. All that ‘drawing’ pens, all that desperate trying to get fellow pro’s sent off stuff.  But the word fabulous appears here, more than once.  Fabulous meaning really really great; beyond wonderful and into super-charged dream-particle magical. I re-found something and I’m thinking it was the number 9’s fault.  That Colombian bloke – Falcao.  The way he fizzed about like a kid; throwing his soul and self into it; as though (like we did) it was done for love of the game and maybe for his mates – that daft, open, sacrificial thing. Beyond money, fame, pressure. The fans loved him for it – not just the brilliance of his assist for Rooney’s tap-in – they loved his heart.

United are in a fabulous place. Fabulous in the sense that after a Moyesian extension of the previous regime – i.e. a period when (even under King Aloysius) they remained essentially fascinatingly dire and unworthy – there is suddenly the possibility for a magnificently wild chariot ride with van Gaal at the helm. If they have remained only 84% convincing going forward – whole lot less, defensively – this has not prevented United from threatening to break into that ‘cutting a swathe through the division’ category. At times, via Di Maria/Rooney/Young, even, The Reds have waved a sword – twirled it! – as they have bulleted triumphantly along. Except…

Except for that gert big hole where the Manchester United defence should be. Okaaay partly through ill-luck on the injury front but also because players selected have been visibly short of the confidence/courage/ability (you choose!) to carry that particular responsibility. The thing has felt flung together because van Gaal, plainly exasperated that a club of this stature should have such a shortage of options, has rifled through the personnel and the strategic possibilities.

I liked his early recourse to a back three but then cursed his immediate ditching of the system. Accepted, this was more about a damning of the dimness and immaturity of allegedly top top players than LVG’s personal preference but reverting to ‘the more familiar’ (yawn!) 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 smacked of capitulation. Why not stick with that defensive three (and with effectively five in midfield) then bully your side into a coiled-spring ‘wingback’ option? That plainly offers the potential for five fit blokes covering defensive duties once possession is lost. Meaning as a mob, perhaps especially a Proper Defender-lite mob, you give yourself every chance to keep the other buggers out.

Look you don’t have to be Jonathan Wilson to be aware that variations on 3-5-2 have informed the thinking of great European sides for aeons. German and Dutch national sides have made a habit of coolly out-passing opponents by having players available out wide and/or through slick interchange in a fluid, well-stacked midfield. Characteristically these teams have exuded confidence on the ball, being populated by players who receive the ball beautifully and use it with intelligence. Van Gaal will surely look to build towards this at United, whilst adding in pace – zip – in the belief that the Premier League might undermine or undo the cruise mode that seems to prevail in ‘continental’ football.

This is all context that LVG will be aware of – and I think hopefully thrive in. The notion that Manchester United FC has a genuinely noble tradition for attacking with width and pace, blah di blah. You can picture and maybe The Enemy is beginning to fear(?) a seamless transition between the mighty aggression-driven era of Ferguson through to some invincible, van Gaal-reflecting pomp. (The seamless thing has been manifestly blown but both eras laced and lit by gallivanting wide-men, with perhaps the midfield generals of the former nuanced into serene, more cosmopolitan sorts under the current gaffer? Perhaps.) Either way United have finished up with 3-5-2 formation, temporarily or otherwise, they are on a roll…and Liverpoool are out of sight.

Most agree that it’s taken the re-emergence of Michael Carrick as a force for calm and a rare exponent of the insightful or threaded pass from deep, to gift United back their shape, if not their formation. Whether he remains in a classic central defending role or a deep-lying midfield position is as yet unknowable – possibly even to the manager. (Today, Carrick strolled in the midfield.) What is clear – and to this, I for one, sing alleluyah – is that elite level footballers should be able to a) read play and b) execute passes on the understanding that possession is god. Carrick exemplifies these skills. And we did need reminding, we always do.

So, in the now, encouragingly, thrillingly for their support, United find themselves back where they belong. Champions League football seems downright certain for next season – an extraordinary transformation from but a few weeks ago – and there is just a crazy, glorious hint of a chance that they might buy two defenders next month and then go wallop everybody on the way to a sensational title triumph. A ludicrous, lew-dee-cruss thought in say, September.

And so to the game. United set up as follows, against Pardew’s Newcastle;
De Gea
Jones McNair Evans
Valencia Mata Carrick Rooney Young
Falcao RVP

Early minutes. Van Gaal has clearly insisted on the back three splitting as soon as United gain possession, with Jones going wide right and Evans left; meaning McNair is potentially isolated in fifty yards of the pitch if things break down. Carrick will monitor in front but there’s too much reliance on possession being retained – and this is not the way of it. On the plus side, with the back three spread, ‘play’ should be enabled by the drawing out, into space, of these individuals and the simultaneous emergence of space for midfielders to exploit. On the negative, right across the back line, there is no cover.

This is all very well if you are a) German/Dutch b) dominant or c) three goals to the good. It’s massively bold given United’s current vulnerabilities as a team – and McNair’s youth and frail confidence. The lad’s already been withdrawn early after one nightmare; after five or ten minutes this afternoon with Newcastle looking lively, the fear is very much that van Gaal is gambling unwisely against a repetition.

But give the man some credit; if van Gaal is saying to his players ‘we will open out and we will be full of movement. We will penetrate and we will score because we have quality’ then… wow. He will know the nature of the game he is playing. Maybe we are seeing an expression of the manager’s belief in his strike power more than something ‘inevitably’ cavalier, borne of an awareness that his side simply cannot, home or away, park the bus.

Anyway first fifteen Newcastle – who look buoyant – have significant opportunities. United are on that knife-edge again, with the back three looking boyishly lost. Evans looks a liability both in and out of possession; Jones and McNair take sharp breaths and try to see it through. They do – somehow – then United respond, dynamically, Rooney scoring twice before the half to transform the match. Young and Valencia rampage intermittently, they win three-nil.

But the watching world knows and will re-visit the fact that van Gaal’s boys might have conceded three before Rooney put them ahead. And that another penno decision went their way. If I tweeted in the twentieth minute that The Geordies ‘might have already have buried them’ imagine the copious notes taken up and down the land?

… Maybe this is important. United might well achieve an easy third place in a poor ‘chasing’ group, light years behind City and Chelsea. On the one hand this might represent a solid, arguably spectacular achievement. On the other, it will not sit well with van Gaal that his side would even theoretically lie so open to dismemberment by Mourinho’s or Pellegrini’s patently more complete outfits. United aren’t there yet.

And yet I return to my original theme. Supporters excited and a charge ongoing; things twitching between joy and reality. The fans in love with Falcao’s gameness – gutted to see him withdrawn – and yet aware of that bigger picture, flicking through the gaffer’s mind. There is, there really is a season to gamble for, a title to chase. And realistic or not, United or not, that’s fabulous.

One v One?

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

So this one is peculiar. In that, well, can anyone of us remember a time when teams quite like this – i.e. so-o close to being unworthy of the brand – competed for the Unofficial Championship of the Wooorrrrr-leda? Well – Lankishire. And okay I know prob’ly four-elevenths of Utd is nearly brilliant (guess which bits?) but such is the ragged nature of a) their defence and b) Liverpool that that provocative farker of an opening question stands. United are nearly shocking but third… and Liverpool are almost completely shocking and nowhere.

Fair enough?

Ok I did say provocative farker. Lately Manchester United have cartwheeled or blundered into a run of victories where that proper MU footie – the full-on whirligig carnival, the attack-attack hurricane – has held a giddy sway over woe, embarrassment and self-destruction. Flashing directness from Di Maria with Rooney and Mata popping passes from an almost convincing hub; Fellaini (remarkably) playing as though he intermittently remembers the gist of it all; De Gea pinning things together or, yaknow, doing that saving the day thing ‘keepers do. Liverpool meanwhile have been so shot that it’s bloody fascinating.

Rodger’s team are so far from the swelling and relentless brilliance of much of last season that even those of us who expected a drop-off have joined the flummoxed zillions. On the one hand we accept that losing Suarez and Sturridge would be massive for any side but how to explain the utter disappearance of the zest, the belief, the running, the teaminess? Extraordinary.

Given that the first imperative for any manager must be to sort the buzz – the environment – around the team, the dip in positive energy that’s occurred at Anfield is mind-boggling -and a serious black mark against the previously burgeoning Rodgers. As we speak, a whole host of spotty Sports Psychology students must surely be hypothesising rhythmically around the phenomenon.

OOOH- has he simply lost the dressing room? Aaah – is the almost casual decency and articulacy of the man longhand for ‘he’s just too soft?’ Do-oooo the players think him one-dimensional as a bloke and as a coach? Wordy and scrambled? I-i-i-i-sss the essence of this that Rodgers lacks physical presence in a scrap, or does his list of strategies read a) attack with pace, beeeeeeyah) poop yer panties if this doesn’t work? And OH SWEET JEE-SUS why the utter vacuum where Liverpool used to be, eight, ten months ago? Why?

Could be that Liverpool don’t have that many good players. And/or that when the squeeze came on at the death of last season things conspired to expose them; they were unlucky but they were (mentally) weak. Or could be Ar Brendan is simply failing to motivate the group – evidently failing?

From Gerrard’s freakish slip to the trauma-fest at Palace, the suspicion does burn that Liverpool bottled it. They nose-dived from the carefree to the lamentably vulnerable and if they haven’t stayed entirely in that same, hideous, crushingly calamitous groove, they have stayed crap .

You can blame individuals or individual moments for last season’s non-consummation but that collective truth – that Liverpool couldn’t quite hack it – persists.  Corrosively.

People laughed when I singled out Sturridge, Suarez and Sterling for failing to bury Palace midway into the second half of that tumultuous, decisive fixture. They said it was ‘obvious’ the defence blew it (as though I didn’t know that). We all knew the back four was Liverpool’s achilles throughout the season but in that key moment a tad more composure, a tad more ice in the veins from front players would’ve seen Liverpool beyond any sniff of a comeback. For me it was a critical sign that they lacked that essential, murderous edge; they were too close to the ordinary humans chasing after them.

This is history and I’m not (actually) arguing that it is central now. It is present but not central. It may have been causative but today/this season ain’t about scars, it’s about current lack of ease, pattern… and therefore form.

Rodgers has failed to bundle or bully or mould his much-changed group into anything close to a bona fide top four side. There is no comparison between what his attack might offer on Sunday with what Suarez and Sturridge and a flying Sterling offered last year.

Lambert, honest and competent as he is, serves more as a symbol than a striker. He can and will get goals, but he is one-paced and limited; he will rarely electrify the Kop or anyone else. His former club-mate Lallana is arguably theoretically closer to the required pedigree but has played poorly and looked like just another gifted but bland dilettante.

Liverpool have gone from being so tremendously free-flowing they didn’t need to think about nuts/bolts/assembly, to being a side with no engine and no personality. Even Gerrard has only occasionally or momentarily thrown off the slough through sheer force of will. Rodgers must take responsibility for this.

On the other side on Sunday is Van Gaal, a man who may be fluking or scrambling his way somewhere brilliant or precarious. He knows McNair and Rojo and Blackett and Evans and Shaw and Rafael and Jones and Smalling may all fall short of the mark. Against Liverpool he may well pick three of them plus Carrick and genuflect his way ostentatiously through the contest knowing god may not help him.

For United, everything is a gamble. They have quality going forward but they have no consistency – and they still have no defence. Whether they will attackattackattack against their despised rivals will be one of many questions pondered between now and the outbreak of hostilities. The Dutch bruiser-sophisticate could claim a maniacal but spirited offensive is the only way to go given his options and the relative distraction of his opponents. This could mean a fabulous goal-fest or a simple, deflating loss, as United get undone on the break – six times.

Or, we could get a proper North-West derby game. Loaded with bile, low on quality (this one could get very low?), notably unattractive.

Van Gaal is trying to get his side to zip the ball about; he wants great movement as well as instinctive early passing but this demands confidence. As we have seen with Liverpool there’s nothing as infectious as doubt, so United must hope that touches are sure and folks don’t go missing – both may be at issue Sunday afternoon. I can already hear LVG eyeballing his tetchy superstars and setting out the mantra – you supply the dodgy Dutch accent.

We have to believe. When we pass – yes! Believe. When we press – yes! Believe. When we accept the ball under pressure – believe. We can win the game. We are positive. This is what we do.

Van Gaal will find more quality – almost certainly from outside the club – and then he will build.  Even in the chaos of now there is undeniable momentum.

Sunday could be a day where all things may be so subsumed in the vortex that the personnel barely matter. Liverpool will naturally want to still the storm and United surf it. Rodgers nor Van Gaal should have to stir the blood of their players but the two gaffers will still need to perform. Wonderfully, the challenge may revolve around the degree to which one bloke can influence and inspire eleven others. Meaning a very real, very feisty one v one.

Currently, this would favour Van Gaal and United.

Kids go searching.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

I’m no fan of Kevin Pietersen and never have been; I’ve never believed in him. I know plenty of folks think he’s a genius, a rare and special talent who’s simply been mismanaged but in accepting the bulk of that statement I reject him, utterly. If the Steve Harmison story is true about KP flatly refusing to take throw-downs from senior England coaches then let that be my reason. If it’s not, let it be that I think his arrogance and his consistent failure to think of his mates and that team-thing marks him down as an arse.

But hey guess what? Recently I’ve been ploughing through ECB Coaching Workshops and the thought struck me that KP – yes him with the ego – might have done something which may yet turn out to be profoundly positive. Maybe.

Between the Level 2 ECB Coaching Certificate and the new Performance strata there lies a bunch of workshops. These are important in that they set out a good deal of the new ideology around coaching cricket in England and Wales. (Ideology? Oh YEAH, you better believe it.)

In the last eighteen months or so, following an epic lump of research, sports-scientific wotnots and cross-bi-lateral oojamiflips, the ECB has re-emerged from the swamp. Or should that be… the nets? There’s been a fascinating and genuinely radical shift in the thrust of coaching. Personally – and maybe I should be careful with what I say – I reckon you can feel the hand of the Sports Development Militias in it and you can certainly taste the political correctness of the era; neither of which is necessarily bad. But with generic views may come the occlusion of that which is unique to cricket.

The titles alone, of some of these workshops (and the fact that they are known as workshops, eh?) may tell you much of what you need to know. “Creating the Learning Climate for Children”. “Game-based Learning.” “Skill Development for Children”. Cutting through the inevitable (and inevitably transient) verbiage, there’s a powerful move towards ‘player-centred’ coaching, going way beyond tokenism towards the individual. This is big, ideologically-driven stuff aimed at making coaches work more about the player and less about the recall or display of their own cricket knowledge. I think some of this may have been prompted by KP, whose profile has been such that he could, conceivably, be a catalyst here.

Those last two paragraphs may have had too much cynicism lurking so let me immediately contradict. Or at least re-calibrate the tone. The changes are huge, or will feel that way to coaches brought through previous regimes – regimes which have themselves been rotated or cheese-grated through development over the years. But (genuinely) my experience of Cricket Wales/ECB Coach Education (and therefore my sense of the philosophical intent) has been both encouraging and challenging in a good way. Surprisingly perhaps, things feel quite dynamic back there. People seem to be alive to the need to transform; rapidly.

But back to KP. I’m guessing that opinions in the ECB hierarchy are about as divided when it comes to Pietersen as they are in the general population. In a private space 60% would describe him with a brisk four letter word beginning with ‘c’. 38% would say it doesn’t matter what we think of him or his methods – ‘e dun it on the pitch’. The remainder would splutter into their Pimms. What is interesting to me is that having seen/sat through these workshops, the voice of KP –in fact the noise that KP makes- about ‘not coaching talent out of kids’ booms out. Credit the ECB that he is the first face turned to the camera in a key video on skill development.

Predictably, Pietersen goes straight into his ‘Bell plays classically, I don’t: don’t go coaching kids there’s just the one way’ argument. Understandably. Justifiably. But it’s almost as if in their scramble to appease the twin-headed monster at shortish mid-off (Pietersen/the multi-sports-conversant, child-centred modernist and funder?) the ECB have changed everything. Perhaps, being broadsheet-reading, report-assimilating types they fear being called out for old fartdom? Perhaps they are high on that elixir of the coaching industry age, branding – branding in the sense of renaming, re-infusing with sexy new jargon rather than psychotic (aaaaargh!!) market-driven branding.

This is certainly how the swing away from the previously central notion of (accepting the validity of) certain ‘Technical Models’ feels to many coaches who qualified pre, say, 2012. Many are cynical. I am not, despite how this might sound. I view this stuff as a healthy challenge.

If Pietersen has bullied us into reviewing the very essence of coaching that is remarkable. That has happened. The talk is of ‘Core Principles’ now not ‘feet shoulder-width apart and blah-di-blah high elbow’. Skill is successful execution not necessarily a particular movement pattern. Players finding things and coaches asking questions are central. The essence of ECB coaching is bravely empowering… and that’s good.

Now because I don’t like the man I’m reluctant to give KP too much credit in this but the fact is too many coaches did have a very fixed idea of what skill looks like and they bored generations of twitching, net-bound youngsters with those ungenerous notions. They can’t get away with that now. The newer, younger coach on the block will either call them out or intervene, as I do, when somebody is saying too much/presenting 44 ideas not four to a group of nine year-olds.

So KP as crusader, then? Hardly. The man’s a tad more fixated on his image, his contracts and the most efficient route to the limelight for that. But he has stirred it, made his point and rendered this debate necessary. That’s a singular contribution.

It may be that the new, updated ECB risks alienating traditionalists and fails to address finer, technical points; I’ve heard it said that there are gaps in the essential knowledge, that ‘Core Principles’ are all very well but what, precisely do you as a coach fall back on when a particular skill proves beyond a child? Generic answers aren’t always viable.

I’m hoping the ECB have thought of this. But it may just be that they are choosing to let kids go searching.

 

@bowlingatvinny is proud to work for @cricketwales. These views are his only, right?

One to cherish.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

Little champ. Mate. Gutsy and unorthodox. Great.

We all know who we’re talking about. The young Aussie that Justin Langer wrote so beautifully about – the fella his wife fell in love with. The fella who lived with them and who they wanted in to their own. Hughesy.
Hughesy the bloke that most of us have never even seen play, live and have never met… but now know. And we know he is/was a special bloke – we can tell. The reactions tell us.

I want to try to say something about this because I think there is something wonderful and actually profound borne here, amongst this diabolical hurting and the flailing around for an appropriate, legitimate answer.

For one thing, my hope is there’s some real solace for Phillip Hughes’s own loved ones in the scope and quality of the response to his death. (And here I want you to think a little about what I mean by ‘quality’, please.)

It’s not entirely ludicrous to suggest that this cruel event has brought out an invincibly massive, invincibly good response, as people all over have either opened up their hearts or graciously accepted in and supported or respected the grief of close friends and family.

The epic sadness does not, can not deny the essential positivity in the timbre of the rebound – our rebound. There’s been no sense of schmaltziness; no slapped-on deference or faux commiseration. And here I’m not just thinking of Australian skipper Michael Clarke, who has publicly fought with tears to try to express his obvious and criminal loss of a surrogate younger brother. ‘Do your job’ he said to himself when steeling up to make the necessary statement, visibly heartbroken.

Given that the Australian national cricket team has practically (re-)owned world cricket by setting out to be the most macho group of players in the game this may throw up ironies that in another moment we might describe as ‘choice’; no need for such cynicism now. We could all see that Clarke’s utter determination to man up was completely about doing a good job of marking his own and his team’s depth of affection for their buddy. Pathetic to fail to say ‘we loved you mate’ well. So do your job.

There’s obviously been something magic about this bloke Hughes – and I’m not just talking talent, right? (You get that? You get that too?) I’ve seen the vids, read and listened to the columns and the stories. I believe folks loved him and I like that this is recognised; it helps all of us; it helps with everything. Everything that’s left when Hughesy’s gone.

Okay we have to be careful here because on the one hand it does seem like the surge of genuine feeling around this young man is flooding so invigoratingly and influentially around that we may set up some hierarchy of grief around this. (How would it have been if some other, equally high-profile player had been killed? Or some guy in the park? Dare I think of how the reaction might differ? Just don’t let me go there.)

Phillip, we know, inspired such a powerful and consistent regard – bugger it, let’s call it love – that I joined the communal welling up on more than one occasion. For me, waking up to the #putyourbatsout tribute on twitter, seeing the (Adam) Gilchrist family of bats proudly-tragically displayed was enough to set me off. If that’s weirdly sentimental then so be it. In my kitchen in Pembrokeshire at 6.50am, with just the dog for company, I was hardly playing to the crowd.

It felt sad, hugely sad, and I respected the heartfelt nature and sure the ingenuity of that now viral symbol. Am I the only one both fascinated and cheered by the sensation that because I believe the love for Hughsey is real – and this can only mean that in some abstracted way he ‘deserves it(?) – things are better?

Navel-gazing or not, cricketer or not, it’s difficult to avoid the personal here, eh? However prudent that might seem. But I don’t think it’s either the fact that I have bowled quickly and hit people myself or been hit (just once, significantly, from memory) that draws me in to the sentimental. I didn’t recoil from recognition when viewing that bouncer so much as accept it as part of the narrative. Inevitably the fall and then those awful two days of battling or easing away scoured at the innards of all of us, pre-cursing that ultimate, terrible confirmation. Been said a zillion times in the last 72 hours but we can barely compute a fatality – a death – in sport. It shouldn’t, it doesn’t happen.

Fact is, it did and sure whilst the public nature of this tragedy sets it apart, makes it particular and visible and arguably more poignant than (ahem) the average, run-of-the-mill death, I do see stuff that all of us could meaningfully store.

The fact of the striking down of a young man in front of a crowd (including his family) makes this big, makes it shocking; the sense of robbery – that Phillip Hughes had something magnificent he was yet to express, to share with us – appalls; but the local/communal/worldwide outpouring of love for a young man who was clearly a fabulous bloke… we can and should cherish.

Postscript.

Ok so some bloke from Oz tweets appreciation for my post; I thank him. He tells me he’s going to the funeral in Macksville tomorrow. In typically corny Vinny-fashion I tell him though I’m 12,000 miles away… I’ll kinda be there too.  At which point @Damage_87 (for it was he) tells me he’ll be delighted to sign the Book of Remembrance on my behalf.

In this way a) the world got better

                     b) love triumphed (actually) again

                     c) Phillip Hughes was remembered.

Negative Momentum?

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Today may offer very different challenges but for Wales and England there is a common dread of real, terminal slippage, of that irreversible lurch against them. Consequently, despite the laughably thin logic of coming over all too prematurely determinist pre- the 6 Nations, never mind the gert big event beyond, the psychological becomes, well… key.

But am I the only one fearing that deep down in a hushed, flip-chart-hung room, some immaculate but track-suited member of that omnipresent crew The Backroom Staff will be hovering over the spelling of the phrase ‘negative momentum?’ Me, I can picture that at both Twickers and the Millenium: both camps are clawing back against the invisible – fascinatingly.

Wales have look drained of both fire and inspiration for best part of two years; England less so but for a side with recently genuine hopes of a meaningful World Cup challenge they are looking muddled. The Autumn Internationals have become a scramble to escape with dignity – never mind hope – intact. For both home nations this means at least one win against a former Tri-nations giant and/or an invincibly fizzing display against game islanders. Gone already is the dream of making a powerful statement.

England were so soundly dismissed by both the Springboks and the AB’s that any talk of injuries affecting their preparation seemed as unconvincing as the performances themselves. (And yet they were and are disproportionately affected.) Wales fluffed their own opening lines when disappointing so acutely against the South’s most beatable monsters – the Wallabies – and the further compounding of red misery a week later was closer to inevitable than predictable after a game where the visitors were, despite the closeness of the score, patently simply playing at a higher level.

If we commit (for now) the cardinal sin of ignoring Irish gambols and Scots gameness, it seemed from the outset that this Autumn International Series was no different to the others, in that The Gap ‘tween North and South persists, flourishes even; depressingly.
This all runs counter to theories about small margins so (in quiet desperation?) let’s indulge in some of that speculative/restorative stuff that yaknow, makes our sporting world go round… and entertains us.

There is a degree of unanimity over Lancaster’s on-field problems. Lack of creativity; poor instincts or hesitation in the backs. Whilst accepting all that I proffer a further, admittedly worryingly tangential theory that a more broadly full-strength England pack might have gone past the relative parity with the AB’s and Springboks into a position of strength, from which The Girls might have found some time and space to express… thereby making even the choice of individuals selected in the backs less critical. (Stay with me for one minute.)

So sure, highlight the lack of fluency at halfback and centre but it may be that (for example) a Launchbury-less England was inevitably diminished because that young man has felt central to the exercise of control.

Control implies confidence as well as enabling measured periods of possession – phases – where ideas are played out. So often these ideas – these possibilities – are butchered through haste or nerves or through lack of belief… which again depends on that platform. What you seek as a coach is that the exercise of control frees up – truly frees up! – the individual player to play instinctively and beyond the ordinary. Blokes like Launchbury – playing with composure, with intelligence, in the heat of the smashathon – enable this wonderful transition by spreading their beautiful contagion around the park, around the team.

Pity then that the crunchingly abrasive nature of the modern game seems to deny the possibility for a prolonged partnership at lock or anywhere else. I am unable to point to a sustained period where Launchbury has been a fixture in some well-oiled machine and maybe this undermines me. Maybe this is just another hunch but I like the fellah’s quiet – quiet but telling – influence.

So my Bloke Wot England Missed is Launchbury. Despite accepting both that picking Farrell was a classic mistake – Lancaster preferring the durable to the dancier – and that the centre-pairings have, predictably failed to gel.

(The fabulous irony here may be that great teams win almost irrespective of individual selection(s) because their control and their confidence. Lancaster understands this, aspires to it and thinks of it as ‘culture.’ However in the absence of some admittedly outstanding players, he has not personally or otherwise found the means to raise his side towards this pinnacle. Both New Zealand and South Africa remain above. And currently, England look to be sliding.)

Wales are different. The ether itself is different here, the people’s link to the national side is more umbilical than casual – as in England. There’s something profound and delicious and invigorating about the importance of rugby to the people – as there is in New Zealand. It may be superfluous to reiterate that both nations identify themselves through the sport; that something in its rawness and valour and crazy honourability validates both. I go there (again) because it feels relevant; rugby really is ‘everything’.

Things differ though; in Wales there is no deep pool of talent, meaning yet again they must look to find or draw on something special to defeat the All Blacks. For that unlikely scenario to unfold, surely the Millennium crowd has to be lifted somewhere joyfully stratospheric. Though the nation will arrive suitably primed and ready to respond – firstly through a spine-tingling rendition of ‘Gwlad’ in response to the haka, later through genuinely wonderfully hearty informal anthems – George North or Jonathan Davies may have to set the place alight.

Man for man the All Blacks are better; nobody doubts it. They are arguably the finest team in world sport. Their skipper is simply remarkable, having hauled himself through 99 tests so far as captain – this in a side where competition for places is extraordinary. McCaw will lead his men with icy brilliance, being as effective without the ball as with it – no-one in rugby has understood or enacted work around the breakdown more successfully than he. He is that rarest of things the magnificent thief. The All Black back row unit have, year after year, unpicked then dismembered their opposite numbers to the extent that they epitomise the AB spirit. They will not be beaten.

So what can Gatland do? He will no doubt be counselling for focus; ‘do your jobs’. He will talk an expansive game in front of the press but surely look to offer nothing for nothing to these illustrious opponents. Somehow – somehow! – he must inspire some real belief in his men that they can not only create openings (and tries) but then remain constant against The Machiniest of Machines. He will have worked heavily, of course, on plays that might lever open the AB defence but he will know that their resilience is second to none. He will have concluded that this is a real test.

Wales will be hoping and dreaming that Davies – whom I fear for in terms of his fitness but rate highly – may find some magic. He is one of relatively few conjurors for Wales. Others, like Roberts and North may burst rather than bewilder. I note in passing that Liam Williams is worthy hugely unfortunate to be on the bench; his guts as well as his agility mark him out as a proper Welsh back and a man worthy of occasions such as these.

Sadly, I cannot see a Wales win. To re-discover that peak 6 Nations form and fire seems too unlikely and too big an ask against the world’s best. But what I love about today is that for all the preparation and the awareness of responsibilities/line-speed/discipline, Wales’ greatest hope may really be… in the crowd, in their belief, in their Welshness.

Postscript.

In brief England were strangely non-lethal once more and Wales were in the game for best part of seventy minutes before an unusually fallible New Zealand cuffed them away, late on.  Robshaw tackled and led outstandingly well, without managing to look like a truly outstanding player and Mike Phillips proved unable to fill Rhys Webb’s relatively diminutive boots.  George North had a mare.

Samoa were never going to provide top top opposition but they were expected to bruise English pride and English bodies.  This they managed without ever losing their shape or discipline in the way of old.  Sure they conceded a yellow for a lateish highish hit but this was arguably harsh.  In an underwhelming but safe victory Ford did well, overall and Mike Brown showed more signs of a return to international form.  Lancaster however will have learned very little from a fixture that was neither light relief nor ultimately competitive; there was no sense of anyone grabbing the opportunity or the game by the proverbial scruff.

At The Millenium the crowd did ‘do their bit’ following Webb’s stirring of the cauldron but the AB’s  rose characteristically supremely to usurp any crescendo, finishing the match in that familiar cruise-crush-control mode.  They had been reined back towards the ordinary for much of the encounter by generally superb line-speed and commitment from the Welsh and by a notably brave and level-headed Biggar.

Roberts and Davies did ask questions but line-outs malfunctioned and scrums were mixed.  In essence, despite the AB’s appearing mortal for the first hour, Wales could not quite find the moment to transcend.  They were goodish and they were in it but they never quite punctured the ordinary: players and crowd remained defiantly hopeful without breaking through into full-on, AB-competitive ecstasy.  McCaw and co contained the thing and then found again that relentless intensity that is their own.

The excellent Webb’s retirement to the bench proved pivotal when his replacement Mike Phillips – dropped for lack of dynamism – telegraphed a box-kick and was nailed.   Brave, brave Wales were then dispatched, like all the rest.

What this means , in terms of the World Cup?  Possibly nothing – the 6 Nations lies between, remember.  But both England and Wales have to find their X-factor before they can expect to challenge… each other in that group. They seem unlikely, right now, to be challenging for the trophy.

The distance yet to travel…

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I’m not sure yet whether I’m fascinated or merely cynical about the upbeat responses from the England and Wales camps following today’s fairly routine snuffing out of their previously foamy optimism. Wales I thought were palpably (but okaaay marginally) second best to an Australian side whose backs transferred their theoretical superiority into fact and England – allegedly building, allegedly threatening – were dismissed by the All Blacks machine.

Warburton, pitchside post the game, found himself somewhere between outright apology and defiance

we work our absolute nuts off… it’s getting so very close

but something in his manner was necessarily capitulating to that unhelpful series of facts – of defeats – against the Wallabies, who remain, as he well knows, the most beatable of the Southern Giants. Sam is a classy player and a classy bloke; half of Wales though, is wondering if his niceness is part of the problem.

Stuart Lancaster was likewise politely un-bullish. He spoke well as always and for the most part desisted from the path which surely must have tempted – the list of unfortunate absences. That Courtenay Lawes joined this list fairly early might have further supported any mithering about fate being either cruel, or a cruel Kiwi. Afterwards, the erudite Yorkshireman spoke of his

confidence in the direction we are moving in

but he will surely be a tad disappointed in the event of a further stutter when he had hoped, a month or two back, for an energising charge.

For fear I wander alarmingly close to my specialist subject – psycho-cobblers – let me add that Steve Hansen, when asked if the win for his All Blacks might represent an important ‘psychological advantage’ going into next year’s Rugby World Cup, spat out the following

…(it’s a) load of baloney.

He’s right, (probably) but to castrate the occasion of all of its ‘significance’ is simply to spoil the fun, right? So onward.

From the hearth of the pub for the Millenium game, I first and foremost enjoyed that uniquely welsh baloney-fest, especially during a first half that conga-ed passed us like some junior festival on Dolly Mixtures. (Yes. Those kinds of Dolly Mixtures). After a flurry of ‘great tries’ or ‘appalling bloody great gaps, mun!’ a whole lot of genial banter plus some outstanding and informed appreciation pinged round the room, washed down with early bevvies and some elite-level abuse for the referee. If Wales were ‘too slow’, ‘too unimaginative’ and ‘lacked passion’, Craig Joubert – the Man Who Will be Central – was described erm, more colourfully. It was good sport.

If you don’t happen to have access to either a pub or (ideally) Wales then let me tell you really do learn stuff from all this yaknow – researching. It became immediately clear from within the hostelry’s Brotherhood of Redness – all ages and genders, with most kitted out with either a Wales jersey or a face the colour of a Wales jersey – that the relative quiet of the actual stadium (15,000 seats unsold?) was significant. It reflects the broad understanding in Wales that the national side are a step behind, currently, as well as being a simple marker of the cruel nature of the price of a ticket.

Wales knows where Wales RFC stand; the difficulty and arguably the irony is that the country (or rather the rugby team of the country) might surely stand prouder and taller and higher in those informal rankings should a full-on maximum houseful turn up in Cardiff.

Much is written about the Millenium Stadium, most of it complimentary to the point of delirious. It’s good, no question but only special when switched to Dragon’s Cauldron mode, when bursting with fans and with song. It may be unscientific but it strikes me that a performance from Wales is particularly responsive to, or reliant upon the quality of the crowd. This may be to do with the genuinely central role rugby plays here.

But the baloneymeter just twitched, violently. Cuthbert dropped a simple catch in the first seconds/Wales were beaten by a better team/Australia toss it around tidy, like/Wales were 100% on their own line-out. These are some of the ‘facts’. Did they help? Anyone?

England came into this series after a genuine period of gathering. By that I mean they really are getting closer to the former Tri-Nations masters-of-the-universe. The man Lancaster has established that essential or ball-breakingly dull phenomena a ‘culture’. There is a shared purpose, there is focus and there is talent at his disposal. The potential is there for England to challenge – everybody.

Prior to kick-off I defy anyone to convincingly carry the general truths of the last ten years (that New Zealand would be simply be far too good to get beat) into today; the difference between is now minimal. This is Lancaster’s triumph – not that he would be triumphal about it – because even momentum is baloney when compared to silverware (next year). Just tough then, that England were secretly hurting over the loss of Launchbury, Tuilagi etc etc and that they cursed and grieved the denuding of their strength in depth. No matter now that well, soonish their bench may be fleshed out more powerfully than the AB’S. Today that prospect means nothing.

Why? Because the All Blacks won. Despite England getting ahead; despite a try for a flashing England winger in the first few minutes; despite a semi-drowned out haka. England looked competitive, truly, for what? Forty minutes? Then the men from the south cranked up and on and past. Again.

It’s the job of Lancaster, Farrell, Gatland and Howley to make sense of this stuff. They do know where they stand and the distance yet to be travelled. They have to make choices and pray folks stay fit: it ain’t easy.

One micro-e.g. After today’s confrontations Gatland has to find a pivot from a pool of two. Hook he doesn’t fancy and Priestland the nation at large doesn’t fancy. This is not only a dilemma in the practical sense but it palpitates with meaning in the land of the fly-half factory. Expect some particularly impassioned debate around that baby – some daft bugger might use the world ‘soul’.
Wonder what our mate Mr Hansen would make of all that?

DT – the final word.

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Nearly fed up of the various Dylanothons or other Laugharniferous verbo-frenzies? Then look away now. I’m going in there for one last gloopy submergence; right in to the heron-stalked sticklebacked, reedy pockmarked estuarine slap of it. Fondling the cockles and snorting in the brilliant, briny green bay-ness. Because there’s something life-affirming in there, something wonderfully open. Isn’t there?

With Dylan, you either get it or don’t. Okaaay, we can say that of everything but what I mean is Thomas is seemingly destined or well-equipped to polarise. There are legitimate calls either way – he can be a pompous, adoration-seeking preacher or a deliciously boozy revolutionary – your call. You could hate him for that ridiculous voice, booming and faux (post elocution lessons) and for his dumb wading (or wallowing?) in the highbrow and the posh. Or you could melt, melt into the stream, the malt, the whisky that is Thomas at his finest.

I do know proper Welsh folks who simply cannot get past that voice, mind; I struggle myself. Because it reeks of a kind of appallingly grasping aspiration towards god-fearing elevation and therefore, well… private schools and hops and horses and England. How can anyone who sounds like that – like he’s auditioning for the RADA/BBC of the forties – be anything other than a complete nob? How, mun? Even if Thomas was effectively auditioning, more or less desperately, for the holy grail of paid work at the Beeb or elsewhere for much of his short career, Dai the Bomb of Solva won’t buy the sub-Etonian in-tone-ay-shunns. You need then, to be seduced past the bombast.

But what, pray, if you are (for example) a feisty gel minded to strike out at the poet’s diabolical treatment of ‘the women in his life’? Or immediately suspicious of anyone who needs a bevvy or eighteen to flush out the creative urge? Or anti-welsh? Or magnificently bright but favour the lean, the skeletally insightful, the tight-arsed prose of contemporary favour? Let’s face it, there are lots of ways to skin the Thomas cat.

Then there’s his status, which in the minds of some may convey instant naffness – ‘cos people love him. Ordinary peeps – yes, those trackie-wearing plebs, those lottery ticket-buying donkeys – some of them too, love Thomas because of those words; not from study but from the whiff or memory of Dylan and of something shared in the air.

Naturally (and maybe I do mean this as a sociological observation) the Welsh intuit or ‘get’ or tap in to something that hums between the landscape and the bloke here. Visitors to the province or the works may of course enter the kingdom of Llarregub or the teenier but no less compelling worlds of Fern Hill or A Child’s Christmas on production of a sherry-stained visa or perhaps just a big daft, responsive heart. Once in, all do feel welcome, I think.

There’s a fascinating link between this now iconic Welshman with his ‘ailing lung’ and the national sport of immersing in song. Is it that Thomas captures something pleasingly characteristic which has a particular rhythm? Certainly – but difficult to specify whether that rhythm is just felt or (even) trace how it springs from the page. The sensation is maybe received musically, as though in an alcohol-stimulated ‘glow’ – which again appeals to most of us as a notion as well as an experience. This should not however deflect us from acknowledging the imaginative power and prodigious intellect at work.

But let’s be honest, it’s more or less accessible poetry – sing-song – that wins us over. Does that make it merely… saccharoidal? No. The greatest triumph and therefore best example – Under Milk Wood – is way too rich for that. Popular sure but also funny, sexy and profoundly beautiful. I’ve been this way before but please do sit and draw in the magnificent windows-opening-simultaneously ‘bible black’ of the Michael Sheen opening to the 2014 Beeb Wales version. (Link in a previous blog – may no longer be available there!) It’s spellbindingly wonderful. Find it and stay with the entire production if you can. Here is all the proof you need, brilliantly understood, superbly executed.

This recent Under Milk Wood is excitingly contemporary as well as true to the work. It brings the words to life far better than Thomas himself could through his own readings. The Sheen masterclass is merely the precursor to a sustained execution of the poetry of this remarkable play. For me it’s then obvious – emphatic. Dylan Thomas may have been an incorrigible scrounger or duplicitous or worse but his legacy stands triumphant and triumphantly against cynicism. If you want to make the argument that this stuff is centred upon hypocrisy then crack on; for me what is left… is not for cynics. It’s for humanity and joy and I believe in it.

Tuning right in let me say I know Laugharne well and can tell you that both the place itself and the writer himself make sense almost explosively, in some fabulous deep fashion, if you park yourself on a bench beneath (say) the castle walls. The estuary village is both quietly delightful and throbbing with daft stories but it needed to be written to be.

Nowhere have I been that gave the epiphanic thwack that standing by the Writing Shed in Laugharne offers. Under Milk Wood – and plenty else – becomes viable, thinkable, familiar and goes scorching to the very heights of word-as-document, as expression of the gorgeous. Both the sound of it and the glorious human warmth of Milk Wood embed it in the hearts of millions the world over. It’s unique in a way that’s at once a lot of fun and stylistically beyond (as we say in Wales.) Meaning it’s both entertaining and bona fide as a work of art.

This is my 200th post and I wanted to write about something important- to me. I love the madness and the boldness in Thomas. I love that being a palpably inadequate bloke, he blazed a trail, he made something mighty and essentially generous. Turn to Under Milk Wood and find his vindication, his moment. Here most obviously he surely floods out beyond local stereotype into things universal; foibles, the workaday truths, the daily poisons, love.

Thinking whilst writing of Thomas, I have been reminded of Joan Miro’s determination to ‘pursue the golden sparks in his soul’ – something I wrote about some moons ago. I said of the Catalan genius

He knew his purpose was to make a poetic response to experience. And he did it for decades. Call me an old tart, but I find that inspiring.

Thomas lacked longevity – that ailing lung failed him. But he had that drive towards the wondrous and I salute him too.

The Campaign for Gentlemanly Conduct. Sound familiar?

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And so it goes on, dispiritingly. The interminable flopping and falling and ‘drawing’ of precious contact. The denial of the *actual* aim of the sport – which is to stick the ball in the net – through the cynical, life-blood-sucking phoney faint; because percentage-wise, penno’s pay.

Plus, (part XIV to-the-power-of-b-over-z-squared; The Case Against) there’s all this holding in the box. Not just a sly gathering of a corner of nylon but an absolute wrestle, as though there are no cameras, no ref and no reason moral or otherwise why you can’t try to bully the striker to a standstill or hoik him away from the arc of the ball; bizarre as well as appalling.

As if it wasn’t enough to poison the allegedly beautiful game on the park, reaction to this stuff brings out the worst in us all. (By the way, the thought does strike that we’ve gotten away lightly so far in terms of violence erupting either in the stands, between players or even against the referee but surely the time will come when a particularly enraging example of diving or holding will dangerously or tragically combust a cup-tie/relegation decider? Meaning we really do need to start dealing with this. By the way.)

There’s an unholy and delusional matrix around this that points us towards low expectation or worse; I find myself counting down the paragraphs before the dreary conclusion that ‘we get what we deserve’. I say this because following any incident fans as well as managers tend to divide so crudely, illogically and indeed pathetically on party or club lines. It’s embarrassing in a bad (unreasonable) way and it’s anti-sport.

In the case of Shawcross yesterday – that same Shawcross who molested his opponent relentlessly, pre the penalty, presumably not just to prevent him from attacking the ball but also in the hope (the hope!) that he may eventually strike out and be banished from the field – the incident was clearly and correctly dealt with by the officials. And yet on phone-ins and elsewhere the Stoke Faithful were bawling their grievances against that decision. We know that Mark Hughes (great footballer, depressingly flawed human) traditionally sets the bar shockingly low post-incident, but Sparky led the way on this, excelling himself whilst shamelessly ‘protecting his player’.
Hughes effectively said both Shawcross and more ludicrously Moses had been sinless. Whilst we can all appreciate the urge to support your tribe this went right past scandalous economy with the truth. For Hughes to try to make an intelligent argument against the unanswerable realities that Shawcross tugged and held absurdly long and that Moses shamelessly dived was, as an Australian cricket captain might have said, distinctly average.

If we choose to look for them there are always pro and contra-complexities. Moses was touched by the hand of the defender; Shawcross was by no means alone in his transgression across the boundaries of hugging. Therefore Hughes could formulate his apology, his simulation of a theory. But more broadly and more subtly, is the art of defending not about big clunky guys baulking shifty and spry opponents and should the spirit of things then not enable a kind of levelling of the playing field? How else could Shawcross (say) compete against Di Maria (say?)

This is of course cobblers. For any single offence, a single judgement is being made, not a philosophically inviolable summing up of the nature of things football. Do something outside the laws – get punished. Complexity comes (and ideally goes) through the official’s instinctive reading of the motivation of players at the moment in question and cross-reference of the rules. Referee: was that defender in making minor contact doing everything to avoid contact? So choose. Was that attacker only ever interested in drawing a penalty? So blow and reach for the yellow. These are a couple of the areas of difficulty, questions which launch a zillion unseemly appeals each weekend.

The fact that time and again the same few offences stir the nation to a Neanderthal fury should be a clue to something but if the cause is generally evident the path to resolution is fraught. In fact there is no path. Refs good and bad are left floundering under abuse.

Why? Essentially because honesty has gone walkabout. These players, these coaches are sporting superstars we cannot trust. They will neither accept the truth nor respect the authority charged with judging what is true. Set aside for the moment the fact that mistakes are bound to be made by those who make the calls; players and managers have made the game ungovernable and they should be deeply, deeply ashamed of the fact. They forget that they are role models; they forget that they are amongst the most fortunate; they forget that the real glory of sport centres upon competitiveness with honour. Or does it?

Does cheating matter? Does backing your side at all costs, even if reality and Alan Shearer contradict you matter? Or is it merely the inevitable result of awesomely high profiles and awesome TV revenues… and anyways, the next game’s here, so get real and get over it, right?

Are these merely the contemporary facts? That the game is simply framed differently, so that the respect of your opponent is an utter irrelevance to the current player? Is that right, is that how it is – or just some weird code nudging us towards giving up on sportsmanship?

I know how much of this sounds, how uncool and unsustainable it seems to invoke traditional virtues but still I consider myself more of a contemporary geezer than some dreamer of halcyon dreams. As such I call for modern solutions as well as a common return to a sense of what’s fair and right. Fat chance of the latter but no excuses now for not establishing immediate assistance to the referee from video review; retrospective guidance and where necessary punishment for acts of cheating under a beefed-up Ungentlemanly Conduct law, overseen by a small, expert panel.*

However viscerally any of us feel the drift to amorality it’s no good merely mithering on that. That language may no longer be intelligible so let’s characterise the state we’re in as a challenge. One where the chief protagonists are chiefly bent, either on some short-cut to victory, or just bent. No option then but to dictate; impose short sharp shocking doodahs – meaning bans for weeks rather than meaningless fines – and hope that in their inaction they might stop to think.

*Those who haven’t read me on this before may not be aware I’ve been promoting this notion that an expanded Ungentlemanly Conduct law could be used to penalise divers/cheats/fellahs who just did something that ain’t good for the game. I think it could work.

Estonia.

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So a swift verdict.

(Mid-evening last night, I’m thinking) this is not a night to have a right old go at Hodgson, Rooney or anyone else. Things – black and white things like tables and like plans – are ‘on track’. Mind you, I hope Roy did have a go at his players after a performance we’d all surely plonk confidently in the medium lame category.

One-nil against a poor team playing with a man short for half an hour or so? Hardly inspiring but that’s how it was. Save a thought for Roy’s White Army trudging back to trains planes and automobiles, or hopefully friendly bars, feeling they needed a bloody sharp glass of Estonian hooch to reboot slightly dulled and yes, disappointed minds. You’d need some top quality banter or booze or camaraderie – remember that? – to haul back this particular adventure from the brink of the flattish.

But look results just don’t always tell the story, right? A reasonable judgement – remember that! – might be that England weren’t actually poor (being too generally comfortable on the ball now) but the result is. Relatively. They ‘failed to execute’, there was a general lack of a gear-change about the performance – in part I would argue due to selection – but also because Wellbeck in particular rarely sprinted to any purpose. England were kinda sluggish yet largely competent… except when within thirty yards of the Estonian net.

One or two things do concern me, however; let’s start with Lallana.

The word itself smacks of slightly exotic fluency and this is what us purists hope the Liverpool man may deliver, smoothing the pathway forward from that old angular, muscle-bound past into a slick, balletic future.

But because he’s never going to dominate proceedings (‘cos of that cool, minimal-contact, slinky-intelligence thing he’s got goin’ on) Lallana must influence by either linking to effect, or providing assists. And he needs to do that especially against poor teams who need opening up. Failed tonight. He has to take his opportunities because he is more droppable than somebody less gifted (Henderson/Delph?) because of this non-combative essence. In tonight’s game Lallana wasn’t the chief disappointment but he may need to start scoring or threading dream passes pretty urgently.

Wellbeck had a poor game, I thought. In the context of that opposition, think about it. It felt another example of how players just fail to sense when their moment is come. If the universe hasn’t spoken loudly enough to Danny, let me, on all of our behalves, re-iterate. NOW IS THE TIME for you to chase down your destiny – or at least chase round the park. Chase! Sprint and pressure without the ball and sprint and offer and give and spin and strike with all your might when you have it. Go right past urgent into ABSO-LUTELY ON FIRE; because when you’re at full throttle (by that I mean really racing down the inside/outside channels or attacking the ball in the box) you’re actually fairly tasty. Go do that.

Wellbeck surely must have been told to turn and get them legs a-pumpin’? Drive at people rather than simply jog through the game, back to goal. Estonia would surely be somewhere between static and clueless? Like Rooney though, his touch was often too sloppy to achieve the ‘I could play fer Barca, no probs’ level he no doubt (we no doubt) dream(s) of. Consequently instead of scaring the life out of very ordinary defenders, he pootled, he under-achieved – significantly.

Let me stick with this for one more moment. To say that yes I know I’m on the one hand suggesting Ingerland play more like Germany (say) and on the other I’m bawling at the centre-forward to leg it round the place. Well yes… and no…

A) Wellbeck is a particular case because he can hurt the opposition with his sprinting power and he under-uses that strength. B) We are of course aiming to be both comfortable and composed in possession AND rip-roaringly dynamic around their box. C) I do slightly fear that even our leading players are so busy projecting a Messi/Iniesta/Muller into their own footballing presence that they almost forget to be themselves and play. D) We aren’t good enough to merely cruise and ‘be patient’. In no way do I single out Wellbeck for some spurious blame here; it’s just his lack of awareness re this urgency that seemed comment-worthy.

Rooney was allegedly ‘involved in everything’ and yet for much of the time he was dispiritingly awful. In cruise mode, like Wellbeck, only marginally sloppier. Clunky touches and ill-judged passes; ordinary finishing. Even his goal was from such a conservatively struck free-kick that a genuine international keeper might have kept it out. (I thought Rooney’s muted celebration suggested that – as though in mild surprise and embarrassment that a strike so gently and obviously coaxed towards that post should beat the goalie’s belatedly grasping palms). Quite rightly, moments before, Hodgson had his skipper lined up for the hoik: following the goal, he stayed.

Elsewhere England did their jobs/saw out the game. Wilshere was perhaps most notable; he flashed in a few choice passes and he did try to vary things. Importantly, he wanted the ball. The feeling remains, however, that his singular lack of pace and a certain lack of immediacy must be compensated for elsewhere. England had the game sewn up from start to finish but (no-brainer) one goal is never enough. There was an absence of threat – even against ten – and this needs looking at. Was the blend wrong or did players simply not perform?

Brief word on today’s Sterling story – that he pulled out ‘tired’.  If the manager has put this into the public arena in order to keep the squeeze on his players – i.e. demand complete commitment to the cause – then fair enough.  I’m no loony patriot but important to keep egos and apathy in check.  Also fair enough to drop him to the bench.  Plainly Sterling’s form is way down on last year and tiredness – mental, particularly? – is likely a factor.  No need to be punishing anyone here… but a marker laid down, in my view and a warning that urgency and passion should be non-negotiables.

Finally I offer some ratings… because other folks are… and it gives us all something to argue about.

Hart – 6. Another night where judgements are ludicrous; had nothing meaningful to do. His distribution was slightly mixed but this may be partly down to a lack of dynamic movement in front of him.

Chambers – 6. Offered himself and did okay but no better. Untested due to lack of a threat from the opposition but if I was pushed I would say not ready for major internationals yet.

Cahill – 7. Almost uniformly composed and rightly happy to mix it (within reason) when his oppo’ barged and banged. Limited distribution and under-achieves in terms of goals scored from dead-ball situations but if he stops their attackers attacking fair enough. He cruised through this… in a good way.

Jagielka – 6. Almost completely surplus, in a sense, such was the lack of penetration from Estonia. Honest, relatively aware,solid enough. In his comfort zone but who wouldn’t be, playing against no-one.

Baines – 6. Again another night when you expect him to have a whole lot of fun raiding down the left… passes by. A waste but impossible to know how much of this is down to the player’s ongoing slump and how much to calls from the bench to be ‘responsible’.

Wilshere – 7. Possibly England’s best player. Liked the variety/want more care and yes, more urgency. He’s good enough to treasure the ball and hurt teams with it.

Delph – 5. Disappointing. Can hardly remember a telling contribution. Subbed.

Henderson – 6. Decent night but no better than that. Couldn’t find a killer pass/didn’t always strike the easy ones well.

Lallana – 6. Can’t afford many performances where critics or fans can use words like ‘wafted’ or ‘barely affected’. He must know things conspire against anybody (from Hoddle forwards) who can be dropped into the ‘luxury player’ category.

Rooney – 6. Busy-ish but unconvincing; sluggish. Missed guilt-edged chances/was wasteful too often with possession. Hope Hodgson is telling him his place is not guaranteed. Even if it is.

Wellbeck – 6. Snuffed out his own after-burners.