Sport

The Campaign for Gentlemanly Conduct; part one.

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The 2012 Olympics was a significant success for New Blighty in virtually every way you can think of, including and importantly because it did express some progress towards an appreciation of and national ease with our much discussed multi-culturalism. It’s surely a tad more difficult now to be casually or serially racist? Now that we’ve all seen how wonderfully part of us Mo Farrah/Jess Ennis are, how much we mean to them, even. Only the most outstandingly moronic and impervious xenophobe could bark out white supremacist garbage (or similar) in the glorious wake of such a unifying Olympics, yes?

That may be too optimistic a view. But for me a key memory, a genuinely warming one amongst the admittedly intoxicatingly gathering festival concerned how we look… and how we sound, us Brits. Tied into those abstract notions of place and belonging – notions frequently co-opted or compromised by sometimes legitimate political or cultural discourse – this goodly thing that shone back at us (proper people?) did appear to be about us; our team.

We were a hugely attractive bunch; black or mixed race or whatever. And when our athletes emerged into individual focus from their brilliant blur of TeamGBness, for their post-blow sofa-spots or trackside verbals, they were, despite their ‘diversity’ uniformly charming and generous; they were great company.

Dangerously for those of us attempting to report without lapsing pretty immediately into anglo-corn, our athletes brought back to us virtues feared lost in the age of footballer-generated smog. They really were delightful, articulate and entirely believable as decent specimens of humanity. They were compellingly appropriate if not ideal representatives for us. We therefore revelled in the sense of a shared adventure – inevitably more or less vicariously – but with a persistently humming and occasionally electrifyingly uplifting connection. Because beyond the silverware, the medals, there was a profound general awareness of extraordinary people – them – giving of their best in the knowledge of, or even motivated by, other people – us!

…Here comes that dangerous crop of hagiopoop…

Consequently us Brits were gawping and smiling at heroic effort and deserved success by athletes we were proud to think of as Our Lot – not just because of their winning but because of their winning humility, humour and palpable honesty. Time after time – you pick your own! – we were presented with beaming members of TeamGB who captivated us with their wit and their roundedness during interview. They talked with real warmth and appreciation and understanding and insight and generosity about their event… and often our place in their success. And we loved them for all that.

Okay. So deep breath and yes, remember not God Save but those other lyrics, of Declan MacManus –

No more fast buck / when they gonna learn their lesson

When we gonna stop all of these victory processions?

Maybe the world hasn’t actually been changed. A fine Olympics hasn’t, sadly, undermined the monolithic badness of Growth-worship or manifest greed. (In fact, looking at the sponsors… let’s not go there.) But maybe something in our sporting world got better? And maybe we can nudge or bundle shy or retiring loveliness a bit closer to the front of class?

Already a certain momentum against widely perceived arrogance and ludicrous over-remuneration of modest and frankly often undeserving talents in the football world has arisen. Not that many needed the Olympics to flag up the rolexization of our national game – there being even amongst the tribal and myopic some acknowledgement that players don’t give much for what they get.

So let’s just compare what we heard from Farrah and Ennis, the rowers, the cyclists (again, you name the ones who affected or inspired you the most) with what you might get from Frank Lampard/Rio Ferdinand/Kenny Dalglish. (And I reckon I’ve plumped for 3 gentlemen fairly representative of their milieu – even if one is retired.) And let’s maybe consider some vaguely equivalent post-match scenario.

There would be little chance of unaffected joy from the football side. There would be a patina of rehearsed dullness, in fact. Possibly due to some significant underachievement by a manifestly poor or disappointingly stilted England side but arising too from a widespread Premiership Quality cynicism wherein no real truths must be told and some imaginary defensive line must be held against public knowledge.

Whilst Lampard has the capacity to come across as a decent bloke, he is traditionally unwilling to break through into generous good humour; Ferdinand and Dalglish are less giving than this. Often one or both are deliberately obtuse or somewhere between absent, insultingly bland and openly hostile. There is a chronic disconnect, in short, between these legends of the game and the notion that fans might really want to know what they think of x or y. And critically, there is very rarely any suggestion that they love what they do. Or we don’t feel that.  They don’t share much.

On good days, when I feel the footie-pulse coursing through my own veins, I colour in Frank or Rio’s blandness with memories. Often though, I am spurred to join in with those ‘having a dig.’  I have to confess to having unreasonably enjoyed the diabolical freedoms being an insignificant blogger allows – I know and respect the fact that the likes of @ianherbs @_PaulHayward reign themselves in for national publication – but I can sling verbals around a bit, sound off a bit more – like you. So I can further indulge the dubious belief that our young Premiership heroes are ripe for personal as well as professional evaluation, as they are in the court of popular opinion.

When weighed up for their fitness for purpose as rounded humans, or appreciated in terms of their sensitivities, their understanding of value and yes, place, The Footballers seem embarrassingly feeble. Some might say shockingly or offensively so.

On times I am offended by their dumb scurrying through life, their brazenness. How could they allow a sport so beautiful to be so disfigured with simulation, with contempt for authority, with arrogance of such an epic quality? (For surely they are complicit in all this, if not administratively ‘responsible?’)

There is no comparison, I’m afraid, with what those cyclists give and what most bigshot footballers give. In that loose but majestically fine, tippy-tappily omniscient organ us fans call our hearts, we know something ain’t right. These people – some of these people – simply aren’t good enough. And, therefore, my friends, the Campaign for Gentlemanly Conduct will go on.

Idowu

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On Radio Five Live there has been (maybe there still is?) an energetic, occasionally impassioned debate over Phillips Idowu. Some of it undoubtedly about his performance – his failure to qualify – in the Olympic triple jump earlier. Darren Campbell, the former sprinter turned pundit gave a spirited, sometimes spiky defence of the athlete, at one stage removing himself from the debate so as to avoid the temptation to vocalise too crudely his fury. Punchy and counter-punchy? People get like that about Phillips, it seems.

There is context and there is baggage and there is opinion here. And there is unmistakably the spectre of race. For Idowu is a black Londoner with attitude; and yes, I do appreciate that may be a remark I need to explain, or engulf with my usual distractingly sparkling psycho-cobblers.

Idowu has competed with distinction for the best part of a decade in an event which tops the dodgy knees and ankles league; the triple jump.  Where stresses on joints and limbs are unfeasibly massive due to the pace and compression at work through the 3 phases.  As well as bringing real competitive energy to the event, Idowu has brought an extra dimension –  interest.

Those particular ‘characters’ elevated through their sporting prowess to the grandest of stages find there a particular kind of expectation. (Do we not shout loudest at them or for them?) Some court that – a certain Jamaican sprinter bolts to mind – whilst some bungee-jump between an apparent need to be in, then out, of the limelight. It smacks of moodiness and sometimes of genius; and sometimes, for us the audience, it just doesn’t quite come off.

Throughout his career Phillips Idowu has displayed both a penchant for a peacock strut and a significant persecution complex. Like many people who succeed, that stuff helps to drive him, you suspect. It may not, however, endear him or them to lesser mortals on the sidelines and in Idowu’s case his profile may just be more significant than his fan base. I’m thinking in particular – though not exclusively – that Phillips epitomises much of what the Daily Mail readership fears and (actually, I’m afraid) loathes. Him being in their view a discomfiting, belligerent black presence. (Incidentally, their view stinks.)

It should be unremarkable but…he has been known to apply (why wouldn’t he, as a young bloke?) punkily provocative flashes of colour to his Sarf Landun barnet, thus further denuding his place in the hearts of the anglo-saxon, slacks-wearing classes.

In addition, either he or some pallid, six-bellied tattoo-artist has jabbed shiny metal stuff through his face in a way that some find attractive, some repellent. He maybe does also have something of the loner about him… plus that ubiquitous alpha male swagger favoured by young guys making a point about something… by how they walk. And it may or may not be relevant to this single Olympian episode but he evidently hates the GB Athletics Team Manager and this unwise emotion seems reciprocated. Oh… and he has been one of the very best triple jumpers in the world for several years.

So why the negativity?  What did he do, exactly?

If there is such a thing as a generality here – and on reflection, perhaps there are too many loaded ones, too many dangerous ones? – it seems generally true that folks have responded to Idowu’s failure with vitriol rather than calm. A bundle of tweeters or listeners to R5Live seeming weirdly pleased or even gratified that the athlete underperformed – for whatever reason. Campbell was perhaps a fair counterweight to this hostility but throughout all sides were flailing rather than balletically Jonathon-Edwardsing through a series of renegade body-movements masquerading as arguments. Perhaps the barely reined-in splatter-gun that was Campbell’s anger spoke most articulately of all. (About all of us?)

But let’s get back to the sport. An undercharged rather than visibly injured or athletically compromised Idowu failed by some distance to reach the 17.10m qualifying distance; something he went on to say he might normally “do off 8 paces.” He himself seemed on the bemused side of disappointed rather than extravagantly gobsmacked. That may have been shock but I fancy not. He hinted at the need for an operation but was clear on his lack of current or immediate pain. Meaning that his Olympic experience, or the explanation of it, was pretty much as contradictory, as flawed, as our perception of him as sub-gangsta in the hood. The thought strikes that perhaps Phillips Idowu’s relationships – with people, with instruction or necessary order, with life, with us – are often this way.

I’m very much with @barneyronay in thinking this is a shame. A shame for such a bright, individual talent to get so cruelly, disinterestedly squished. He feels sadly reduced somehow, by the fact and the manner of such a non-qualification. Previously major meets have often been hugely enriched by Idowu’s broiling presence as well as his top-draw athleticism. He has always been watchable in the way other athletes may not have been. Look – how many other world class triple-jumpers from the current generation can you name?  See.  There is some kindofa case there to be rested.

Remember this set-back is not the beginning for Phillips Idowu; surprisingly, he is much closer to elder statesman than sparky junior, despite appearances (or disappearances.) Indeed it seems that much of what has ‘gone on’ – the team communications black hole, the verbals, the antagonism – suggest immaturity on his part rather than physical or emotional confidence. So does that aura of his lack real authority? Is this another alpha male down on power? Is any of that relevant? To this performance?  And why have so many seemed so belligerent in responding to his Fall?

There may be a simple reminder here (amongst the more uncomfortable stuff around race?) that brilliance and foolishness so often do cohabit in the souls of the gifted. The percentages, the parts played out in this triple-fascinating case by psychology and by physiology we – or I – can only imagine.  Imagine and then maybe post/pontificate/tweet about; revealingly.

Meanwhile (the record shows) Phillips did fail.

Golden yellow?

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On the best day of the year – whatever that means – it feels, in that sun-induced schmaltzy-lazy kindofaway, good. Everything does, prettymuch. I just know the sea is fabulous and sparkling; I know the sand is warming and occasionally spiky with heat. I can feel a gentle enough but breathy buzz from visitors and from horses and from yeh – summerstuff. So it’s good. Like the knowledge, the specific knowledge that soon enough I will be jumping off a ledge, with a gang of kids, like some kamikaze or maybe just pleasingly renegade fulmar. Bombing not gracefully gliding or wheeling. Because the sea is fabulous and it’s just crazy not to get deeply in. Now.

Bizarrely or entirely not, this deliriously loopy immersion in a real/ideal goodlife feels spooned or churned from the same golden palette as that which delivered a Parisian ‘Promenade des Anglais’ last week. In particular the moments when a certain B Wiggins majestically (but generously) led the peloton back to foolishly impudent strays. Then, in his leader’s yellow jersey, with his absurdly fluent style, not so much dictating as displaying, the Team SKY leader surfed that quiet ecstasy – his utter confidence – in himself, his team, their invincible combination, to the front, to lead out, symbolically and in fact, the undeniable charge. Whilst the relentlessly awesome Cavendish may have hoiked his frame with short-term, violent brilliance, Wiggo oozed serenely to victory.

That bloke Hoy said afterwards it may be the greatest individual sporting achievement by any Brit ever. (Wiggo’s.) Meaning probably it’s worthy of some serious consideration.

An immediate difficulty may be the shared nature of this; how to – or whether to – meaningfully unfurl say, the mountain stages without some inevitable division of the ultimate glory, out from the yellow-gold centre to the domestiques, the drones, the Froome! Or elsewhere ( maybe even in them thar hills!) to Cavendish, himself a freakishly achieving sprinter in this Anglaisfest… and what’s more – a star, a Cycling Personality! How to calibrate What Bradley Did in these extraordinary folds?

The scope and stature of the Tour de France reveals itself to even the casual observer. The scenery; the geography; the half-heard or remembered stories. Cruel distances and just a sense, a TV-muffled or maladjusted sense of the alarming, near death-defying descents; at sixty miles an hour. We all get that I think. Perhaps if we weigh in the breadth of physical demands – from downhill sprinter-racer to uphill marathon man via or plus lung-bursting time-triallist – these are rare, these are special. Wiggins has simply been world-class throughout; all of these ludicrously disparate challenges being met with a uniform, even-tempered authority.

The scale and the breadth and the historic nature of the accomplishment are surely general knowledge then. Unfortunately however they are undermined in the minds of many by concerns about doping. Not necessarily doping by Wiggins or by SKY but by doping in the sport.

Cycling is not alone in being a manifestly ‘unclean’ sport but its profile is more seriously buffeted rather than buffed by disproportionate news stories – cases of drug use, typically – than almost any other sport. From the early days (when amphetamines were blatantly used) to today’s combination of performance enhancement and masking combo’s a steady trickle of often disappointingly major players have taken stimulants. To the extent that some feel cyclists – like sprinters? – are not to be trusted in this. Wiggins himself had to – or opted to? – put out a staunch and aggressive denial of any abuse of this sort early in this tour. I hope to god he was being truthful. Otherwise my colourific bliss washes dismally out.

But today the sun has shined. And I did and I do return to those golden moments; two in particular. Stages 18 and 20 were drawing to their final few kilometres. Team SKY had gathered at the arrowhead of the peloton to raise speed and haul in foolish outliers. With crowds now massing around the streets towards the finish (one of these streets incidentally name of Champs Elysees) a striking figure appeared, his cadence high and smooth, at the very point of the broiling. Wiggins. And the crowd… the crowd roared.

Wiggins the tour leader/winner, fearlessly blasting his team and his sprinter towards two late wins. Exposing himself on the one hand, expressing himself on the other. Following a plan agreed on the team bus? Yes. Having said he was ‘in’ when Cavendish asked for a crack at the stage? Yes – as did the others. But the essence of both moments was braver and greater than the mere execution of another plan – brilliant though they have been. (Don’t get me started now on the seamlessly outstanding work of Dave Brailsford, Team Coach!) These were golden moments, great moments in sport which I dare not hope to see bettered even in a London 2012 summer. Wiggins was flying, in concentrated joy, in the knowledge and full expression of his genius and control. It was only right and appropriate that such emphatic brilliance was underlined and even temporarily overshadowed by the irresistible surge of the Manx Missile – Cavendish – to acclaim the line.

Like many Brit sports fans I ‘naturally(!)’ shy away from nationalistic fervour but do do worthwhile fervour. That is, spontaneous and genuine fervour devoid(ish) of racial or political stimulants. The sight of Wiggins – and then Cavendish – so gloriously and big-heartedly achieving as individuals for their team (and for us?) was, I may have to mutter with a little embarrassment, both roar-inducing and weirdly conducive to a sort of… pride.

Days later, I put this down to several things, including the truth of the uniqueness of both athletes in terms of their historic significance (now) and their sheer quality. (For Cav to have won 4 Champs Elysees on the bounce is beyond remarkable/for Wiggo to top the Classification speaks for itself.) Essentially though and in terms of sentiment, they have brought a special kind of summer. A jumping-off point.

I think we can share this, fellahs?

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So Tsonga attempts a fairly unconvincing drop-shot carrying all the threat of a handbag assault by Michael Gove. Meaning it was lame and self-defeatingly unfocussed. Murray responds in a kindof Baconesque blur somewhere between Screaming Pope and Vengeful Jock Upstart – he did paint that, didn’t he? – featuring discernible, co-ordinated, near sadistically-expressed brilliance. Meaning a gathering of the apologetic ball into some Caledonian vortex before the suspiciously automatic catapulting of said furry sphere back at the central body mass of the now fearfully star-jumping French hulk. It hits him, venomously, deep into his bollocks. Cue Blues squirming, Pinks giggling.

That sickeningly sinking feeling. That Oh My God I Really Might Puke and Parp 3 lbs of Angel Delight-consistency Shite Out At The Same Time feeling. Cruelly familiar to every male member(?) of the population over the age of about two days but mysteriously absent from female experience. Weirdly funny right then to all but he, the recipient of that extravagantly piquant instant.

Tsonga really copped one hardcore style and he may even as I write be using that as part of his response to the queue of journalists wanting to ask that second question (about how his Todger feels) an acceptable period after Q 1 – the one, obviously, about how HE feels. (Because they’re separate, presumably?)

But I may be being flippant in a moment of alleged National Triumph. This being after all the first time since that prehistoric American (Fred Perry) in his Mod T-shirts dun so-o gud that a Brit… dun so gud. If I may though, I would like to proffer in a sense of keen – remarkably, vividly, ashen-faced-with-(k)nobs-on keen – brotherhood, two remembrances which er… resonate clangiferously in this seminal moment.

Was leaning over a rail fence aged about four when a deceptively doe-eyed but actually savage steed casually leant through and bit/plucked inquisitively at my nether regions. Think only the magnificent heaviness of my sixties-era cotton footie shorts prevented Emlyn Hughes-like vocal rearrangement. Blessedly, there are no scars RT-able and Oh Yeh Baybee the wedding tackle remains verifiably intact. Had more than one other goolaciously ghoulish event – including the obligatory winkie-in-zip rite of passage – but only one rivals the Tsonga Oof.

Football. Caught one right in the knackers having spun round to counter an incoming challenge from some early-shaving donkey from Chesterfield. He hoofed it in the manner characteristic of a cerebrally-challenged No 5  – soundly at Row Z –despite the fact we were unthreateningly mid-pitch. Meaning he really did hoof it. I lay there pretending to be unconscious for about ten minutes whilst the tears coiled behind flickering lids and the ache in my testicles persists 40 plus years after the event. So, Monsieur Tsonga I/we do understand. It happens to us blokes.

Whether this ball-on-ball incident conspired against the (surprisingly?) popular Frenchman today, who knows? Murray for me was tougher, more durable, closer to absolutely elite level tennis more often – though often the standard was good. Expect many though, to settle for praising the Scot’s cahunas.

Fear not, friends, for this is the way…

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Those of you familiar with that parallel universe inhabited and perhaps even created by yours (f) truly – the vinnymeister – will no doubt appreciate the challenges presented thissaway by ‘covering’ the Spain/Italy final. Whether you will sympathise may be another matter. Put simply, my tendency for foamy action-painting-writing may, with each reminiscence of each threaded pass or nuanced offering, backwash the hell out of whatever was/is reported/intended. Leading to fruiticious anarchy of the most aromatic or indulged sort. I care not; it is my intention to reflect the death-defying poetry of these hypnotically controlling romantics, these brave revolutionaries, these um… Spaniards.

Thus, in psycho-purist good faith…and having denied myself the right to instantaneously orgasmic response… an appreciation.

In their pirouetting and their brimful/loveful dance towards Sunday’s very special victory, Spain have simply changed the football world; for the better. Breathe it in.  In restating and even re-imagining, re-validating their own brilliant and joyous conceptions of footie trust and belief and execution, the diddy, ticky-tacky ones have not so much entertained us as bathed us lucky lucky punters in their elixir.

Such was the lushness, the irresistibly elevating nature of this seminal game of togger. Whether or when the question was meekly or impudently asked – by innocent or heathen or centre-forward-obsessed reactionary – the Spanish, gathering us all up, strode to the mount to deliver their loved-up sermon; in repudiation of the necrophiliac 4-4-2; in glorious praise of liberated though team-hung expression.

Fear not, friends, for this is the way. Gaze or gawp upon it and repent. (Roy).

Well, it had something of the #biblical about it, eh? That utter and almost otherworldly grace; that resonance; that hayzooss gorblimey darting to the heart. Spain – to borrow James Blood Ulmer’s description of an inspired pil – went right past football.

Right past it and into something lovely and rather deep as well as bewildering; something that we surely need to both appreciate and in some measure try to understand, methinks – we Brits in particular.

So, what did they do?

  • They wee-weed purringly, ecstatically over notions of mediocrity
  • They championed skill over hardness
  • They beautifully extended the possibilities of the beautiful game

But what does that mean?

  • That small can be beautiful/effective/strong
  • That intelligence trumps mere effort
  • That they understand and we don’t.

I am clear that Spain’s triumph was a triumph for the game in the sense that they really have taken us somewhere better. In terms of what we might call/are calling inevitably culture. Previous truly great footballing sides – whether Brazilian, Dutch or possibly French – may or may not be meaningfully compared but my suspicion is that what Spain have over all of them is the quality, the depth of their understanding and belief in their own way. Plus a purity from first to last; in comfort and ‘under pressure’; from nominal centre half to False 9 – an unshakeably pure faith in passing and moving and threading and darting a way through, without compromise. In a carousel of triangles of awareness. Options, always-available options, improving or momentum-changing, arising from good, purposeful, communal work.

There is unquestionably a moral dimension to this – listen to them talk. Humbly, generally but always in the certain knowledge of this daft-wondrous footie righteousness, this faith in the power of their skills being evidentially more powerful than fifty yard passes; more certain.

So, what we get is a line-up of New Age Total Footballers. No strikers; because they believe that Fabregas or Silva or Alonso or Iniesta can finish and that they are manifestly better and more influential and more threatening than the current Torres. (And there is no Villa.) And acute or focussed surges from midfield are then the key to unlocking the modern defence.

In fact these uber-hombres believe that they have 10 likely goal-scorers on the park, not one or two. The fluency and the rotation and the efficacy of their alleged midfield – numbering what, 6? – making a mockery of dumb crusty Brits bemoaning Spain’s lack of a Jackie Milburn. Spain (not entirely incidentally Cindy) won the final 4-0, with no forwards but a forward threat that Italy, that great bastion of streetwise defending could not cope with!

Yet Spain have been labelled boring. This is just lazy. There are times when they may not be as exciting as a rampant Brazilian side in mid salsa down the pitch (last seen 15 years ago?) but… come on… boring?

Okay, feasible to remain unmoved by the playing of percentages as the ball is shuffled (occasionally) blandly around… but don’t please go mistaking their ball-retention as boring when it surely reflects the patient ticking of a brilliant mind. Something sensational and inventive will happen – with or without David Villa or Fernando Torres at its thrilling peak. That 4-0 – these 3 tournaments! – annihilate the arguments; both in terms of what is right and what is beautiful; Spain win. Where does that leave us?

Not all England players are as bad as might be apparent to the average Ukrainian onlooker at his or her home tournament. But as a squad, as a ‘nation’, England strode idiotically and embarrassingly backwards yet again. They may have discovered some team spirit but this was not reflected in teamwork; or certainly not in what we might call linking, or interplay, of which there was catastrophically little.

I watched every minute of England’s games and can barely recall anything resembling joined up footie. Even Gerrard, who carried his side with some honour in three of the games, achieved very little constructively. More typical was the contribution of Parker – whom I rate – but whose passing was either lame or non-existent for virtually the entire period. It is barely credible that a footballing nation of any stature could again produce such a void where football should be. Except that we do precisely that at every tournament we attend; one reason I came to resent this latest shambles.

Hodgson may yet do okay but it is not too early to challenge some of the central tenets of his footballing philosophy – a philosophy itself in need of arguably seriously independent review following the exhibition by Spain – the revelations from Spain – in Euro 2012. We might understand a manager with only a matter of a few weeks in charge of a group of generally mediocre players ‘needing’ to play safe -circle those metaphorically predictable wagons – avoiding ‘disaster’ being the immediate objective of this ungenerous worldview.  People, there has to be more.

In a Group Stage that was both absurd and utterly predictable England were close to appalling but won their group. For twenty minutes they made a decent contribution to a quarter-final against a workmanlike Italian side but then were soundly beaten before deservedly losing on penalties. Some folks talked of positives at the time of the Group Stage win but meaningful assessments became largely swamped by penno-trauma. We need to get past this.

The new England boss went for a caricature of English ‘dependability’ from the outset. The kind of 2 Banks of 4 that might launch now a thousand aching post-modern odes to Imperial Delusion. In one sense, it kinda worked – that Group win. In another it was like some deeply cartoonlike or ironic thing whereby slumbering giant fails to notice diddymen tying up gargantuan laces before then entering Giant Sportsday. Cue resounding kerrlummpp… and giant returning to slumber.

Except maybe the giant link flatters England these days. But there was something of a return to a fall from grace, or at least a further falling away and behind in that ultimately, predictably sterile 2 banks of 4.

Given the obvious and appealing supremacy now of what I once coined ‘twinkle over clonk’ and the need for a tectonic shift in emphasis in what remains the English national game, we may need to look carefully at whether Hodgson is really the man to preside over England FC. He may be some kind of a sophisticate – possibly – but the former Fulham man seems unlikely to lead us so necessarily and so dramatically forward after his initial and emphatic steps back.

A memory alights; that Brian Clough once said something typically acerbic, throwaway and profound about raising the skill level when competition was at its most pressured peak. In other words, you stoo-pid pee-ple… skill will out.

Fruitcake is not the only fruit; (cake).

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Mixed feelings aboundeth; should I go or stay/stick or twist/put up/shut up/disengage for the good of… something? Nah. Too much to be said and shared and okay, argued about. So let’s return to England. Please.

England the non-footie or anti-footie footie team; the Quarter Finalists(!) the redoubtable heroes, the cursed-blessed former Show Ponies now Honest Workhorses. ‘S about them again. And you – precious, brilliant or psychologically semi-detached you – you wot I heard holding court or fumbling with nerves or ranting with sweet delusion on that there phone-in – you… need to wind yer neck and listen. And then start shouting again; that’s fine. (#yourturn. That’s fine.)

Ahem. (In through nose/out through mouth… And GO!!)

The fruitcake-in-a-barrel torrent ricocheting down the plum duff river of our sporty-consciousness (5 Live/the back pages/the TV coverage) is a moody but eloquently kaleidoscopic wonder, is it not? Part home-cooked cobblers, part luminescent hope of the most exotic kind. Full of angular detritus, lobbed groundbait, eels. Right now there’s no escaping the whirl of it; the eddying and sometimes edifying snaffles of glorious opinion. Deranged or inspired, upon football generally or specifically Hodgson United – that all-new all-old construct seeping through the Euro2102 fixture list in a style offering encouragement both to the suicidally purist(ic) and the naively gaye. How one match – let’s say England v Ukraine – could be the source of so much impassioned verbage of such contrary or counter-attacking nature is… is absolutely bloody amazing, actually.

I’ve written caustically about my fear and loathing for the trend now being set by Roy and his Roverlets. The essence of it – the 2 crushing banks of 4, the absence of anything approaching that which many of us identify (without a smidge of pomp) as ‘football’ – feeling offensively reactionary to me at least. A sadly convincing photofit of/for the criminal Brit-footie-cultural inadequacies around and against which a consensus had formed moons ago. (Because we all know it’s utterly inferior to the genuinely richer and more beautiful ‘continental’ game, right? Even if we continue to make the argument that there is a place for English virtues). Spain/half of Europe (by the looks of this tournament) have played/are playing far better footie than our lot; but was this the case even before Roy got his hands on Stevie G’s rampaging instincts?

Yes!

Here I pause to differentiate between this aforementioned, elevated and now unarguably successful quality – in the example of Spanish Tippy Tappy Genius – and quality in terms of excitement.

Often ‘British’ football is of course packed with incident in a way that makes its Spanish or Italian counterparts seem frankly pallid. But this is another matter – so move on…

And yet… hold on there matey; isn’t it true that Gerrard has been by some distance England’s best player in Euro2012 thus far, thereby undermining opposition to his reinvention as an enforcing hod-carrier rather than flamboyant er… expressionist stonemason? Hasn’t that, that one instance within the reconstruction of an England side been an unqualified success?

Quite possibly. Except that this tightening of understandings and opportunities for the Liverpool man has been symbolic of the more damaging straight-jacketing (as opposed to mere ‘organising’) of his manifestly less able colleagues. I repeat my assertion that England have unsurprisingly played absolutely no football worthy of the name because of the rigidity and cynicism even of their system as well as because the players have been poor in everything but team shape and graft.

Roy Hodgson has gathered his forces swiftly together and this is clearly some achievement. They do appear to be listening to him and to be working for a shared purpose, with some conviction, in a way that sports journo’s on the spot respect and admire. (I do have a theory that because of this there is something of a softening in general critique of RH’s tactical stuff but perhaps this is the Morrissey in me breaking out?) But hasn’t the argument for retreating to ‘English’ virtues long been lost – or more precisely, is it not abundantly clear that skill/composure/comfort in possession are not only essential for betterment but integral to definitions of success?

What winning means and constitutes is always a fabulous wormy can of; but this campaign has for me a slightly depressing undertow – the unsettling feel of deceptively and shlocktastically crude bawling from the England FC touchline – even if expressed by the crypto-urbane, linguistically enhanced Mr Hodgson. The demands being for a stranglehold, for an avoidance of freedom, for a Parkeresque scurry and a prod towards safety. Then a retreat to the dullest kind of ‘stall-setting’ this particular euromarket has witnessed. Such a demand, such a coarse bellow for not losing, not losing at any cost, with no other notion of progress than getting through – even with an ordinary England Squad – rubs up against heartfelt footietruths as well as the very notion of the beautiful game itself. Hence my (laughably haughty?) concerns.

Maybe I’ve just been bad at keeping some perspective; maybe I’ve been cutting when I should have been fairer. However, this is the prerogative of the fan – and believe it or not – I am clear that I remain a football fan and that everything I ever write – scathing or soaring – is contingent upon an absolute belief in the power and the beauty even of this daft game. I do therefore contend that I still have the optimist’s argument here.

Hey look at what strikes me. The Parker-Gerrard axis has been key to England’s topping of their group. I like both. But Parker has been by his standards – by any standards – disappointingly sloppy in possession. In fact the entire team’s capacity to fail to execute simple passes in any sequence has in truth been pretty alarming. Like Parker, like Young, like Rooney was against Ukraine; virtually all of them – wasteful. Sadly, the raw talent of Oxlade-Chamberlain was clearly made vulnerable too by the occasion; his very few opportunities being characterised by schoolboy fumbles – much like his predecessor in the role of Crowd-Stirrer, Master Walcott. Wellbeck worked the unforgiving solo striker thing rather well; on occasion he was coolly intelligent as well as generous with his workrate. Would that he would have consistently held the ball up/treasured it. Like the internationals do.

Details. Hodgson will look long and hard at the facts and figures and mileages and percentages and he will judge – long after this event. For now he says the right thing. I have no personal animosity towards him or any of his players (though I accept in fanlike fury I have discharged abuse) and I fully understand his regression to that which he thinks they know. I do however, take issue on a fundamental level with his alleged ‘philosophy’ – if this is it. For this, for me, really is close to embarrassingly dumb. Win or lose against the Italians.

A joyful-lethal instinct?

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

Para one – where our scribe yet again froths foamaciously about hearty and enriching nonsenses…

Bright Young Things quite rightly draw our attention and sometimes our love. For one thing it’s kinda fashionable to associate yourself with something that dashes or darts, or expresses something profoundly exciting in its rawness. For another, real talent – the expression of sport-glorious proto-genius – does light us all up, yes?

(False) para two – where things get unusually but temporarily focussed…

Take that boy Oxlade-Chamberlain. In a matrix of relative dullards and rammed Ikea-crafted pegs in predictably worn oaken holes he almost shineth. There is, with him (alone?) the wonderful possibility for something un-James Milner; meaning that, AOC has what JM, in his current maturity(?) almost completely lacks – a subversive whiff of impending inspiration, or the god-given wherewithal to stumble in glorious haste upon it. Possibly accidentally.

A post, then…

And possibly unfortunate or plain daft to make comparisons between these two Wingmen – the City man being essentially now an extension of the shape of things rather than a protagonist in his own right, the young gunner an occasionally unwieldy and at ‘this level’ naive unzipper of the crisp files of technocoachdom. Guess who I like most, out the two?

Oxy boy, of course. With his extravagant pace and directness and sometimes unplayable verve.

Even a fairly unschooled and dispassionate understanding of footballstuff assumes/evokes/infers some appreciation of the sportslife-enhancing boogie that naturals such as he hipswingingly perform. Naturals, when in the full flow of their electrifying ease, can utterly expose the stodgy, the ordinary and sometimes even the good. Because there is no answer to the kind of movement and joyful-lethal instinct they express. No answer – not even from top-draw defenders – not when the sap of confidence is risen and the ball is possessed so by the will and the spirit of that liberated charge. And yet…

England and Sweden has just finished. And the Boy Wunda didn’t feature, other than in the role of timewasterupper, as the ticks and tocks were being counted out. (Perhaps predictably, he fluffed his only meaningful opportunity, when failing weakly to control a through-ball; if confident, he might have taken the ball easily into his stride and lashed it gleefully home like some kid in a park. But he didn’t.)

And this is why I have been clear that despite the uplifting frisson/the succulence around his potential, Hodgson was quite right not to pick Oxlade-Chamberlain in the starting 11; sadly. Like Walcott – more of him very soon, for obvious reasons – the Arsenal fledgling divebombs still too often and too crassly for top level international football; or, er… for England. The fact that this is clearly a matter of confidence deficit rather than talent deficit may be used against the Manager/Mr G Neville Esquire (arguably) once the side shuffle homewards.

Not that this fixture came near that aforementioned higher category of sport. As many of us expected, it was poor; poor but hugely enlivened by goals – good goals even, from England. And that other juvenile – Master Walcott – was central to the England ‘recovery’. Much of what I have said or suggested about AOC applies to TW. Except that Theo has skilfully played himself out of contention for the first team over a fairly long period of time now… allowing AOC to get a sniff of that right-wing birth now occupied by Milner. Theo, for me, has failed to grow up on the pitch; staying cute’n cuddly in an oh let’s make allowances kindofaway when we needed his pace to grow a beard or something. Seriously Theo, we have had to conclude that you should be better than this by now.  And maybe… so should AOC?

Perhaps it’s a very deep one this. The question whether we should, as a nation now freed-up by the general revelation that We’re Shit And We Know We Are, experiment/and/or encourage our imperfect but exciting youffs? But is it worth bringing them on? Are they – these specific flawed gemlets – worth it? Can we bear all this cringing (our cringing) as they scurry down obvious blind-alleys or commit heinous sins of wastefulness in possession? Do the shocking miscontrols send you slightly nauseous like they do me? Ought we in a fit of wage-conscious pique to pitchfork them or flay them in the streets? Or give them a restorative Horlicks and tuck them up with a Mwa on their startled brows? These suddenly feel like matters of philosophical import rather than mere team selection, do they not? And remember we are relatively unshackled in this, because we ARE shit, yes?

That was the overwhelming conclusion, surely from the Sweden game? They were awful and we were like some some Scarfeian satire, some throwback to days when Jackie Charlton bawled at kids to ‘show me some aggression’. Terry could barely jog, but ‘fought through it’; Gerard again played so far within his gifts I imagine he used Lucas on a bad day as his role-model; Young broke his record for most wasteful moments and Johnson may need to be dope-tested again. BUT… the score was 3-2 in favour of the blues/skyblues/Oxford/Cambridge/whoeverthatwasexactly representing some mythical ‘us.’ And we need to rally round and be grateful.

There are – there always are – mitigating circumstances and I will almost certainly not, therefore, abuse the management team. Hodgson – an honourable man and a solid, perhaps even quasi-sophisticated coach – has barely got to know his charges. His choice (I assume?) of Gary Neville most of us approve of and his squad for the most part picked itself. Extraordinarily, these guys are pretty close to our best available. The particular crushingly naff 4-4-2 – awaiting or in the process of righteous deconstruction as I write – is Hodgson’s own and we can actually see why he’s done that thing. (Because we’re crap.) There’s a tournament to avoid utter humiliation in. (Un)fair enough.

The individuals involved in tonight’s Sunday League knockabout may have some kaleidoscopic sense of the paucity of their encounter but I fear are so depressingly-convincingly up their own botties that even the filmically pregnant pauses during conversations with friends – the thin ‘you’re doin’ great, mate(s)’ – may not pierce the squad bubble, let alone emerge on the flipchart of their team consciousness.

Almost no football was played tonight. But England, mighty England bore on.

The brotherhood of whiteness? (Nah.)

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So Euro 2012 starts with further injustice heaped upon the poor beleaguered Greeks, as a Spanish ref wafts absurdly punitive cards unthinkingly at a minor transgressor. Like the Greek economy then, he’s gone, before half-time, with his comrades and compatriots tearing out their sense of furious injustice from their own flesh, or begging for some consideration from stoically dense authority. Thank god, methinks, it wasn’t a German official.

But then they equalise!! Creating an ecstatically righteous medium-distant nation-lifting backdrop to a blog which intends regretfully now to banish them to the furthest but most maybe atmospherically coloured corner of this particular metaphorical writing shed. Where the dingle-dangle view has already shifted mercilessly from the Home Nation’s (Poland) tetchy encounter to er… home, to the Home Counties representatives – to Engerland.

England play in this tournament; they do; quite soon, honest. Despite the media foreplay (when judged against the rabid standards of previous noisily ‘golden’ years) putting the insipid bulk of mute into muted. England are there. In their white stuff, with their unfeasibly impractical yet predictable International Player Hairdo’s and their hip-switching warm-up routines. And the white noise that is the molesting of gum and parping out of reluctant mucous (deliberately and offensively surely?) right down the very lens of your Nana’s telly; just as she returns with the hobnobs; pre family dunk.

How, exactly, are these disparate but almost uniformly ordinary young men going to fare, I wonder? How will they carry the Olympic flame that is our low-burning expectation, this time?

Probably no worse than of late might be one, reasonable answer. Meaning they will #fail as a group in a way that falls somewhere between national disgrace and embarrassment and legally culpable cluelessness on the key  Salford van Hire-Fan-Richter-Fahrenheit-Guttinghood Scale. Indeed students of bloodydiabolicality – to give the science its correct appendage – have been primed judicially in this matter both by the late withdrawals from the squad and from the seeping appreciation that We’re Shit And We Know We Are (this time, finally.) Hence the relatively low-decibel slither into the tournament proper.

But of course that perennial danger of egg-upon-fizzog insists I – as an occasionally responsible blatherer – have at least a token imagining of a rampant Ashley Young and Oxlade-Chamberlain, in some previously unsuspected flush of exuberance destroying opposition defences and making a general mockery of (to be fair) our general pessimism. And Glen Johnson might do a Brazilian – converting with a glorious left-footed curler after a sinuous gambol down the right flank – he might. But such freedoms are unlikely; partly because the Hodgson body politic mitigates against much of that expressive nonsense but also because I suspect even the players, when dissected cleanly by an axe at the waist exhibit the letters WSAWKWA rather than those that spell out ENGLAND.

At previous tournaments – most notably the last Capello-led World Cup – a dispiriting lack of guts/fire/personality have accompanied the universally identified national technical deficiencies. To the point that it seems almost as though the alleged ‘grittiness and determination’ of our True Brit heroes has been mysteriously decanted; leaving us (actually?) with poncy English Show Ponies. (Discuss?)

So for example that same Johnson who on occasion has looked liked a threat going forward from his right back berth melted away in an uber-mare which must surely haunt him and his family still. As did Rooney, more extraordinarily – though it is accepted injury played some part in this. The players truly were an embarrassment to themselves, utterly lacking the leadership, the mental strength and the talent or style to rescue the campaign. That Capello remained in charge having presided over a championship which jabbed the accusative finger more pointedly at him than anybody else was mind-boggling. That fat contract clearly and nauseatingly being his get-out-of-jail stay in post thing.

This time it is different in several respects. One – which may be hugely helpful – is that expectation is astonishingly but also reasonably low. Given the capacity of previous England squads for what has felt to the proverbial man-in-the-street like frankly pretty pathetic capitulation – being ‘overwhelmed’ by either the ‘occasion’ or the opposition or both – the absence of this pressure may liberate those few spirits capable of courting the higher aspiration to excite.

There is optimism around Oxlade-Chamberlain but I personally was disappointed with his performance against the Belgians. He tried unconvincingly to appear the dashing young thing but like Walcott so often before him ultimately lacked the control, the dribbling skills that presumably had gotten him picked in the first place. In short he was nervy and he looked therefore like a school-kid trying to break into a grown-man’s set-up. I hope that unlike Walcott his confidence and his skills genuinely blossom with age and experience and that he does get the opportunity to develop. But – again, like the other boyish flyer – he is not worth a starting place in an England championship side, for me.

Young is an interesting one. Clearly a talent, clearly a danger in the sense that he may be the one to draw Limey ignominy around the globe through worryingly instinctive diving for a key spot-kick. (Imagine if he does that against one of the host nations… to get our lot an undeserved win!! The latent or explicit racism around the place might be lit up rather unpleasantly – even dangerously – by such an incident.) And who knows if it matters… but I personally would feel deeply ashamed and regretful if one of our lot brazenly cheated to get the team through; particularly if – as may well be the case – our general play is negative and ungenerous to the spirit of the tournament; assuming there is one.

I expect the general standard of play to be unremarkable, which again may allow our thin pool of talent to proceed beyond current expectation; but cannot see how England may find that necessary gear-change or splash of sweet, heart-stopping beauty to transform dull draw to foamy win. If Milner starts, I can’t help but see this as a marker for how pallid we currently are – poor Jimmy being more fit-for-purpose in the column role as ‘half the player he was 18 months ago’ than livewire wide-man. There is almost no possibility that he will actually beat an opposition defender, get to the byline and cross; instead he will hold; hold and roll the ball back to Johnson or Parker. This tendency for ease being dully infectious, there will, therefore, be almost no discernible momentum in the English play. And we will be easy enough to stop.

This reads depressingly, perhaps. Yet I cannot make a case for impervious defence or for imperious attack. It will be structured mediocrity; one that may be good enough, or may be swiftly exposed for what it is. And whilst I really do have some respect for Hodgson, perhaps it is pertinent to remind ourselves that there seems no likelihood that England will attack with any verve or belief; again.

What I’d like to see is some genuine fearlessness, some real want of the ball, rather than a repeated avoidance of responsibility – that waiting, that pointless offloading as opposed to constructive and purposeful ball-retention. Generally guys, give us what a wordy old arse like me might call some honourability; the game needs that, the fans (home and away) deserve that.

My view then has to be that England are unquestionably mediocre… but can they just raise something? Please?

No pressure, Brendan… / Another Nail For My Heart.

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Don’t know if it’s just me bein’ daft again but this Swanseathing has been rumbling away, riling me; the inevitability of it salting those wounds where my idealised wotsits should be – used to be.

Brendan Rodgers, quite possibly the best Brit or near-Brit manager (depending on your facility for nationalistically-motivated squinting/cartography) active in the Premier League outside of the embarrassment of riches zone, is reportedly, as I write, moving from foreplay to full-on copulation – should that be capitulation, I wonder? – with/to the Scouse Sex Machine. He’s coming red all over. And whilst I can understand his urges and have some real respect for the comparative restraint and dignity and management of this lurv-match between Boy Most Likely To and Club Arguably Most in Need Of, I feel like a swan snagged in fishing tackle, I do.

Because Brendan had been showing signs of being the one who snubbed that power trip, that lucre-slide, that soul-deflating slither into uncleanbutokayintoxicating Exposureville. Brendan had been foot-perfectly the model man and manager for just a few, impressive and now critical seasons, guiding ‘unfashionable Swansea’ into an historically gleeful wonderland/cash-rich hinterland where they routinely outplayed Premier League clubs theoretically twice their size and power. Like David tattooing a startling phallus via precision-flung gravel upon the forehead of Goliath FC; or something. Something startling and surprisingly er… attractive.

For the Swans, the Unmighty Swans really have lacerated the pomp and presumption of allegedly senior clubs by playing proper footie whilst their betters sweated and hoofed increasingly frustratedly around. (Liverpool FC being a decent and recent example of this very same, on a day that may have limbered up the trigger-finger of one J W Henry of the already fast-twitch-fibre-heavy U S of A, perhaps?) And Rodgers without doubt has been key to this triumph of skill-rich Cymro-Good over flaccidly underachieving Evil. Because he more than nearly anyone you may care to listen to a) talks a good game b) delivers. So that for a year or so some of us have been trying to un-etch-a-sketch the picture that now presents; a straight-forward and demystified purchase; of Brendan; by one of the big boys.

Liverpool FC do fall into this latter category. Certainly they revel in a genuine football history – one likely to be pretty incompletely understood by the folks that own the club, you suspect – not that this is a rarity amongst Premiership franchises. However in recent times many were genuinely saddened by the failure – for that, actually, is what it was – of a genuinely Liverpool Man (Dalglish) to drive the club forward, thereby precipitating the current negotiations…

which are confirmed as being completed – or rather the move itself is – at that moment…ho hum…

But perhaps most viscerally central to real Liverpool fans has been the general malaise – playing/reputation/actual – the Anfield club had dawdled or staggered or been led into. I have been heavily critical of Dalglish’s bitterness and frankly, his inability to motivate or inspire or really shape his individuals and his team. I stand by those opinions, harsh though they are. King Kenny, despite being rightly loved for his genius as a player and for his closeness and empathy with fans post Hillsborough in particular, seemed lost amongst the issues – political and strategic – rather than boss in command of them. His relations with a press he held in contempt were to be understood perhaps but not respected. Dalglish manifestly substantially reduced the inflow of goodwill and sympathy for the club and for the arguments it may have been trying to make over Suarez, as an example; increasing the sense of dissatisfaction around Anfield already welling up in response to poor on-field performances.

Some may respond at this point that ‘Pool won a cup this season and might have won two. I say look at the league table. And if you can bear it, watch endless video of insipid or worse from the likes of Downing/Henderson/Carroll/Gerrard(!), actually. By some considerable margin this Liverpool footiefare was just not good enough; again; and the fans knew it – painfully. Kenny was summoned and nothing became his reign like the leaving of it.

To be fair, it seems at this moment that the transition into Brendanland has been similarly corduroy rather than bondage pant. Being helpfully svelte over a deal for Rodgers is not the same as finishing 4th in the Premiership but perhaps – just perhaps – the relative elegance of recent activity at Anfield is suggestive of someone at the top regaining essential control; a sense I fully expect to be strengthened as the new gaffer gathers in his players and staff over coming weeks and months. Because he is good, this guy; articulate and sharp and crucially crucially crucially – able to motivate. He will instantly, despite his comparative youth and ‘inexperience’, earn the right to be properly heard (unlike Hodgson) and the assent of those passionate but knowledgeable fans – even if results flicker rather than beam – because they know he knows football, good football, that game of skill and passing and movement and yes, artistry. Liverpool in some pigs-bladder abstract feels play like that is their kind of play; a sort of twinkling choreography being worthy of them and their club and their city; that proper Liverpool. There will be some real expectation that Rodgers may deliver them back to that.

Brendan may be nervous but I doubt it. He will probably sense an immediate flood of scouse warmth suggestive of a likely honeymoon period worthy of the name; by that I mean a real space to engineer something more than a shagfest; something that truly satisfies/completes/enriches even. Footiefolks do talk (or is it just journo’s who talk?) of football marriages; how the reds could do with a legitimate love-match now! Less romantically/more generally Liverpool is longing for a return to Liverpool ways – style, sureness, confidence and naturally – success. Few would argue against that being good for the game at large.

My friends down here in West Wales are gutted but unsurprised; because they have seen up close a very impressive football man. Brendan Rodgers – a man appreciated and now gone.

A Tale of One City?

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Big day for Liverpool Managers, eh? Firstly Roy Hodgson – the appallingly treated ex of the Anfield club – releases a doughtily, relatively predictable England squad; next #kingkenny goes. Perversely, perhaps, I’m more interested in the latter, it being appeallingly clear – so far – of anything smacking of crassness.

This is weirdly both a pleasant surprise and a disappointment of the most nigglingly perverse kind, as the last period of Dalglish’s reign has been characterised by a unique(?) tartness the situation now suddenly lacks; because both the owners side and the profoundly bitter Scot himself have apparently played an anticipation-crushingly dignified blinder. It’s as though a whole lotta calm, whackhh has been twinkled over the scenario by some unlikely, mediating scouse angel. Hence my personal feeling of non-closure – for which I shall naturally seek expensive therapy.

 

The statements of course may mean nothing. They are likely to have been prepared under legal advice via the scrutiny of wiser men than the chief protagonists themselves in a room no-one has farted in for 40 years; a room where miraculously pristine glasses of carbonated water appear, unbeckoned at 8.55am and at hourly intervals before being transmogrified into Sauvignon Blanc of a pretty high order come 5.30. That is, somewhere fascinatingly or even fascistically devoid of traces of humanity; or ordered, depending on your proximity to a cupboard full of suits.

Dalglish, having been summoned to Boston when many were expecting him to jet off for a yoga/golf retreat in Birkdale, has been sacked. Whether this was the politely agreed termination of his contract – which seems kinda likely to me – or the converse fraught celtic arse-flap through a defiantly departing kilt we may never know. Dalglish I think mainly saves his hatred and contempt for journalists, so he may have taken a well-argued dismissal with the good grace we are led to believe was mutually exchanged.

I know my sharp view of Dalglish tramples close to sensitivities on all manner of genuinely precious things; life and death things. I am conscious that many Liverpudlians raised Kenny to sainthood during his magnificent and heartfelt joining with families and all concerned, touched or traumatised by the Hillsborough disaster. (I wasn’t there and I can therefore not judge the degree to which Kenny helped). It may even be right that am disqualified from commenting on either that terrible issue or Dalglish the man in the wake of it. What I would say is that believe it or not, I respected Dalglish the player for his rich gifts but have come to dislike what has felt to me like a developing and unhealthy myopia and sourness in the later man. (Which may, of course, be a natural result of bearing such close witness to such tragedy). I think it is both right and probably ‘good’ for Liverpool FC that he has gone, and gone in a dignified way.

That other fellah Hodgson has also been thrust into my defiantly un-hoovered living room today, as always with the slight air of someone quietly battling insidious anal penetration by caterpillars through constant refocusing or adjustment of key muscles up and down the body. He therefore displays the gait of a man in danger of expressing untoward or explosive reaction. This is countered by concerted efforts to talk well and properly, presumably on the grounds that any minute he might scream AHH BOLLOCKKSS WORMMMSS hysterically mid-sentence. Roy talks with great effort and clarity and authority in a manner I imagine the England Football Team in their post-training soporific arrogance might listen to for all of 30 seconds. Hence – wisely – he appointed Gary Neville, who has silverfish but no caterpillars.

Hodgson’s England squad has drawn interest mainly due to the omission of Rio Ferdinand, Manchester United’s medium-loquacious centre-half (i.e. wordy on twitter) and the retention of John Terry and The Astonishingly Unproductive One – Stewart Downing, of Liverpool. Ferdinand is unfortunate in the sense that he is quality; in a markedly pedestrian group he might have been the gazelle. Or he might if he could run. The truth is he has been medium-crocked for some years and despite his real ability to read the game and caress the ball better than most of his rivals, he is patently not fit for top-of-the-range tournament football; regrettably.

John Terry is if not sub judice exactly, under a cloud and therefore lucky to be considered. His chief remaining asset – his durability, his toughness – may be a liability under cross-examination from quick-witted foreign flyers but unsurprisingly he is there for exactly that near-caricature Engerland Through and Through Thing. Fitness-wise, he certainly cannot sprint and therefore may be as big a gamble as Rio might have been; indeed the crux may be that Hodgson dare not take them both and thinks Ferdinand more damaged. All this leaves personal/political issues aside; I make the confident assumption that Hodgson has and will be utterly honourable in this regard. (Bless him). I also suspect that novelty value – and the Neville appointment – will provide Hodgson with an opportunity he may not have had if his tenure had ‘given him time’ to mould his own squad. My guess is that given such time (and minus that Neville) Hodgson would have been subjected to indifference at best from the majority of players and diabolical treatment from the press; pronto.

This is because he is old-school and methodical and on the grindingly elucidating side of articulate rather than inspired; or inspiring; or young; or hep to the funky ipod beat man. Roy is good, don’t get me wrong… but like most of us he is particularly good when people are prepared to listen. At Liverpool, they certainly weren’t.

Where that has left his relationship with his chosen skipper, S Gerrard Esquire, is an interesting point; one of many we are likely to remain unenlightened upon. As with the Dalglish sacking, as with anything; things are wrapped in so much packaging these days.