England's World Cup failure. Maybe we weren't hungry enough.

    It's often cited as the reason for England's failure at major tournaments, a team full of pampered prima donnas who get paid a fortune regardless of the result.

Maybe they aren't hungry enough. 
Well that's an accusation you can't level at Luis Suarez and look what happened to him!

    England delivered three dull. lacklustre, unimaginative performances and questions are being asked as to whether there should be a further reorganisation of the game, whether more resources need to be applied to youth development and whether the number of foreigners in the English game is causing the malaise.
    Qualifiers from England's group were Costa Rica (population less than five million) and Uruguay (population around three and half million - a shade more than Wales). When you see stats like that it's hard not to believe that the problem goes deeper. It's years since I saw a truly passionate and committed performance from an England team. You'd probably have to go back to when Bobby Robson was manager.
   Yet again a tournament has passed with little to smile about from the England team. This time the crowd was better value with particular credit to the fan who delivered the excellent parody of the much copied Mastercard advert. His banner read"

Cost of flights  £1,200
Enjoying the ambience £2,000
Accommodation £2,000

Arriving in Rio after eliminaton (sic.) - Priceless 

Unveiled - Tottenham first team for 2014/15

Having trawled through the authoritative coverage of Tottenham's close season transfer plans, I can exclusively reveal the likely line up for the club's first game of the new season.
Every one of these players has been cited as a high priority for new boss Mauricio Pochettino, it's on the internet so it must be true.

Tim Krul
Marcello
Toby Aldlerweireld
Dejan Lovren
Ashley Cole
Adam Lalana
Eric Dier
Esteban Cambiasso
Memphis Depay
Romelu Lukaku
Wilfired Bony

No, I hadn't heard of all of them either.
I'm guessing Spurs may sign one, two at the most. Reading about transfer rumours is, without doubt, a total waste of time... if somehow compulsive.

World Cup football with the sound turned down

Thirty minutes into the Croatia Mexico game I've had turn the volume to zero. I'm past 50, I like a glass of wine and I'm not hitting the gym as often as I used to. My heart won't cope with any more of this stuff. Do commentators think before they speak?

Sample 1. Modric is clattered from behind by an opponent. It's an aerial duel and the Mexican just closes his eyes and catches the Croat on the back of the head with his forehead. Whilst this is an everyday occurrence on the streets of Glasgow, it should not be encouraged on the football field. It's a headbutt, plain and simple.  Co-commentator Danny Murphy explained that there was no malice, the challenge was mistimed, so no action should be taken. Had the same thing happened on the ground, resulting in a player being tripped, a foul would be given. Can someone explain the discrepancy? Or is this further evidence that footballers value their feet over their brains?

Sample 2. Mexican player Herrera strikes the crossbar with a superb shot. The commentator explains that the stats will not show this as being "on target," a practice that he just does not understand. Allow me to explain in simple terms. The wooden structure that supports the net is NOT the target - it is the net that they need to aim for. The records will reflect that a shot that hits the crossbar is of no more value to a team than one that hits the corner flag.

Until commentators grasp this simple principle and until their colleagues can distinguish between a fair challenge and assault, the world cup will continue to be watched in silence.

A new novel with a football theme - A Matter of Life and Death

     My latest novel is set in a run down seaside town, where the local football club is battling to retain its Premier League status. I hope you will take a look.
 
A Matter of Life and Death - a summary

    In April 1981, ex-Liverpool manager Bill Shankly was interviewed by Shelley Rodhe on Granada TV. Alongside him in the studio was former Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Shankly told the audience, “Somebody said: 'Football's a matter of life and death to you.’ I said, 'Listen it's more important than that.’”

     Coldharbour Town has climbed from the lower divisions of English football, finally reaching the Premier League under the careful stewardship of local businessman, Jack Enright. After just one season, it’s clear that even survival will require more cash than Enright is willing, or able to commit. Russian billionaire, Dimitri Koloschenko sees ownership of a football club as a means of establishing himself in the London social scene. Within weeks of buying out the reluctant Enright, his commitment is tested by the realities of owning a struggling football club.
     As Coldharbour Town fights to retain its place in the top flight, a clinical killer starts to terrorise the community. Maggie Davenport leads a police investigation that appears to flounder at every turn, the local paper; under editor Toby Thomas, revels in the story of Britain’s latest serial killer and Adam Buckley is dubbed Coldharbour Town’s saviour and the “new Gareth Bale.”
In a town that appears to be in terminal decline, the priority should be to catch a murderer. It is after all, a matter of life and death. But some things are more important than that.

It's available as a paperback or a kindle e-book on Amazon for just £2.98. Click HERE.

France victorious on the pitch and in the studio - BBC looking rusty.

     France cruised to a routine victory over Honduras at the weekend and now seem likely to make the second round with some ease. No sooner had the commentator informed us that Wilson Palacios had rarely played ninety minutes for Stoke City this season, than a bizarre challenge on Paul Pogba ensured he carried that record into the World Cup. Red card, game over.
     English viewers got to see the game on the BBC, which rarely covers live football these days. It showed. Thierry Henry and Clarence Seedorf were worthy panellists, both have a sackful of medals and their contribution to the debate was insightful and intelligent. Alongside them was... Robbie Savage. Did someone else call in sick just before the game started and Robbie happened to be passing the studio? There can be no other explanation for his presence. In a grim parody of his playing career he was, once again, outclassed and outwitted by those around him.
     Invited to explain how Honduras could cope with the attacking flair of the French, Savage reminded Henry how the clubs he'd played for had sought to contain the Frenchman and his Arsenal colleagues. The Welshman suggested that his brand of physical football could work just as well for Honduras as it had back then. Henry looked bemused, then I'm guessing he ran through in his mind the goals he scored when Savage was an opponent before delivering a superb coup de grace.
     "We coped," he said. France were one nil up before the teams had even taken to the pitch.
Savage once famously suggested that he was a better player than Graeme Souness. I doubt even his mum would support him on that one. Credit to the BBC for getting two top panellists but Savage? I don't think so.
     Gold medal for stupidity, however, goes to commentator Jonathan Pearce for his diatribe about the failures of the goal line technology system. Listening to him again yesterday, he is still convinced the system malfunctioned during the game. He claimed that it showed two contradictory results for the same incident. A child of four could see that there were two separate decisions to be made. The ball hit the post and rebounded along the line, the system correctly showed - "no goal," - then the ball hit the keeper and crossed the line, the system correctly showed - "goal." No issue, no problem but Pearce's failure to look and think means that there probably are a few viewers out there that think the system is flawed.
     Anyone know what John Motson's doing these days?
     

FIFA - a den of vipers?

There's some excellent stuff in the Economist magazine of June 4, relating to FIFA's handling of the World Cup. The main theme, unsurprisingly is the selection of Qatar as host for the 2022 finals. The Sunday Times has already produced some convincing evidence that the process was rigged and that large amounts of cash changed hands. The Economist is careful not to accuse Sepp Blatter of being corrupt, but the phraseology is such that they aren't ruling it out either.
There's no doubt that the choice of a country where summer temperatures routinely hit the high 40s, is extraordinary - and now a switch to a winter competition is being contemplated. The Times has followed up its earlier revelations with an accusation that of all the countries that applied to host the 2022 competition, only Qatar was deemed to have a high risk of a terror attack.
I've written elsewhere in my blog that I believe the introduction of goal line technology is another bizarre initiative. Why introduce new technology that solves only one of the many problems officials have in decision making when there is a ready made solution in the form of a TV replay? There are plenty of people who believe it's simply because the bidding process provided an opportunity for decision makers to get their noses in the trough, as competing providers sought to sway the decision in their direction.
I have no idea if that is true or not, but if FIFA wants to reverse the widely held assumption that it is corrupt, it needs to stop making decisions that look as though they could only have been made for all the wrong reasons.  

My filthy habit

I don’t know what happened to me doc. I just tried one or two to start with, I thought I could handle it. All my mates were doing the same thing and it didn’t seem to be doing them any harm, but now I’m hooked. It’s the first thing I think about in the morning and I have to have one final fix before I go to sleep at night. Any chance I get during the day too, I’ll sneak away into a quite corner and…

Drugs? Don’t be daft. I’m talking about the transfer rumours, handily summarised and sorted by club on News.co.uk. I just can’t stop myself clicking on those seductive little links that will tell me what the latest gossip is about my favourite team. It’s a sordid relationship and I’m not proud of it. Maybe telling you will be cathartic and I can kick the habit.

What really gets me is the vast majority is such unadulterated crap. The printed press makes up stuff to fill its pages and aspiring sports journos (please God, tell me they don’t get paid for the dross they write) recycle it as though it had been handed down on tablets of stone from heaven. Every club in the Premier League is rumoured to have a couple of dozen players each as their number one priority in every transfer window, and any player close to the end of their contract, or whose had limited game time recently will be chucked into the mix and matched with a club name seemingly picked at random.

The language is clichéd and repetitive. I guess there are only so many times you can say that a team is “considering an approach.” First they “eye” a player, then they “monitor” the situation, then they “plot a shock swoop.” The other team is reported to have suffered a “massive blow” that another club might want their man or, if said player has failed to impress in recent months, they have the chance to “cash in on a flop.” I’ve been checking the Microsoft web-site, there has to be a wizard you can use in Word that generates this sort of tosh automatically. Just key in a player name and the team rumoured to be interested and it will automatically produce a hundred and fifty words of unsubstantiated drivel.

So why can’t I stop my fixation? I guess that’s the beauty of football, even with the World Cup coming up there has to be something that fills the void left when there is no game at the weekend for your favourite team. It’s a poor substitute but it’s all we’ve got.

The good news is that I’ve acquired a partial immunity. Those sites that insist in presenting their message as a bullet point list, “the five players that…” or “five things that…” then deliver a slide show where you have to click to get the next page. It gets their page click count up, but it does nothing for me. Unless it’s a superbly written piece, and that’s happened maybe twice, I close the link and move on. Maybe it’s the first step in finding a complete cure. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to… well… you know.