Last year we were looking forward to a Champions League when the Germans dominated the competition, but now this coming Saturday it’s the Spanish, which is another “Kick in the Head” if you like Dean Martin, for English football, where we have seen a Manchester City and Liverpool one-two fight out the finish and guess what? Yeah, all the best players held European passports, with my favourite City’s Yaya Toure showing us exactly what our English game has been lacking for decades. Not only that but right beside him was David Silva who whilst Yaya was both powering and tip tapping his way through the opposition, he was his delightful fleet footed and majestic partner-in-crime, although as I have always put over to younger players the crime is to lose possession, and that is something these two players rarely do.  Spain’s domination will not begin and end in Portugal on Saturday when the might of Madrid clash, for they cleaned up in Europe by winning the THURSDAY CUP (Europa League) when Sevilla overcame Benfica in a wonderfully entertaining match in Turin last week.  If Benfica, another class act, were a little unlucky it took nothing away from the Spanish outfit who matched them every step of the way with their free flowing play something lacking at the likes of money bags Chelsea. These teams have tremendously gifted players all over the field and whilst watching you were reminded that all of the usual hype of England’s chances in yet another World Cup, where we have absolutely no chance,  is once again not only just idle overhyped media talk but complete trash. Even Michael Owen was heard spouting last week, “We can win the World Cup if our young players attack” which tells you out of touch people like him are with the game.

But back to the good things in our game – or is our game anymore? – and those incredible exciting matches overseas, where the best performance of the week was a Croatian named Ivan Rakitic who wore a captains armband for Sevilla, and wore it with such style and grace that again knocked our coaching and managing system here in England. If you had a graph of English football the line would be dropping desperately towards the bottom of the River Thames, where stands the culprits along with those in Soho Square, the House of Commons where I used to dine with the great Tony Banks, a Chelsea fan and the Sports Minister, and man of great integrity and class, and a man very close to Matthew Harding who if had not been killed in that helicopter Chelsea would have stayed English until his last breath, which would have many years alter if something very underhand happened on that bleak night coming home from a Chelsea and Bolton League Cup match. Matthew  would now have had Chelsea right up there with these German and Spanish clubs, trust me, and I might just have been a part of it instead of not even being offered a ticket by the Russians and American “suits” who run my hometown club.

Lastly, the one bright light for England was Steve Bruce showing Manchester United that they might have been better looking his way instead of David Moyes by keeping Hull City afloat in the Premier League and pushing Arsenal all the way yesterday and had Arsenal left back Kieran Gibbs had not had got his head to Steve’s son’s header – what match young Bruce had – then Hull City would have been home and hosed by taking a 3-0 lead into the half-time interval. I’m delighted for Steve and wrote to him after his semi-final win over Sheffield United to congratulate him, although I don’t know him – because it was quite refreshing to see an Englishman of some true grit and someone who knows class, doing well for a change. They only thing that would have been better would have been had that semi-final been the actual FA Cup final which would have seen his opposite number Nigel Clough – back his team to win League One next season – walk out beside him to erase the memory of an all= German final at Wembley last year, an all-Spanish affair to come and the sight of a French winner yesterday, As a former Arsenal player I’m delighted for my old friend Ken Friar who I saw there on my TV screen in the Royal Box but that part there is not much English about the Emirates these days, unless you overlook a Stoke-on-Trent lad sitting beside the Frenchman, a Blurton born Steve Bould, who I talked into joining Arsenal instead of Everton way back in the Eighties.