August 9th – Turnip And Swede
(49 days since England’s World Cup exit)
No LIE TO ME on this Saturday morning but I spoke of Tim Roth’s assistant and could not resist showing her photograph, for if I had an assistant (I supose a little like Sven Goran-Eriksson) she would be exactly like Monica Raymund.
Cal Lightman’s stunning assistant Ria Torres played by Monica Raymund
Ross Barkley needs giving freedom of Brazil
Oxade-Chamberlain needs disciplinary role
With the Championship opening up the season last night I look back to the World Cup and this was exactly what I wrote before a ball was kicked:
THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY
Although it has been no different from any other lead up to a World Cup with those media and TV pundits losing track of our history whilst dilly-dallying over our chances in Brazil, it is to me is a simple case of the title.
There were very few things learned with the one thing for certain that our best chances of at least giving us a glimmer of not hope but the usual embarrassment came in the glimpses of Barkley and Oxade-Chamberlain. The only times we looked a capable international outfit worthy of any substance was when one of these two were in possession. I would give the Everton star, and he is a star, carte Blanche and also allow him the freedom of Brazil. The other player, whose father I played with at Stoke City, must have a more holding role and by that I mean a little more disciplined role of breaking at the right time. Both players look dangerous when going forward and that is the most outstanding thing to take out of the match in Miami, the bad is Oxade-Chamberlain taking an injury out of the game and the ugly was a rash tackle and sending-off for Liverpool’s Rasheem Sterling when making a tackle which was more one of excitement and naivety than rude. The rude will come with the awakening to a player who needs to be given some kind of aid from those who not only select him but surround him.
England will find it tough enough with eleven players on the pitch over the next fortnight and like the David Beckham incident – a childish incident from Golden Balls – he must be taught a lesson. The problem Roy Hodgson has after this incident is “Can we risk him when the real tournament begins?” Well, it is going to be that tight against the Italians, who will not be giving an inch in earnest, and they are opponents who are superior in these situations and in competition fierce. The one thing that astounds me is player’s going into tackles like this in warm-up matches and although some will argue, for me there is a time and a place for real aggression. We all know from the Champions League that referees will wave a card at you like ‘Coco the Clown’ at a kiddies party and they will not need any help when it comes to card waving. We are going to find it hard enough without rashness and the way I see it is that when the Brazilian dust settles and everyone has left this poor excuse for a World Cup competition – even Pele agrees – we will hear all the same excuses all over again. So Roy, nip it in the bud right now, before a ball has bounced. The reason I came back to this is that every time a European or World Cup comes to a disastrous end we carry on as if nothing has happened. You might get a few ruffles from certain areas but it all dies down and those at the FA get their holidays booked for the following one. Four years ago I was standing in a pub in Stoke-on-Trent explaining to the locals that England had no chance on the morning of the Germany match and just for a laugh I bought a German shirt of a lad named Johnny Pugh (who has hung himself since, though nothing to do with the result) and wore it for the match. Those who turned up found it a little distasteful but sometimes you have to do things like that to get what you say to sink in. And, as everyone who knows me will tell you I have been anti-England since firstly/my three year ban and then/ after never getting selected again by Don Revie after playing in two matches. The first was a Man of the Match performance against West Germany (who were World Champions) before they dropped the ‘West’ beating the Franz Beckenbauer led nation 2-0, and then a European Championship match where Malcolm MacDonald got all five goals. I don’t think that he played again either, although at that time I took no notice of who was selected by the former Leeds United manager. Since then, they have picked some pretty average players who went on to gain many international caps under several average managers. We’e gone from a ‘Turnip’ to a ‘Swede’ and back with a lot of vegetable like players, where a cabbage springs to mind… I love the programme before every World Cup where they film the Worst England XI and this year was brilliant.
Graham Taylor thought Carlton Palmer a ‘world class’ midfield player?
The film shows exactly how bad a nation we are and those managers that selected such players must either sit there counting their money whilst sipping their finest wine, don’t turn the TV on, sit there unknowingly that it was their fault or simply cringe in horror. Take you pick, either way they walk away with a fortune and as the saying goes. “Nice work if you can get it?” Although Roy Hodgson has made a “pigs ear” of this World Cup, especially after saying after the European Championships that it was not his team and he needed a couple of years to change that.
Sven had a better eye for a lady than a player – here he is with his Nancy Dell’Olio…
And then after Rio he pleaded for two more years, I must bring up the two foreign managers who were a total disgrace with the Swede (who I thought was one of Abba the way he acted around the place and of course there was the ‘Money, Money, Money’) Sven Goran Eriksson making more positive moves on the female staff than his players did on the field of play, and then the Italian Fabio Capello who did not know what to do about the John Terry/Wayne Bridge affair, although the affair was not between them but a beautiful young lady who was bedding half the Chelsea team, allegedly. Whilst the Germans were getting it right throughout all of this our national game was being not only laughed at but dragged through the gutter, and the only saving grace was that the old ‘Fleet Street Gang’ were not about. Had they been I would have been in ‘The Stab’ and my mate Tommy Nicholson’s old pub ‘The Cartoonist’ joining in the fun with the likes of Jeff Powell, Nigel Clarke, Bob Driscoll, Ken Montgomery and Brian Madley and oh boy, what a time it would have been. I think I might have written a book about their stories alone.
It would have made JR and Dallas look ******.
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