Magic and Loss

The infamous magic of the FA Cup was hard to find around the Emirates over recent days. Their FA Cup loss to Manchester Utd was the club’s third significant loss in a fortnight, which must have left Wenger with much soul searching to do. Arsenal continue to play magnificently up to a point – the point where they really need to deliver results, many Arsenal fans now argue, and some of the natives are getting restless.

People calling for Arsene Wenger to quit, though, should consider that Arsenal consistently perform at the highest level and the margins at that level are slimmer than the man himself. Remember that the teams above Arsenal in the English Premier League are in financial wonderland and certainly not operable in any ordinary business sense. So be careful what you wish for – ask Charlton Athletic, Portsmouth or Leeds Utd. Arsenal's losses might be significant in terms of the history books, but any end of year report must encourage them to keep up the good work.

Whilst I am stepping off the pitch at sports coach UK I am already looking forward to the next game.  So, to my old team mates I say good bye and good luck:

REQUIEM FOR A TEAM

I am eight years old. We are Colwood Rangers. We are ploughing up hill first half.

Andy Gough: left winger, leaping squirrel – watch him go. Oh! He’s run out of pitch -

Again. Why does Craggis play him on the left? He is right footed.

I am thirty eight years old, remembering that first game. I scored two goals. I was

Good and got better. I lived for the flow of those hours; weekends when we played.

Then, innocence passed. And I saw how the game is – its horrifying glory.

One Love/ People Get Ready

As Arsenal brace themselves this week, (Jack Wilshire even suggesting that they need to be ‘a bit nasty’ towards their opponents - I wonder if Wenger saw that..!), many people are asking if the current Barcelona side is the best club side ever....? My seven year old nephew, who lives in the third most populous settlement in Staffordshire, stated that he supported Barcelona recently. Their appeal and reach transcends national leagues and global business territories. Where will all this end, I wonder...?

With football increasingly presenting itself as a hybrid of sport, entertainment and business it is easy to imagine that, in future, there might be one dominant global player in the football sector like there is in other industries such as facebook, social networking; youtube, creative visual media; twitter, briefly famous and Google, search engines and all the other places they are beginning to inhabit - though not the state of being evil, of course. The shift towards supporting one dominant football team could easily unfold once we have 100MB connectivity, unbundled broadcasting rights allowing the major clubs to stream their matches live and maybe a new world league comprising the top few teams from each territory (ie European Champions League, the South American Copa Libertadores and a concoction of revenue rich customers from the middle east, India and China).

But, wait a minute – consider this: as the football heritage has been unpacked over the last twenty years, aren’t we in danger of forgetting about how the fabric of football internationally, nationally and locally is so interwoven? If the mechanism for engaging with football locally is lost then the bigger tournaments will become less meaningful. Already for some, the preferred choice of engagement with football is by watching a live hook-up at 3pm on a Saturday (or whenever their team is scheduled to play). Aside from the legal implication, this does not look like a good model for engaging with football and will lead, ultimately, to a diminution and detachment from the playing/ participative side of football, in my opinion. One feeds the other. This might be the legacy of the Premier League marketing strategy - a generation of so called fans who do not participate in football or any sport - consumer society continues to go large.

With that in mind, I think that the whole pyramid from FIFA down to your local FA needs to resynchronise the football calendar to allow everyone a chance to engage with football in different ways. Something like the following might work:

- start the season in February (Jan winter break)

- March 2 wk window for international qualifiers/friendlies

- April 2 wk window for international qualifiers/friendlies

- June/July summer break (planning & periodisation in July)

- season recommences in August

- Sept 2 wk window for international qualifiers/friendlies

- Oct 2 wk window for international qualifiers/friendlies

- do not play any internationals outside these times

- Dec season end

- Jan break (winter World Cup on the equator then more feasible...?)

- 16 teams and 30 games for elite leagues globally to facilitate this

- reducing game time for elite players allows Champions League, Copa Libertadores, Euros, World Cups, etc to be played with less risk of fatigue or injury

- the result is better international tournaments with motivated players

- an additional benefit is that some interest and supporter base can be shifted and focussed periodically on teams and leagues further down the structure otherwise they are going to go bust.

It is not something that will happen quickly, I know, but I have factored in a decent planning cycle to kick off the debate. These are just initial thoughts and there’s no doubt a football special full of those willing to fight these ideas. But, can't we just make football itself, in all its local forms across each continent our one love – rather than having a love for just one team.  I love Barcelona. The way the play the game is wonderful. But I also love Stafford Rangers, Wolves and the England national team as well. I want them all to survive and prosper so that our children's children can play and support teams like them, too. Do you?

End of Year Review

At the start of the year everything seemed full of hope and promise. It ended badly. Way back in February, Terry and June made a nostalgic comeback, but the script was different and Wayne Bridge found himself written out.

Despite an extraordinary qualifying campaign by Captain Capello, confidence was not high for the WC2010 tournament itself. The English Media were going large, as usual. The way some of them were presenting it, we were nailed on to show our ‘spirit’ and ‘tempo’ to quick-step our way through the group before marching on together to the final. It’s like being in an abusive relationship with the British media. Despite your better judgement, you begin to believe what they are trying to tell you so that this time maybe, just maybe....

For example, after the Japan friendly end May, when we managed to win only by way of 2 hari kiris, I see the picture with a haiku:

Rustenberg sun melts
Thoughts of Graz and Wembley grass.
Victory awaits.

After the Algeria game and when we finally staggered out of our group I did another:

Bloemfontein horn fans
Deaf the ear. Acapella
You have no chance here.

My blog started with the Germany game. I am still bemused with the lack of consensus , commitment and direction. Whilst few are reading my blog so far, I am hoping to get a grip and change this in 2011 by deploying a general principle of physics: a little bit of force applied over a large area. Look out for a survey  that will try, for the first time anywhere as far as I am aware, to address the basic problems (see Juror #8 from my 12 Angry Men post, 28 December).

12 Angry Men

It's the festive quiz, but the mood is 'Bah Humbug'. Battered in Bloemfontein;  Blattered in December when FIFA crossed the FA off their Christmas card list, there is little festive cheer on offer across the UK football landscape this year.  

I have tried to transfer the spirit of the jurors' characters from Sydney Lumet's classic 1958 film into a club V country context, where some prominent football people have said the following this year.  Can you can guess who said what and when? 

 # 1
"It looked to me as if the English have gone backwards into the bad old days of kick and rush....  The English are being punished for the fact that there are very few English players in the Premier League as clubs use better foreign players from all over the world." 


#2

“We can't get the money to support our youth programmes,” he said. “We've been treading water for 2 years. There's more money in the game than ever before, but I don't see us in ten years' time having capitalised on it......  “What's happened over the last two or three years is that everyone accepted there were different levels of standards at academies and we at the FA tried through the technical control board to implement programmes. We did a report at the end of 2005 involving the Premier League, Football League and the FA to identify clubs who weren't up to scratch. We wrote to the leagues to show how we could help, but unfortunately we were told we didn't have the power to do that...... We should be soaking their knowledge up like a sponge. We want to go out as the governing body to help all those clubs and do in-service work. But there's been a vacuum. As a country we're not maximising our possibilities. We should have better depth of young English players...... “Most people know that the FA can't impact on anything to do with youth development in the professional game. I have produced a document about coaching and the grassroots programmes are going well. We have to persuade our decision-makers at the FA to fund our own programmes. That is a decision for the professional game board half of the organisation.”...... “If we want better English players and better coaching resources, that should be the role of the governing body. The professional game is reluctant for the FA to be the independent arbitrator. When it goes to a vote, we're outvoted.”

#3

"I cannot for the life of me understand why we have played so badly.  We were so bad.  I do not honestly know what to say.  I did not know what to say and you know what?  After twenty five minutes I said, d’you know something, I just do not fancy us here.  We were...we could not trap the ball....it was ridiculous...I could not understand what was going on...  Mickey....as much as you think I am joking I was thinking, ‘has somebody poisoned the boys?’.....embarrassing.....You know what?  Can I tell you....I got this thing, right?  With my mates, Scots mates, with all my mates & everybody else Irish you got to answer the phone.  I was on the phone last night ‘till 2 O-Clock getting stick from my mates.  When Germany lost I was on the phone loving it, when France lost I was lovin’ it, when Spain lost I was loving it.  Last night I was on the phone till 2O-clock and I did not have one excuse why we played like that because there is none.  And I tell you the most.... the worst thing I have seen for a long time from a player....and....and....it’s the state.....the, the mind of a current footballer, is for Wayne Rooney to come off and actually.... say anything when he played like he played.  That sums up our...our current top end footballers are thinking right now...’cause for me Jamie Carragher hit the nail on the ‘ead.  There’s people who’ve lost jobs.  They’ve gone out there to watch the boys do their stuff.  Give us the hope that we all want.  We all wanna be here....wanting to be lifted by the guys and we are being EMBARRASED around the world!!!.....They’ve got to know this.....

They’ve all go’ to take, .... they all gotta take a part of the blame They are a team.  They’re all together in it.  The manager doesn’t say, ‘right – go out there and when you do well I’m not gonna get no credit and when the players do well, they,... it’s, .... a.....they’re in it together whatever needs to be done.  There’s enough money be paid to enough people for them to be playin’ a lot better than they are......and I don’t like to throw the money in.... but they get paid the money to deliver the goods.... They need to sort that out.  That is not right.... in any situation..... if we do not qualify serious questions have got be asked about moneys to, to players,.. and... how much money is in the game....how much do players actually want it?..... how much do they understand what it means to the normal man in the street.?..for the four years, every four years the world cup comes along...even the women are sittin’ there watchin’ it because it gives us a lift....when is somebody gonna be able to transmit that through to the players..?  For the players to realise what they are actually doin’ there??  Do the players actually understand that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for people..?  I would have given anything to have played in the World Cup"

#4
"What’s important in these things is that one... tries to move things forward, but with the consent and working with one’s board. This is not something one can do on one’s own and to get the FA board onside and working in what you might call progressive areas I think is really important...... I think, if I had one quality it is working with people and different sorts of people....

...But, yes... I think it needs bringing together somewhat, in a cohesive way and as with all organisations you either go backwards or forwards in life, and with this one we want to go forwards...... What, I would rather say at this stage... is that I intend to spend the next five or six weeks.... talking to a lot of people within football, outside football,... er, and getting a consensus of feel, get really fully briefed and then deal with those issues. I think bridges need rebuilding, I am sure with external, with FIFA and so on..., I will try and address that later on....I’m hoping to be able to talk quite extensively to the outside world and to the media and so on, ... after my appointment to address some of these things in more detail.

I think I would prefer to see the best manager possible manage England. If he was English that would probably be preferable for .... obvious reasons... I think there is probably a national desire for that, but I can’t say more than that at this stage. All things being equal, er, but above all the best manager. I want to see a winning England team in due course. My job would be a lot easier if the England team was winning matches so anything that works towards that I am all in favour of."

#5

"YEEHHS,..... YEEHS,...IT’S A GOAL, ... IT’S A GOAL, ..... IT’S A GOAL, ....IT’S GOAL.......IT’S A GOAL,....... IT’S A GOAL,......... IT’S A GOAL,...................................... IT’S A GOAL,......... IT’S A GOAL,.......BOOOOOOOH,.................BOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHH, IT’S A GOAL,.......... IT’S A GOAL,............OOOOAAAAAARRRRGGGHHHHH!....MILES OVER THE LINE....ARE YOU FIFA??  YOU SHOULD HAVE VIDEO.....OOAARRGGH.... IT’S THIS FAR OVER", [unimaginable hand gestures]

#6
‘The FA just sit on they're backsiad and do nothin' tournement after tournement. Why don't they listen?  Why don't they look at other coun’ries an’ say, ‘How do they keep producing talent?’.... We coach talent out of players....  Where is the plan B?  We haven’t got one! ....We lack so many ideas and it’s so frustrating.....  The amount of money ....that is wasted on rubbish ideas...."

#7
"We don’t think there’s enough young players encouraged early enough, we don’t think they get enough coaching early enough, we think that is probably more of an issue for the grass roots of football than it is at the elite end.... In some ways the England team doesn’t belong to us, it certainly doesn’t belong to those of us who have got elite professional clubs. It belongs to the nation, number one; it belongs to the Football Association..... Well there isn’t, you know, there isn’t much that we do.....o a ooh a, if you could list, you know, example, the things that we could do that might help.....?"

#8
"My hope is that David Bernstein, with the great talents that he’s got, yes, he has diplomatic skills; yes, he has business skills; yes, he is a very good person....I am still an idealist enough to believe that some of these people can work together and I hope for example, that David Bernstein will include David Dein in the work that he does..., the worst thing that could happen today is that David Dein’s international skills and the international regard that he has are lost to football forever...... I still haven’t lost my belief that if only the game could be brought together by somebody who has the skills to do that, without, frankly, some of the impediments that we in this last generation found ourselves having to deal with, ... the problems are basically there whoever the chairman is....

- the absence of agreed priorities for the game as a whole,

- the dysfunctional structure of the game,

- the glaring failures of corporate governance in football in this country

.... talked about reforming the FA.  This is not about reforming the FA, it is about reforming football as a whole in this country...... The question is, can he bring the various talents around the football world, can he bring those talents together in a way that predecessors found it impossible to do..? The truth of the matter is....as Alan Sugar said himself very recently, you could have a combination of, err, Alan Sugar, David Dein, Digby Jones – you know, some of the great business people over the years, throw in the late Mother Theresa as well...unless you address the structural issues and the corporate governance issues and, above all, decide what the priorities of our football are, you will never make real progress."

#9
England took little interest in FIFA and allowed Harry Cavan from Northern Ireland to sit on the FIFA executive for 30 years from 1960 to 1990. Over this period, eight men sat in the Oval office of the White House, but Harry just went on. Eventually, after a reign by David Will of Scotland, Geoff Thompson did secure the post for England but it required an almighty struggle with the other home nations.

What makes this even more peculiar is this seat on the FIFA executive is reserved for the British home nations. No other country has such a privilege. England is the dominant home nation and for it not to have had the seat since the 1950s was amazing. It showed a callous neglect of this valuable position and a wretched handling of international relations by the FA.

#10

"My new, big idea is called ‘a new model for partnership"

#11

"You can’t do things at 21, it’s too late.... this is something you learn at an early stage. This is what I am really concerned about. You know, I ‘ave been working in this country for 7 years.... and I’m living in the country at the moment. If you want to think about the future, you need to do something RIGHT NOW, because tonight in the first half you ahve the prefect example, of what could, should be football... the passing game,...how to hold the ball, how to wait and not rushing for things... waiting the right opportunity...and this is what England are not capable of doing. And this is not regarding Capello, or the tactics or playing in 4 4 2s or things like that. Is the quality! ‘Ave you got the players able to play as the French? At the moment? No!! The answer is No. Will you ‘ave this opportunity in the future? Is up to you...but you need to do something RIGHT NOW because you must improve the quality of English players to allow them to ‘ave great performance as the national players in the national team in great competitions. And at the moment you ‘ave the perfect example that skill wise the English players are really, really not at the level......

You ‘ave to go back to the basics and the basics comes from the grass roots. When you have got 6, 7, 8 years old. This is when you learn ‘ow your capabilities, your skills, ....This is something you learn at an early stage in your life.... so, when you reach 14 you already ‘ave things in your bag - skill wise..... and after you learn how to fight... you learn how to be a team mate you learn how to think, but your skills are already there – you don’t learn skills at 21"

#12

"To be honest, I was surprised by all the English complaining after the defeat. England, of all people, the motherland of fair play ideas - now some of them are showing themselves to be bad losers.  You can’t come afterwards and say so and so promised to vote for England. The results are known. The outcome came out clearly.....  I really sense in some reactions a bit of the arrogance of the western world of Christian backgrounds.  Some simply can’t bear it if others get a chance for a change.....”

The Twelve Days of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

Joe Hart and time-trav’l-ability.

On the second day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

Two Vivian And’sons,

And Joe Hart and time-trav’l-ability.

On the third day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

Three Ash Coles,

Two Vivian And’sons,

And Joe Hart and time-trav’l-ability.

On the fourth day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

Four Glenn Hoddles,

Three Ash Coles,

Two Vivian And’sons,

And Joe Hart and time-trav’l-ability.

On the fifth day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

Five Bobby Moores,

Four Glenn Hoddles,

Three Ash Coles,

Two Vivian And’sons,

And Joe Hart and time-trav’l-ability.

On the sixth day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

Six Billy Wright’s,

Five Bobby Moores,

Four Glenn Hoddles,

Three Ash Coles,

Two Vivian And’sons,

And Joe Hart and time-trav’l-ability.

On the seventh day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

Seven David Beckhams,

Six Billy Wrigh-ight’s,

Five Bobby Moores,

Four Glenn Hoddles,

Three Ash Coles,

Two Vivian And’sons,

And Joe Hart and time-trav’l-ability.

On the eighth day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

Eight Bobby Charltons,

Seven David Beckhams,

Six Billy Wrigh-ight’s,

Five Bobby Moores,

Four Glenn Hoddles,

Three Ash Coles,

Two Vivian And’sons,

And Joe Hart and time-trav’l-ability.

On the ninth day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

Nine Ge-off Hu-rsts,

Eight Bobby Charltons,

Seven David Beckhams,

Six Billy Wrigh-ight’s,

Five Bobby Moores,

Four Glenn Hoddles,

Three Ash Coles,

Two Vivian And’sons,

And Joe Hart and time-trav’l-ability.

On the tenth day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

Ten Pa-ul Gascgoines,

Nine Ge-off Hu-rsts,

Eight Bobby Charltons,

Seven David Beckhams,

Six Billy Wrigh-ight’s,

Five Bobby Moores,

Four Glenn Hoddles,

Three Ash Coles,

Two Vivian And’sons,

And Joe Hart and time-trav’l-ability.

On the eleventh day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

Eleven Chrissy Waddles,

Ten Pa-ul Gascgoines,

Nine Ge-off Hu-rsts,

Eight Bobby Charltons,

Seven David Beckhams,

Six Billy Wrigh-ight’s,

Five Bobby Moores,

Four Glenn Hoddles,

Three Ash Coles,

Two Vivian And’sons,

And Joe Hart and time-trav’l-ability.

On the twelfth day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

Twelve Rooneys Running*,

Eleven Chrissy Waddles,

Ten Pa-ul Gascgoines,

Nine Ge-off Hu-rsts,

Eight Bobby Charltons,

Seven David Beckhams,

Six Billy Wrigh-ight’s,

Five Bobby Moores,

Four Glenn Hoddles,

Three Ash Coles,

Two Vivian And’sons,

And Joe Hart and time-trav’l-ability!

* Rooney only gets some game time if he starts to play properly again - and brings a ball...