Three and in – not just another football blog

‘My best moment? I have a lot of good moments but the one I prefer is when I kicked the hooligan.’ – Eric Cantona

‘Now we have to wait to see this issue decided and then the Manchester player and I will have to clear things up. Depending on who ends up in the wrong, one of us will have to apologise.’ – Luis Suarez

This Saturday lunchtime, Manchester United will travel to Liverpool for the fourth round of the FA Cup. United’s left back, Patrice Evra, is likely to receive the worst abuse seen on these shores since Sol Campbell crossed the North London divide. I write these words seventeen years to the day since I sat, an impressionable 10 year old, a few feet from my idol as he attempted to quite literally kick racism out of football. Pros and ex pros from every club supported Cantona, the general consensus being not shock that it had happened but merely surprise that it didn’t happen more frequently. A divisive Frenchman taking exception to racist language? Plus ça change. Thousands of words have been written about the Luis Suarez incident but nobody seems willing to accuse the Uruguayan of one significant offence. Being a racist.

Tony Evans, Times writer and Liverpool fan, wrote an excellent piece about his disappointment at the majority of LFC fans supporting the striker but still insisted Suarez had been guilty only of ‘using racist language.’ Indeed, this is the nature of the FA charge. Racist language. Even amongst the United blogs, highly critical of Liverpool and their talisman, most pieces contained a caveat insisting they were not accusing the striker of racism, simply of employing racist language. This seems to have been the case across the board. It’s the footballing equivalent of the argument we’ve all had in which the semantics of whether someone is/is being an arsehole are debated at length. Well, enough is enough.

Let’s try putting it another way; if a man rapes someone, we tend to brand him a rapist. Nobody says things like, ‘Oh yes, he did rape someone on that occasion but really he’s not that kind of bloke.’ But with the race issue it’s totally different. What a difference a letter makes. It’s much like the ‘not that kind of player’ defence used after a player has committed a dreadful foul ending the season of a fellow professional. Just once I’d like someone to come out and say, ‘He is that kind of player, this was an accident waiting to happen.’ Who is that kind of player? And, more importantly, who are these mythical racists? Where do they live? Nick Griffin has consistently stated the BNP is not a racist party so clearly it’s acceptable to say what you like so long as you simply deny the allegations.

For what its worth, I do think Suarez is a racist. Does this mean I think he rues the abolition of slavery? No. But, as the late Patrice O’Neill so memorable stated, not all racist walk around wearing pointy hats. Or, as another comedian, Bill Burr, pointed out, ‘real racism is subtle’:

Suarez admits using the offensive term word at least once. I have played in hundreds of football games in my life and never uttered a racial slur. In return, nobody has ever referred to me as a ‘yid’ during such a match and if they had I wouldn’t waste time analysing the precise nuances of their tone. The cultural argument holds no water since Suarez has played in Europe for years. The idea that it was jocular is a nonsense given the comments were made during a heated exchange with a Manchester United player during a spiky encounter at Anfield. A racist word was used in a bid to rile Evra, ergo the offender was guilty of racism. Michael Richards from Seinfeld is branded racist for his ill-advised rant at the Laugh Factory but at least he was attempting (utterly without success) to be humorous. Suarez was seeking simply to provoke. And he should not be let off lightly. Some have claimed an eight game ban is Draconian but most people would be sacked for a similar comment in the workplace.

Almost as bad as the incident itself was the response of Liverpool Football Club as they lurched from one PR disaster to another seemingly only able to dig a larger hole for themselves. First the preposterous sight of Suarez donning a T-shirt in support of himself greeted us. Dalglish besmirched his reputation as the finest player in Liverpool’s history not only by shifting the blame entirely onto Evra but also, perhaps the worst of his offences, wearing the shirt himself. Not a good look on a 60-year-old man. As Paul McGrath suggested, how much classier might it have seemed to warm up wearing Kick It Out tops? Clearly nobody had a word with the Liverpool PR department as Alan Hansen spent the evening using the word ‘coloured’ on Match of the Day before ‘God’ himself (Robbie Fowler) blacked up for a night out dressed as Lionel Richie and rather foolishly tweeted a photograph. Stay classy, Merseyside.

Liverpool seem concerned people think of the club as inherently racist. I do not. Football clubs aren’t sentient beings. It calls to mind Stewart Lee mocking the ‘values of the Carphone Warehouse’ as they attempted to extricate themselves from another race row, on Big Brother. The Carphone Warehouse values involve only selling phones and Liverpool’s are only football related surely. This persecution complex and martyrdom of the Uruguayan aids nobody. Ferguson didn’t instruct the United players to wear T-shirts all those years ago, he calmly weighed up the situation before making any public pronouncements. Dalgligh needs to realise, like Walter White in Breaking Bad, actions have consequences. Oldham’s Tom Adeyemi must have thought the trip to Anfield would be the highlight of his career to date yet it was marred by racial abuse from the Kop that reduced the young midfielder to tears. There can be little doubt that this would not have happened without all that came before. This is a simple case of cause and effect and the Liverpool manager has to shoulder some responsibility.

All football fans tend to be tarred with the same brush but it’s a broad spectrum. The fact that Emmanuel Adebayor is the Spurs player who has had monkey noises directed at him when his team-mate is Gareth Bale illustrates just how stupid supporters can be. That said, I can recall a time when racial abuse was commonplace in the stands, not least that remarkable night in 1995, and I found it genuinely heart-warming to see Suarez booed away at Wigan. Broadly speaking, as a society, we have moved from booing black players to booing racists.

This is a bigger issue than just Liverpool and Manchester United. John Terry meets Anton Ferdinand again this weekend standing by his assertion that he was simply incredulously repeating the racist abuse the QPR defender was accusing him of. Gus Poyet then needlessly weighed in to do little more than sully my generation’s memory of him as wonderful player. The Terry defence is as ludicrous as Matthew Simmons (Eric’s detractor in the vile leather jacket) claiming he was simply shouting ‘Off you go for an early bath.’ André Villas-Boas, like Dalglish, responded to the allegation by immediately stating he would support his captain ‘no matter what’. I don’t understand this. Surely if it’s proven that Terry hurled racial abuse at an opposing player then he should lose the support of his manager. Particularly given England’s Brave’s status as the pantomime villain of British football. And I write as somebody who takes the ball to the corner flag to wind down the clock when playing computer games.

Despite the quotation at the top of the page, Suarez has singularly refused to issue an apology to Evra, opting instead for a Jeremy Clarkson style ‘I’m sorry if anyone was offended by my comments’ cop-out. Or should that be Kop-out? And so the fires continue to rage. If I can be permitted recourse to one final bit of stand-up comedy, there is an old Eddie Murphy routine in which he talks about walking along the street behind an elderly white couple. Feeling nervous, they stop to let Eddie pass. The anecdote concludes with the comic asserting, ‘Well I was so offended I just went ahead and mugged them.’ When the Liverpool fans abuse Evra on Saturday as a direct result of him reporting a racist incident that damaged their club’s reputation, they will be making just as much sense. And we all know where such taunting can lead.

United fan Darren Richman plays tribute to his club’s extraordinary manager.

-

‘People say mine was a poor upbringing. I don’t know what they mean. It was tough, but it wasn’t bloody poor. We maybe didn’t have a TV. We didn’t have a car. We didn’t even have a phone. But I thought I had everything, and I did: I had a football.’

On the final day of the 2000/2001 Premier League season, Manchester United played Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane. Coming as it did, just a few months before the remarkable 5-3 at the same venue, this match is not so well remembered. With the league already wrapped up, the game was largely an irrelevance for those of us standing in the away section. United lost 3-1 and, unlike our next trip to the Lane, very little about the occasion sticks in the mind. Bar one thing. For the duration of the second half, without interruption, the fans sang ‘Every single one of us loves Alex Ferguson’ ad infinitum. Forty-five minutes without a break, the longest sustained piece of chanting I have ever heard. You see Sir Alex Ferguson had talked about retiring at the end of the season. We had come to praise Caesar, not to bury him. Part thanks, part plea, the noise would not let up. And though received wisdom suggests repetition leads to a loss of meaning, on that particular day nothing could have been further from the truth.

Fast forward a decade. Three weeks ago Fergie celebrated twenty-five years at the helm. On the day that the North Stand was renamed in his honour, I texted a friend to remind him of another day, in 1998, when an acquaintance of ours had suggested it was about time the gaffer was handed his P45. This pal, a Spurs fan, texted back with the words, ‘I can’t wait until you have a normal, human manager.’ Quite. In his very first set of programme notes all those years ago, plain old Alex wrote ‘A man is very fortunate if he gets the opportunity to manage Manchester United in his lifetime and I can assure you that I have no intention of wasting my opportunity.’ Consider us assured. We used to taunt the City fans with chants of ‘25 years, fuck all.’ Perhaps we should replace the expletive with ‘it’ and direct the song at the man for all seasons.

I deliberately decided to postpone writing this piece in order to let the dust settle and the clamour subside a little. I have a friend who will only watch an American drama box set once the series has come to an end as he feels one should not judge things contemporarily. Much as I agree with the sentiment, Sir Alex ain’t off any time soon and I felt I had to write something this decade.

Though gushing, the bulk of the press coverage of this remarkable milestone focused on the myth rather than the man. The papers have always preferred archetypes and love to paint Ferguson as the furious masticator, angrily berating his players for any perceived inadequacies, not much of a tactician but a masterful man manager ruling with an iron fist. Though tempting, this somewhat misses the point. Cristiano Ronaldo, for one, has claimed he never saw a single example of the famous hairdryer treatment during his six years at United. Mark Hughes coined the phrase in relation to his old mentor way back when but people change and none with quite as much success as Sir Alexander Chapman Ferguson.

In that same set of programme notes, that mission statement, Ferguson, perhaps surprisingly, insisted he was not interested in the past, concluding ‘there is only one way to go, and that is forward.’ This is the man’s entire M.O. in microcosm. Alvy Singer was right, a relationship is like shark and does have to constantly move forward or it dies. It’s just that in this case the relationship is with a football club. It is a simple case of adapt or die.

To paraphrase another manager with a decent claim to be amongst the greatest ever to have drawn breath, Brian Clough, I wouldn’t say Ferguson is the greatest manager ever to have lived. But he’s certainly in the top one. Clough, of course, made the claim about himself and yet, for all his success, Fergie rarely talks about himself and the extent of his achievements. Even the twenty-fifth anniversary was marked only by his insistence on extolling the virtues of the great players he feels he’s been ‘lucky’ enough to work with down the years. Winning is everything, the glorification of the Ferguson name means nothing. For all the flak he has received over time, I cannot think of a decision he has made that wasn’t at least intended to be for the good of Manchester United football club. His outbursts are never about showmanship or a desire to be the centre of attention (an accusation that could be levelled at Clough on occasion and Mourinho more readily in recent years). Even the feud with the BBC suggested a man unfussed by how history will remember him. Or perhaps he realises it tends to be written by the winners.

The difference between the two managerial heavyweights is aptly summed up, oddly enough, with reference to Frank Sinatra. The idol of both coaches, the Forest legend once claimed of ol’ blue eyes, ‘he met me once.’ This soundbite is quintessentially Clough; pithy, witty, arrogant but brilliant. Sinatra did not meet Ferguson though. In 1989 the two were supposed to have dinner together. United lost away at Charlton during the day leaving the boss in such a foul mood that he cancelled dinner and went home on the bus. It is one of the few decisions Ferguson regrets to this day and tells one a good deal about the nature of obsession. Watch his interviews carefully and you’ll notice the word ’challenge’ recurs more often than any other and he’s much more likely to reflect on the final day on the 1994/1995 season than any of the twelve title successes. The man will be seventy on New Year’s Eve and has won everything there is to win yet is still driven by an obsessive fear of failure. I happened to catch a quiz show between players and staff on MUTV last Christmas and Ferguson’s side wiped the floor with Giggs, Neville and Carrick. Not the strongest opposition perhaps but the manager’s single-mindedness shone through as he barely consulted his team-mates and still stormed to victory. I suspect in that moment they knew how Mike Phelan feels.

It is almost impossible in sport to compare different eras. For a multitude of reasons there can be little doubt that the Barcelona of today would beat the 1970 Brazil side. Context is everything and this doesn’t necessarily make modern Barcelona the greatest ever football team. What is remarkable about Fergie is the manner in which he has straddled the divide and succeeded in an era of Clough, violence and pitches resembling the Somme all the way up to the present day. The game is almost unrecognisable yet the result is identical. Perhaps the most significant thing you can say about the man is that the story of the Premier League is his story, the one constant pushing the narrative forward. The hero or anti-hero depending on where you came in the lottery of life. The protagonist.

Ferguson has risen to every fresh challenge over the quarter of a century he has managed United. Initially he had to overcome Liverpool and the weight of history, then he had to take on Blackburn and Jack Walker’s millions, Wenger’s Arsenal came next with some of the finest football ever seen on these shores, finally he bested Chelsea and Abramovich outlasting even the ‘special one’. For the record, Mourinho himself refers to Ferguson only as ‘the boss’. Hard to believe there was once a time when there was actual discussion of whether Wenger was the greater manager. Now Ferguson faces City and possibly the greatest challenge of his managerial career. I wouldn’t back against him having the last laugh.

On Yom Kippur this year I went to synagogue with a book of Ferguson quotes disguised as a prayer book and read it cover to cover. Initially I felt bad about breaking the second commandment on the holiest day of the year but then I recalled I need only beware false idols. It brought to mind a Passover choon entitled Dayenu in which we list all of the gifts God has bestowed on us (brought us out of Egypt, gave us the Torah, yada yada yada) and conclude each line with the titular word, the rough translation of which is ‘that would have been enough.’ Even just one such wonderful blessing would have sufficed.

If He had brought us our first title in 26 years? That would have been enough.
If He had brought us our first European trophy since ’68? That would have been enough.
If He had brought Cantona to the club? That would have been enough.
If He had brought home 2 European Cups? That would have been enough.
If He had placed us on top of a certain perch? That would have been enough.

A successful manager need simply get it right more often than he gets it wrong. In football, you don’t have to be good; you only have to be good enough. Last season’s title triumph was perhaps the most pragmatic of the twelve but in a sense that makes it Ferguson’s finest achievement. One could even argue it was a transition year and yet still his side ended the season as champions. The team reflected their maker, as always, and proved extremely difficult to beat. Even in his finest hour, the treble triumph, unprecedented in the history of English football, United, as so often before and since under Sir Alex, left it late. It happens too often to be deemed mere coincidence, that never-say-die attitude comes from the top. Fortune favours the brave. Pundits have lost count of the amount of great teams the man has fashioned, four or five at last check and always with an eye on the future. Put it this way, if I had access to just one immortality pill then I’d give it to Sir Alex Ferguson and die safe in the knowledge that I did the right thing. Football? Bloody hell.

Last season, when Rooney requested a transfer and all seemed lost, Ferguson delivered arguably the greatest performance of his reign. One could have formulated a hundred different ways to handle that situation and none would have been quite so effective. Ferguson opted not for silence, anger or histrionics but instead for emotion. He displayed his fragile side and allowed himself to look vulnerable, quite unheard of prior to that press conference. Like Mel Gibson in Ransom, he turned the situation on its head and used the cameras to his advantage with all the cunning and guile acquired through years of experience. One can only hope that, when May rolled around, some of the Premier League prize money was used to buy young Wayne a dictionary in order to look up the definition of ambition.

I believe, as a fan, the most one can hope for is that come April your team is still involved in some important games. For the best part of two decades United have been there or thereabouts in the league during the latter stages of the season along with an outstanding record in cup competitions. I was born in 1984 and as a result, in pure footballing terms, I know nothing of pain. I say this not to gloat but because I actually realise quite how lucky I have been. I trust Fergie enjoyed a decent glass of red on his silver anniversary. Here’s to another 25 years.

Although the pressmen of the 90s loved to characterise Ferguson and Wenger as polar opposites with the cultured, professorial Frenchman at odds with the abrasive Scottish football man, nothing could be farther from the truth. By all accounts Wenger has very few interests outside the game and spends his time almost exclusively viewing matches whereas over the years I have heard Ferguson espouse on topics ranging from Shakespeare and American military history to the Coen brothers and classical piano. Astonishingly well read, I wonder if Sir Alex has ever come across the following quote, from Jonathan Safran Foer, a particular favourite of mine and one which I used last year in a piece about Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes but bears repeating here I think:

‘If you love someone, you miss them while they’re still there.’

Every single one of us loves Alex Ferguson.

They say you can never go back.

As last season approached its dramatic denouement, giddy with excitement I decided to pick the best Manchester United XI of my time going to football matches (1988-present). Yes, these things are entirely subjective and mostly pointless but that doesn’t stop them being quite good fun. After due (or should that be Jew?) consideration, I went for Schmeichel in goal, a back four of Neville, Ferdinand, Stam and Irwin, a midfield comprising Ronaldo, Keane, Scholes and Giggs then Cantona and Van Nistelrooy up front. I picked substitutes too, primarily because I got carried away. On the bench then, Van Der Sar, Bruce, Vidic, Robson, Beckham, Solskjaer and Rooney. All under the watchful eye of Mike Phelan of course. It struck me that I really have been exceptionally lucky. No place in the squad for the likes of Cole, Kanchelskis, Evra, Sheringham, Fletcher or Yorke. Not the only notable omissions. I tweeted my verdict and immediately received a text from my brother, an Arsenal fan. ‘What about Hughes? You loved him as a kid.’ I did. I still do.

Now there is only one valid choice of favourite player for any United fan of my generation. King Eric. Le Dieu. But just as there is only one correct answer to the question, ‘who is your favourite Simpsons character?’ sometimes it’s worth thinking outside the box and determining a number two. And though he may not have even made my bench, best and favourite are not the same thing, and Sparky is unquestionably my Chief Wiggum.

Mark Hughes played for Manchester United from 1980 to 1986 then again from 1988 to 1995. During these two stints he notched up 467 appearances for the club and scored 163 goals. That tells the whole story in one sense but in another it tells you nothing. Those statistics are not the reason I loved the man and his tree trunk thighs. Age is a key factor. I am too young to remember Hughesy’s first spell at Old Trafford but his second neatly coincided with my burgeoning interest in the beautiful game.

One of my earliest sporting memories is the Welshman’s brace against Barcelona in the Cup Winners’ Cup Final of 1991. Both the competition and United’s goalkeeper on the day are no longer with us but to me it feels like yesterday. I can picture the second goal perfectly and regularly do. My mind’s eye always opts for the angle of the camera placed in the bottom right hand corner of the net. The ball breaks free, Sergio Busquets’ Dad (yes, really) comes charging out of his goal in those ridiculous tracksuit bottoms, Hughes knocks the ball past him but he’s gone too wide surely, Barry Davies thinks so, the 6 year old me thinks so, and then, from an impossible angle, bang, it nestles beautifully into that bottom corner. I didn’t know the game was against the former club at which he’d been deemed a failure, or that it was United’s first European trophy in 23 years, or that Barcelona were huge favourites on the night. It didn’t matter. Everything and everyone seems larger than life when you’re small and Leslie Mark Hughes seemed the biggest of the lot.

Fast forward to 1992. The inaugural Premier League season. I distinctly remember larking about with my toys on my own. In the next room my Dad is watching United take on Liverpool at Old Trafford. He had sat me in front of the European final but clearly decided a league game was less crucial in terms of building character. Still, the TV is on in here too even if I’m not focused on it. A cheer from the next room alerts me to the fact that United have pulled one back with ten minutes to spare. I look up and see it’s that man Hughes again. He’s lobbed Grobbelaar. It only dawns on me as I type this that it might just have been the first lob I ever saw. I put down Kermit and Fozzie and decide to watch the remainder of the game. Teams don’t come back from 2 goals behind surely? 90th minute. Diving header. Hughes, M.

Fast forward again, this time to 1994. I am by this stage an addict. I have seen lobs, headers, volleys, you name it. I’ve also seen my team win the title. As my Dad memorably told me ‘I’ve waited 26 years for this, you saw it in 2.’ I was blessed. And now United are on the verge double for the first time in their history. At this point I am well read on such matters and am aware of the fact that even the great Sir Matt Busby never managed to lead his side to the league and cup in the same season. Deep into extra time of the FA Cup semi-final and Oldham are 1-0 up. United look devoid of ideas. The ball is hopefully punted long, Oldham fail to clear, it hangs in the air for an eternity before Sparky strikes the sweetest volley you will ever see. Pandemonium in our household. We scream then run round the dining room table before collapsing in a bundle on the sofa in hysterics. He’ll hate me for mentioning this but it is the only time I can recall my brother celebrating a United goal before or since. Let the record show it was the goal that won the double. To this day if my team are behind late on I will implore them to ‘do an Oldham’.

We all have hundreds of such memories. People and places that perfectly evoke a time to which we can never return. Do I care that the lad from Wrexham went on to manage City? No. What I remember is my Dad’s VHS of the 1990 FA Cup final that I watched and rewatched at a time when live football on the TV was rare. Yet another double from Hughes. And the moment on the 92/93 season review video when Giggs skins his aging marker and the commentator says ‘it’s like a Mini trying to catch a Porsche’ then a pause as the young Welshman whips in a perfect cross for his compatriot to bury, concluding ‘and there’s the Rolls Royce waiting in the middle.’ Perhaps I think of those goals more often than the man himself, maybe that’s the nature of being a fan. Hughes was everything I’d like to be if I were a professional footballer and boy would I like to have been one. Strong, brave, a propensity towards scissor kicks and outrageous volleys that bordered on the staggering coupled with an incredible awareness and ability to hold the ball up. Calm and quiet off the field, quite the opposite on it. If my relationship with Wayne Rooney is much like Mad Men, almost impossible to love however hard I try, then Mark Hughes must be compared to The Sopranos. Pure, unadulterated enjoyment. And he had two spells for the club.

They say you can never go back. Fuck ‘em.

—

You can find ‘Big Ask’ on twitter here.

The worst ever England performance in a major tournament? Maybe, just maybe. As the dejected players trudged from the field after the Algeria game, the plea for kindness articulated in my last blog fell on deaf ears. The vuvuzelas were finally drowned out by, what else, the sound of English fans booing. Wayne Rooney, having played arguably the worst game of his professional career, looked down the lens of the nearest camera and uttered the following words:

‘Nice to hear your home (sic) fans boo you, that’s loyal supporters.’

Now, many things have troubled me since that woeful display on Friday night. Should the formation change for the Slovenia match? Was John Terry right to speak to the press before his manager? Why was Joe Cole taking a shower after the game? The latter one of many nuggets liberally sprinkled throughout Pavlos Joseph’s hilarious Sunday Mirror video exclusive. Whilst on the topic, how long ‘til that clown is given his own column in one of the dailies? One thing I can honestly say though is that I did not for one second feel aggrieved by Rooney’s comments or satiated when an apology was offered.

We’re a funny bunch, we English. By virtue of being Jewish, I have always thought of myself as being, in Hanif Kureishi’s words, ‘an Englishman born and bred, almost.’ From this vantage point, and without getting too political, I have been intrigued of late by the differing responses of acquaintances to significant world events. After the Gaza aid flotilla incident last month, my facebook feed was awash with statuses from Zionist friends akin to ‘- is prouder to be Jewish than ever before.’ After Friday, the bulk of the social networking activity I encountered revolved around pals ‘ashamed to be English’ or the like. A friend of mine believes nobody does pride quite like gays or grandparents. I would add Jews to the list, even if it does bugger up the alliteration slightly. Although perhaps there’s also a YouTube video doing the rounds showing the Algeria game from another angle which proves we were actually awesome. Somehow I doubt it.

Football is a game of opinions, never more so than in this country at this time. I expect little to no support on this issue but I simple wasn’t offended by Rooney’s words. Do I think it was a foolish thing to do? Yes. But then so was the press response. The day after the game you would think the papers were describing Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. Words like ‘disgraceful rant’ were being thrown around along with ‘England star shame’ as he ‘blasts’ and ‘lambasts’ the fans. Really? An ill-considered two line sarcastic comment in the heat of the moment from a player furious with himself and his teammates does not a hate speech make. Worse still, it’s a smokescreen. Any focus on the outburst simply served to shift attention away from the most abject display imaginable. Only in England.

I am not a booer. Never have been. In fact, I was brought up to not even ‘cuss people out’ if my team had beaten theirs, something I have always been very grateful for as football has a funny way of coming back to bite you in the arse if you do behave in such a manner. That being said, I can understand the frustration of those present who had spent thousands of pounds to be there. My attitude is that they are entitled to boo but I would prefer if they didn’t, like watching BBC Three. I am loath to agree with ‘England’s Brave’ John Terry on any issue but I thought he was right to suggest that such a response should be saved for Wednesday if we crash out, this was the equivalent of jeering at the 60 minute stage (66.6 recurring in fact but then my maths is probably better than EBJT’s). I have travelled an awful long way to witness some pretty abysmal performances over the years including a first half against Ecuador in the round of 16 four years ago in which England failed to work the keeper. Some around me expressed their displeasure; I couldn’t see the benefit. Indeed, if, as has been suggested in some quarters, the real reason for the poor form of England’s players thus far has been stage fright then abuse from their own fans seems somewhat counterintuitive. And I don’t buy the whole ‘we pay the money, we can do what we want’ line of argument because where does one draw the line? Homophobia? Racism? If it’s simply booing and nothing more then any fan is entitled to vent some spleen but, with the team still in the competition, how could it possibly help?

Almost two years ago, a pair of silly broadcasters made an inappropriate prank call to an elderly sitcom actor. Once alerted by the media, the public were apoplectic. A week or two later, the nation was outraged when a fat, old journalist who was really poor at dancing was criticised by professional dancers on a celebrity dancing show. In a wave of hysteria and anger on both sides of the fence, John Sergeant quit Strictly. I remember thinking then that things had been changed by Sachsgate and would never be the same again. There is now a culture of offence in this country like never before and it’s dictated by the tabloid press. Put it this way, do you think a single England fan present in Cape Town received a text from a friend watching on TV back home informing them of Rooney’s remarks proceeded to cry themselves to sleep? Again, I doubt it. That being said, if we play that badly again this afternoon I will be weeping into my pillow. And demanding apologies.

It’s so easy to laugh
It’s so easy to hate
It takes strength to be gentle and kind
The Smiths, ‘I Know It’s Over’

Morrissey. Not a man I usually look to for astute football analysis. Nor indeed a man noted for cheeriness of disposition. In this instance though, everyone’s favourite gladioli wielding vegan might just have the answer.

It is all too easy to complain about this World Cup and, as much applies, England’s prospects. The dullest first round of games in living memory has led to complaints about almost everything; the ball, the sound of the vuvuzela, the sound of commentators whinging about the vuvuzela, the speed at which Emmanuel Adebayor speaks, the abundance of deliberate handballs, players waving imaginary cards, a goal ratio of seemingly under 0 a game, etc etc ad nauseum. And that’s before you even get to England and the two slowest centre-backs in world football, a first-choice striker we begrudgingly accept won’t score goals, the lack of a winning mentality, a Mesut Ozil style playmaker or a trustworthy goalkeeper. You get the picture.

I cannot deny any of the above nor the fact that the tournament reached its absolute nadir with Ivory Coast opting to take a short corner and wind down the clock with the final kick against Portugal. Indeed, I am traditionally as pessimistic as they come with regards my sport. This time though, slagging England off and saying they stand no chance seems a bit, well, easy.

For one thing, it’s really hard to win a cup competition. I mean really hard. Put it this way, the Champions League has been going for 18 years now. It is not dissimilar to the World Cup in its format given teams begin the competition in a group before progressing to knockout competition. Now in that time, Sir Alex Ferguson, generally held to be a pretty decent manager, has won it only twice, once with two late goals having seen his side outplayed for 90 minutes and once on penalties. Similarly, Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal have failed to win the competition at all in over ten attempts. It is worth bearing in mind that this is a competition held every single year and yet two of the greatest managers this country has ever seen with some truly remarkable sides have struggled against foreign opposition. In short, you need a bit of luck to go all the way and this is never truer than in a quadrennial tournament.

Nothing has happened thus far to convince me England cannot do well in South Africa. Yes, a 1-1 draw against America might not send shockwaves around the globe but were we that much worse than Italy? Spain? France? Brazil? In terms of omens it is worth noting that we began competitions in ’66, ’90 and ’96 with draws against mediocre sides. Further still, a crap World Cup is surely the very (and perhaps only) sort we’re likely to win. Like any good Italian coach, Capello sets England up in a formation most likely to produce a 1-0 victory. Barring a one in a million aberration from the keeper, that’s precisely what we would have got against the U.S.A.

There seems to be less belief this time round than ever before. Less flags waving in the breeze, less New Order on the radio, less proclamations of greatness. No expectations whatsoever. Long may it continue. Let’s lull the world into a false sense of security. Even the adverts are restrained this year with Kit Kat advising us to ‘cross our fingers’ and The Sun, traditionally the most fervent and optimistic of all our rags, putting it best.

Maybe. Just maybe.