Bored with an England football coach who hardly ever loses a competitive game and irritated by his getting more sex with hot foreign babes than they ever will, tabloid journalists (and many of their readers) finally get what they wanted all along:
England’s new manager to be homegrown: British or Irish candidate with ‘passion’ a priority
I can see the interviews now:
“Yes, yes, José, your understanding of the latest techniques in physiological acclimatization and your multilingual communications skills are all very well, but, basically, at the end of the day, we’re looking for someone with a Northern accent who CAN SHOUT A LOT and barely speak English without resorting to footie clichés. And it would also help us a great deal if you can sign the “one once-glamorous blonde wife and no girlfriends” clause in our contract with a clear conscience.”
I hope England win the World Cup. PooterGeek will be dishing out the humble pie again with serious “passion”.
Do you feel any better about your Quattro Stagioni tasting like shit if the menu claims the people making it are “passionate about pizzas”? No. It’s not about passion; it’s about winning. Passion is what Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards had; winning is what Steve “let’s crush some dreams” Redgrave did.
ere pooter – leave off our Eddy. Amongst his other great services to mankind, he helped hack the old plaster off the walls of our crumbling villa. Cheltenham will always remain proud of one of its greatest ever sons. And that Steve’s a bit of a wossname; he was hired at huge expense to give us a motivation talk, it worked for the ladies I think….
In the 11 times England have reached the post-war World Cup finals, we’ve only won it once. This leads me to conclude that, by and large, English managers are rubbish. There’s nothing more depressing than listening to players – this means you Alan Shearer – now saying that England must be for the English. It reminds me of darker days altogether.
While I agree that the nationality of the manager is immaterial when it comes to how good they are, I’d’ve thought there ought to be a rule somewhere stating that he has to be English. If the FA can’t go picking great Italian or Czech players for the squad on the grounds that, well, it’s the English team and they’re not English, why not have the same rule for the manager? If the manager really can make a difference to the quality of the team, then surely managing is a part of the sport, and, if it’s a part of the sport, then England should have to produce a great manager for their national team just as they have to produce great players.
Needless to say, that’s something that I think should be applied to all sports with a national team and to all the different nations competing.
Sporting journalists (apart from the occasional Simon Barnes, who can write and think at the same time) are professional melodramatists.[George Szirtes]
Henry Winter and Jim White are fairly level headed.
Yes, Paulinus. I agree. Both readable, sometimes very readable. But you know what I mean.
I think it is because football is still, at roots, a working class sport involving, and run by, relatively uneducated, not wholly articulate working class people, people whose main articulacy is or was (in some cases, spellbindingly) physical.
The (ex-)broadsheets tend to think they are much smarter, with much smarter readers, so they patronise the players and managers by sucking up to the readership with pathetic literary or political allusions while flashing their bloky matiness.
I don’t mind that too much. What I can’t stand is their desire for sensation and gore at any price while smugly claiming moral stewardship of a game they regularly proclaim to be full of crooks and idiots.
Rich indeed from a bunch of short-term melodramatists and backstabbers motivated entirely by a need to sell papers.
Ah, class! The roar of the greasepaint, the smell of the crowd.
Here are the two key tips for playing football.
1) If you’ve got the ball and decide to pass it, pass it to a player in the same colour of shirt as yourself.
2) Always apply tip 1.
If English footballers were good enough to follow this advice, they’d win more competitions. Ditto Scots, Welsh, Irish. The rest is just talk.