Wimbledon fans must not be divided over FA Cup tie

The press are variously describing it as a 'mouth-watering tie' and a 'grudge match' but neither are really accurate.  The FA Cup second round tie between Milton Keynes Dons and Wimbledon is not really a grudge match as there is simply no history or heritage of the fixture, and for a very good reason; there is no history or heritage of Milton Keynes Dons at all.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that Wimbledon supporters are savouring the opportunity to beat MK Dons and settle any scores.  This is not a rivalry, this is a principle.  For almost all Wimbledon supporters, MK Dons is a football club that simply should not exist; a club which stole Wimbledon's place in the league by dubious means and who ought not to be recognized at all.  This is a match many are simply dreading, as they never wanted it to happen.

When Saturday Comes, the excellent monthly magazine, still does not officially recognize MK Dons.  Their annual season preview supplements, in which supporters of the other 91 league clubs in England answer questions on the season ahead, simply has 'No questions asked' in the MK Dons section.  For some, this now appears archaic and petty; for many others, it is a perfectly reasonably adherence to a consistent stance on the issue.

The key issue for Wimbledon fans is now whether to go to the match.  Many have vowed never to set foot in the pretentiously titled stadium:mk, some even lobby other clubs' supporters not to go to away matches there, a request which is acceded to by many.

But there are others who feel that they simply want to support their team, whoever they are playing.  There is no reason why going to support Wimbledon away at MK Dons should be read as acknowledgement of the latter club's 'legitimacy'.

The most important thing, therefore, is that Wimbledon fans respect each other's choice.  The match has to be played: Wimbledon would face severe sanctions if they refused to play.  The alternative is to be divided and conquered.  Those who go are not 'scabs' crossing a picket line.  Both positions have a certain logic behind them, it is simply a question of personal conviction.

What of other supporters?  With the predictability of day following night, ITV Sport have chosen the match for live Sunday lunchtime coverage, so we will all be able to intrude on private grief.  There is, though, talk of the away end being filled by a kind of 'Fans United' assembly, with supporters of other clubs turning up, in their colours, to support Wimbledon against 'Franchise FC'.  A show of unity in the face of what many perceive as being the face of all that is wrong with modern football.

This has a certain appeal but a personal view is that this would miss the point.  The issue here is identity and legitimacy, which transcend the game.  Wimbledon beating MK Dons will not settle any scores, just as MK Dons would not gain the moral high ground if, as is likely, they win through to the third round.  The result is, in many ways, an irrelevance.

We've got the truth, now for the justice

The thing about the phone hacking scandal is that we really ought not to have been surprised.  Hearing that the upper echelons of politics, the police and the press were hand-in-glove, and not in a good way, should have elicited from us little more than a weary sigh.

Some of us did not need to be told that Hillsborough was a monumental cock-up by the South Yorkshire constabulary; compounded by a vicious, cynical cover-up by way of a dirty tricks campaign against the victims.  Yesterday’s report into the tragedy was confirmation, not revelation.

So we have the truth.  But truth without justice will mean the bereaved families of Merseyside will still not be at peace.

For their part, the Football Association were right to offer a full apology, albeit after a fashion.  The semi final simply should not have been played at Sheffield Wednesday FC.  The ground’s safety certificate had expired but the ground was chosen anyway.  There had been chaos at the 1981 semi final there between Spurs and Wolves yet the ground was chosen anyway.  This, you see, was ‘the good old days’; we didn’t bother with all this elf ‘n’ safety nonsense.  We had common sense.

There are others from whom a mere apology is not enough.  Falsifying evidence is a crime.  Bullying junior officers to make substantive alterations to witness statements is a crime.  Killing through negligence is a crime.  Perverting the course of justice is a crime.  Conspiring to provide a false defence against charges of manslaughter, even after the fact, is a crime.

If the establishment want us to believe that this is a new era, in which justice cannot be ducked by those in power, and the press cannot be used to cover your backside, then certain people need to be brought to book.  These people were powerful: they occupied top positions in the government and the police.

Some are dead and have escaped justice.  Many are now retired.  But retirement from work is not retirement from civilization.  People have committed manslaughter and others have conspired with them after the fact.  Thatcher’s government used the police as their private army, and nowhere more than South Yorkshire.  In the 1980s it was a very dangerous place to be a working class northerner, such as a miner or a football fan.

It doesn’t matter how old David Duckenfield is, or how ill he says he is.  Arrest him and try him.  It shouldn’t matter that Bernard Ingham – Margaret Thatcher’s then chief press secretary – is eighty years old, or that Margaret Thatcher is demented.  Arrest them and try them; wheel them into court on a hospital bed if necessary.  Their status must be no protection from justice, just as the lowly social status of Liverpudlians in 1989 should not have been a barrier to it.

Others must also pay the price.  Kelvin MacKenzie, who only yesterday accepted that he wrote malicious lies in the Sun, must no longer appear on the BBC.  No serious newspaper should allow him to divest himself of his odious views in their pages.

Boris Johnson, who perpetuated the lies in an editorial in the Spectator in 2004, has apologised and should now resign the London Mayoralty.  If he believed what he wrote he is an idiot; if he didn’t, he is beneath contempt.  Either way, he is not fit for public office.

‘Sir’ Norman Bettison, then a South Yorkshire chief inspector, who was heavily implicated in the police cover-up and subsequently made chief constable of Merseyside, of all places, must resign as chief constable of West Yorkshire.  That knighthood doesn’t look too clever, either.

There is one other group of people who ought to be examining their consciences.  Football hooligans.  Those sociopathic tribal drunkards who stole the terraces from peaceable football supporters in the seventies and eighties are responsible for conditioning the British public so that they believed the lies cooked up by the Tory government, the South Yorkshire police and the Sun.

Justice must sweep through the intransigence and the obscurantism like a wrecking ball.  Only then can the bereaved families of Hillsborough’s 96 victims begin to truly come to terms with their loss.

Trial and retribution

by Mike Martin   @thefootietweet

If John Terry were Scottish, chief magistrate Hamish McRiddle would probably have returned a verdict of ‘Not Proven’.  Only Scottish courts are capable of declaring a case not capable of being judged either way.  Back in the real world, John Terry is an innocent man, except, of course, it is not as simple as that.  We can divide the population into four broad categories according to their response.

First, there is the ‘sticks and stones’ group, who believe that calling somebody a ‘black’ such-and-such is no different to calling them a plain old such-and-such; that footballers are paid more than enough to take whatever insults come their way and if the loony-liberal-lefies don’t like it they can sod off and write to the Guardian.   On grounds connected with the briefness of life, we needn’t bother with this group.

Then there is what you might call the ‘indignant vindication’ category.  In this category we find those who always believed Terry was clearly innocent, that his innocence is now legally established fact and that ought to be the end of it.  Heck, sue Anton Ferdinand for slander while we’re at it.  Of these people, particularly their gifts of omniscience and the judgement of Solomon, I am most envious.

The ‘He’s Got Away With It’ group is sizable, if the immediate response on social networks is any kind of decent measuring stick.  The broad feeling within is that Terry was as guilty as hell and got off on a technicality.  John Amaechi, the former NBA basketball player: “Thanks football – you set entire country back a decade.  ‘Black c***’ now officially ok to say.”  The same man Tweeted to me – if you’ll forgive a spot of name-dropping – “…but court did NOT ‘clear’ JT; it ‘had no choice’ but to declare not guilty”.  In other words: Terry was guilty but just not quite guilty enough.

We know one member of this group.  Rio Ferdinand’s ill-advised endorsement of another Twitterer’s half-witted racist slur against Ashley Cole may come back to haunt him.  Aside from the unhelpful inference that Ashley Cole perjured himself at Terry’s hearing, the term ‘choc-ice’ is particularly pernicious because it implies that there is a ‘black’ thing to do and a ‘white’ thing to do.  The ‘black’ thing to do, it seems, would be to say whatever you have to say to get somebody accused of racial abuse convicted.

A splinter group of the above, the ‘What About Luis Suárez?’ club, profess bewilderment as to how the Uruguayan could be banned for eight matches ‘despite no proof’, yet Terry can ‘get off’ even though there is ‘clear television evidence’ against him.

This view fails to take into account the plain fact that Suárez and Terry were involved in two different incidents.  Just because one is guilty or innocent, it does not follow that the other must be the equally so.  The differences between the two cases are numerous.  One went to an FA hearing, the other a legal trial, so there was a higher burden of proof for those prosecuting Terry.

Suárez was banned ‘on the balance of probabilities’, meaning, in essence, that the 3-man FA panel believed Evra and not him.  Terry was acquitted because it could not be proved that he was guilty.  What if Suárez had had his day in a court of law?

The two players also entered different defences.  Terry’s was a flat denial: he did not call Anton Ferdinand an ‘FBC’; he was merely rejecting an accusation by the QPR player, and that was what was caught on camera.  Quoting something, his defence team successfully argued, is not the same as saying it yourself.  Suárez, on the other hand, did not deny using the word negro or negrito, but denied intending to offend Patrice Evra.  ‘Negro’, he argued, is not the Spanish equivalent of The N Word; it is a harmless term of affection, for which no English word is a direct translation.

This defence foundered for two reasons.  Firstly, as the word was said in the course of a heated argument with a player from Liverpool’s bitterest rivals, the FA panel concluded that it was not said on amicable terms.  Secondly – and here is the important bit – there is the principle that whether or not a word is racially offensive is up to the interpretation of the victim, not the meaning of the perpetrator.  In other words, it was not for Suárez to say whether Evra ought to be offended or not by having his colour referred to.

On balance, and with many months’ reflection, perhaps the FA ought to have given Suárez a shorter ban initially, with a whacking great big suspended one over it in order to set a precedent.  Though the cultural defence was quite properly rejected when considering the verdict, it could have been taken into account when calculating the length of the ban.  As soon as Suárez conceded that he had said the offensive word, it was case closed with regard to the verdict.  The punishment, though, ought to have had an educative element.  That it didn’t leaves us with what some regard as a blatant inconsistency between the two cases.

After decades of being oblivious to racial issues, football has now become hyper-sensitive to them.  It is not ideal but it is better than what we had in the seventies and eighties.

The FA now find themselves in an invidious position.  No credible charge of racist abuse can be brought against Terry given his criminal acquittal; yet to do nothing would be a scandalous dereliction of duty.  Both Terry and Anton Ferdinand ought to be charged for their pathetic, profanity-peppered tiff on the Loftus Road pitch all those months ago.  Rio, too, ought to be very severely reprimanded for his apparent endorsement of the ‘choc-ice’ slur which has now attracted the attention of the Derbyshire constabulary.

Most importantly of all, though, they must not waste an opportunity to clean up English football’s image.  For the idiotic fans, who will surely chant abuse at whichever of Terry, Cole and the Ferdinands don’t play for their club, there is no hope, short of a frontal lobotomy.  Referees, meanwhile, need to be instructed in the strongest possible terms to clamp down an all foul language.  Insulting or goading an opponent ought to be regarded as a punishable offence under the existing gentlemanly conduct rule.

There are those who believe such strict refereeing will result in a torrent of red cards but so be it.  Footballers are generally pragmatists.  Behaviour will adapt quickly.  It cannot happen quickly enough.


Mike Martin is the club reporter at @PickeringTownFC and has written for Late Tackle magazine.

Olympic football draw hoped to stimulate ticket sales

Happily, and unlike previous Olympiads, most of the ticketed sporting events for London 2012 have sold out.  Many could have done so several times over.  For those of us who despaired at the phalanxes of seats which remained empty in Beijing, while the huddled masses pressed their noses against the ground-glass, this is a wonderful thing.

It is not true, perhaps predictably, of the football.  Organizers hope that yesterday’s draw at Wembley, fronted by Gary Lineker and shown live on BBC Two – albeit at not-exactly-prime-time 11 o’clock in the morning – will stoke the imaginations and, more importantly, debit cards of football fans.

Olympic football tournaments have been done very well and very badly.  Even in the modern era, the variation has been marked.  In 2004, Greece sold barely 12,500 tickets per match for the men’s tournament despite having just won the European Championship.  Four years later, the equivalent figure in China was over 43,000.

The Olympic football tournaments have a fine history – longer, it should be remembered, than the World Cup – and are taken seriously… in most countries.  That it is largely shunned in Britain has much to do with the fact that we don’t usually compete but there is more to it than that.  There are two forms of equal and opposite snobbery at work.

The first is the anti-football – and perhaps anti-professional-sport – feeling that still runs deep among some Olympic enthusiasts.  The Olympics, they argue, are not the pinnacle of football – this is the World Cup, of course – so it has no business being involved in the Games.  The same argument is often made about tennis and basketball.  It is piffle.

Football is an accessible and globally competitive sport.  Can that be said of show-jumping?  Of rowing?  Or of fencing?  What business do the Olympics, which involve synchronized swimming and dressage, have in denying the world’s most popular game its place at the Games?

And over in the blue corner, we have the anti-Olympics snobbery of many British football fans.  Let’s be blunt: we can be a parochial lot.  How many of us would get out of bed to see, say, Belarus vs Egypt at Hampden Park?  I would, but I’m not your typical football fan.  I bought tickets to two double headers at St James’ Park, as FIFA insist it will be called during the Games, and had no idea who would be playing but that was not the point.  It is a major international football tournament on my doorstep; that is why I’m going.

So, it should be remembered, will at least a million others.  Between British fans such as your humble servant who have bought ‘blind’ and the fans of the visiting men’s and women’s teams, almost a million tickets have already been sold.  That is more than any other sport but the venues are so much bigger and sessions so more numerous that football remains the sport most threatened by visions of masses of unoccupied plastic chairs.

For this reason, the pressure on Stuart Pearce to select David Beckham could become immense.  Beckham, though, has no rightful place in the 18-man Great Britain squad.  The three over-age berths ought to be taken by those players most unfortunate to be omitted from England’s Euro 2012 squad.  Nor should tokenism lead to the unmerited inclusion of players from Northern Ireland or Scotland – Wales is sure to be represented, quite properly, by the excellent Aaron Ramsey and the world class Gareth Bale – at the expense of more deserving cases.

A fondness for reason does give cause to sympathise with LOCOG.  As I discussed in a recent blog, the British public simply do not seem interested in attending women’s matches.  Great Britain’s opening clash with New Zealand is the first event in the whole Games, yet just 15,000 tickets have been sold in the 74,500 capacity Millennium Stadium.  LOCOG cannot be blamed for underselling the event and hopefully the draw will see sales pick up.

The women’s tournament, though, sees LOCOG bivouacked between a rock and a hard place.  The fear criticism for sparsely occupied stadia but may have been loath to allocate the women’s matches to the smaller venues for fear of being accused of treating it as the secondary football competition.

It is unreasonable to expect the huge football stadia to sell out for the Olympics but it is important that attendances are generally high.  That would indicate a change in attitude; both of British football fans to the Olympic competition and of Olympophiles to football.  The game belongs at the Games.

England vs Holland - player ratings

ENGLAND

Joe Hart (GK) - Could hardly be blamed for Holland's three goals but meanwhile made a couple of excellent saves and looks quite at home between the Wembley posts. 7/10

Micah Richards (RB) - Foolishly ostracised by Fabio Capello, clearly the best right back available, though Kyle Walker could displace him in time due to his extraordinary pace.  Was wasted at CB in the final half hour. 7/10

Chris Smalling (CB) - Was given a headache by Huntelaar in more ways than one but coped admirably with an ineffectual van Persie in the first half. 6/10

Gary Cahill (CB) - His Naples nightmare would appear to be behind him.  A commanding performance plus showed his goal threat at the other end.  Took his goal assuredly. 7/10

Leighton Baines (LB) - In better club form than Cole but lacks the explosive flair of the Chelsea full back.  Didn't have a chance to show the quality of his set pieces. 6/10

Scott Parker (DM) - A performance to vindicate Stuart Pearce's decision to make him captain, though he faded a little towards the end.  High quality tackling throughout. 7/10

Gareth Barry (CM) - Satisfactory but made to look better by Milner and Young who appeared uncomfortable in the second half formation. 6/10

Steven Gerrard (AM) - Looked totally off the pace and his withdrawal caused problems with England's tactics but not performance. 4/10

Adam Johnson (RW) - Gave Pieters a torrid time in the first half, England's brightest attacking and creative threat.  Has probably played his way back into the Euros squad. 7/10

Danny Welbeck (F) - Has pace and power but was too often isolated in the England attack.  Didn't have a chance to threaten Stekelenburg. 6/10

Ashley Young (LW) - A poor performance redeemed by his fine goal in the last minute.  Didn't provide service on the wing and looked a lost soul in central midfield in the second half. 6/10

Substitutes:

Daniel Sturridge (F) - England's best player, looked confident and ambitious.  Produced one classy drag-back and shot but fluffed his best chance. 8/10

James Milner (CM) - England's second half midfield lacked cohesion with Milner and Young in the middle but he lacks the pace needed on the wing at international level. 5/10

Stewart Downing (LW) - Capable but unspectacular.  Put simply, he is down the list when it comes to England's wide players. 5/10

Phil Jones (RB) - Should have played at CB when Smalling went off injured.  Nevertheless, looked lively, composed and produced a fine threaded pass for Young's goal. 7/10

Theo Walcott & Fraizer Campbell (F) - Came on too late to be fairly assessed, though Walcott had a touch in Young's goal.

HOLLAND

Maarten Stekelenburg (GK) - Produced one fine save from Sturridge but well beaten by Cahill and Young. 6/10

Khalid Boulahrouz (RB) - His performance would have been enjoyed by Gregory van der Wiel, who will surely start at the Euros if he is fit. 5/10

John Heitinga (CB) - Coped well with Welbeck but couldn't stem the England tide in the last few minutes. 7/10

Joris Mathijsen (CB) - A hugely underrated defender only beaten by Cahill's fine goal. 7/10

Erik Pieters (LB) - Was glad to see the back of Johnson.  A good young prospect but no Gio van Bronckhorst. 6/10

Nigel de Jong (DM) - Solid but unspectacular.  Dutch public want to see him dropped for the more attacking Rafael van der Vaart. 6/10

Mark van Bommel (DM) - Conservative and powerful but clumsy in the tackle.  Should have been booked in the first half. 5/10

Wesley Sneijder (AM) - A mixed bag.  Oozes class on the ball but spent long periods on the periphery, sitting too deep.  Not in a fine run of form.  5/10

Arjen Robben (F) - A class apart.  Two splendid goals, even if the second was deflected in off Cahill, capped a brilliant performance.  Won the game for Holland on his own. 9/10

Robin van Persie (F) - Subdued and in the back pockets of Smalling and Cahill.  Huntelaar led the line with more conviction, however brief his involvement. 4/10

Dirk Kuyt (F) - Not in the same bracket as the other main forwards in terms of quality but his cross for Huntelaar's goal was divine. 6/10

Substitutes:

Stijn Schaars (LB) - Normally a midfielder but filled in well after half time.  England's late threat came down the other flank. 6/10

Klaas-Jan Huntelaar (F) - Shot wide, scored with a bullet header, cracked his head on Smalling's in the process, went off again.  A bizarre but productive cameo. 7/10

Luuk de Jong (F) - Anonymous replacement for Huntelaar.  A squad player at best this early in his international career. 4/10

Urby Emanuelson (AM) - Replaced Sneijder and got involved in the build-up for the winning goal.  Plagued by a jack-of-all-trades reputation. 6/10

Ron Vlaar (RB) - His introduction was swiftly followed by two England goals.  Holland's first choice back four is top quality but they lack depth. 5/10

Liverpool walk alone after day of shame

The most pernicious aspect of the fallout of the Luis Suárez-Patrice Evra race row is not Liverpool’s paranoia.  It is not the half-baked conspiracy theories, which propagate the theory that the FA’s independent panel was in hock with Sir Alex Ferguson.

It was not the crass error of those infernal tee-shirts worn before the match at Wigan Athletic; nor the refusal on Saturday of Suárez (culprit) to shake the hand of Evra (victim).  Nor is it the constant low-level hum of accusations that Evra is a liar with form – it was Mike Phelan, not Evra, that made the accusations against the member of Chelsea’s ground staff – or the absurd notion that because it is OK to call somebody a negro in Uruguay we must tolerate it here.  Uruguay, clearly, is not a country which ought to be used when setting our threshold of racial sensitivity.

Nor was it the preposterous apology for an interview given by Kenny Dalglish after Saturday’s match, in which Sky Sports interviewer Geoff Shreeves was said to be ‘bang out of order’ for suggesting the horrible atmosphere at the game might have had something to do with Suárez’s refusal of Evra’s hand.

Nor, even, is it the ghastly, brutal tribalism involved with Manchester United and Liverpool, which gives cause for sections of their support to give choral welcome to two of the most painful events in the history of English football: the Munich air crash and the Hillsborough tragedy.

It is the perpetuation of the belief by which schoolyard bullies maintain a vice-like grip over their prey; by which inner-city drugs gangs perpetuate their freedom to act with contempt for society; and by which, for many decades, footballers got away with racially abusing others players.  It is the reason why the Uruguayan press have turned their fire towards Evra, and why one dunderheaded corresponded sent a letter to the Sunday Times justifying the booing of Evra at Anfield in the recent FA Cup encounter because he ‘…has not acted like a man.’

It is, in short, the notion of the accursed Code of the Pitch.  The notion that whatever happens on the field should stay on the field, and that there is no creature lower in the social order than a ‘grass’.  The notion that, had it succeeded in bullying Evra out of maintaining his charge – fully and transparently proven, lest we forget – against Suárez, would have threatened to return us to the bad old days of a conspiracy of silence.

Could you blame a young black player – perhaps less established in the Premier League than Evra, who is, after all, the captain of Manchester United – for thinking that reporting any future racist language that might come their way might simply not be worth the hassle?

Let’s put it another way: do enough white people in Britain care enough about racism?  Are there still people for whom the battle against racially insensitive language is an encumbrance which must be tolerated, rather than a virtuous part of the evolution of our society?  Is that why Evra is being vilified by some for ‘making a fuss about’ being called a negro?  Is that why he was, with grotesque predictability, so loudly and crassly booed at Anfield in Juanuary?

Sunday’s apologies, from Dalglish and Suárez, at least present a kernel of progress.  It is the first time that Liverpool Football Club have, to any extent, acknowledged any wrongdoing on their part.  Yet there has still been no apology from Suárez for the incident that started the whole infernal affair.  He has still not told Evra that he regrets calling him a negro.

That this is the case maintains the worry that Suárez still believes he is the victim, both of a malicious accusation by Evra and of British ‘political correctness gone mad’.  But, in hoping that all who sail in her respect racial sensitivies, Britain has aped Ebeneezer Scrooge towards the end of A Christmas Carol.  “I haven’t taken leave of my senses, Cratchet.  I’ve come to them.”

England must strip captaincy of unwarranted prestige

"You know, Lewis, Morse is a bloody good copper.  But sometimes he's more trouble that he's worth."  Chief Supt. Strange, 'Masonic Mysteries'

May we, before we start, agree on one thing?  I do not know whether John Terry is guilty of racially abusing Anton Ferdinand, or he was merely rebutting an accusation made by the QPR defender.  Nor do you.  Nor do the Football Association.  Nor even – even! – Simon Barnes, Oliver Kay, James Lawson or the rest of the Fleet Street sport ensemble.

The following is a summation of the press release that, in a more level-headed world, the Football Association ought to have issued upon learning that John Terry’s trial would not take place until a week after the end of the European Championship:

“The Football Association are disappointed that the issue concerning John Terry and Anton Ferdinand will not be settled until after the Euro 2012 tournament.  However, we accept the primacy of the British justice system and will respond accordingly.

In appreciation of the seriousness of the allegations made against Mr Terry, and in accordance with our strong stance against racism, in all of its forms, in the game, we have informed Mr Terry that, should he be convicted, he will not be selected to play for England again.

However, we understand that Mr Terry denies the charges in the strongest possible terms and until such a time as the case may be judged, the principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ must apply and Mr Terry will remain as captain of the England team.

In response to suggestions that Mr Terry’s presence in the England dressing room may produce a ‘toxic’ atmosphere, we remind all players and supporters that the matter is sub judice and Mr Terry is entitled to the benefit of the doubt unless/until he is convicted.  All England players should behave in a professional manner and avoid assuming rôles of judge or jurer that are not theirs to assume.  No further comment on this issue will be made by anybody connected with the England team until the end of Mr Terry’s trial and questions from the media relating to this issue will not be welcomed.”

In the absence of such sound reason, we are left to ponder, once again, who the England captain should be.  Worryingly, suitable candidates do not abound.  Rio Ferdinand is rarely fit and, with Terry set to remain England’s principal central defender, may regret wasting a good opportunity to keep quiet should Terry be acquitted.

The FA, though, have an opportunity of their own; specifically, not to appoint anybody as full time England captain.  The rôle, which in football is purely ceremonial, should be awarded on a match-by-match basis.  This is not to say there is a lack of suitable candidates but to argue that a change in culture must be induced in English football.

The Roy-of-the-Rovers culture, that of individual hero-worship, has dominated English football for longer than your humble servant has been alive.  As long ago as 1982, we obsessed over the fitness of Kevin Keegan and Trevor Brooking, ignoring the fact that England had other players who were indeed good enough to beat France 3-1 in their first match in Bilbao.

Since then, intolerable pressure has been placed on certain players to be the man who brings the trophy home for England: Paul Gascoigne in 1996, Michael Owen in 1998, David Beckham in 2002, Wayne Rooney since Euro 2004.  Already, we are seeing disproportionate attention given to the state of Jack Wilshere’s health, even though it is only February.

Capello, who for two pins would now award the captaincy on a match-by-match basis, must be at his wits end.  Yet the whole situation would have been avoided had certain players respected the court case and not made inferred assumptions of Terry’s guilt before a single witness has been called.  There is no reason for a dressing room split and Capello should not be blamed for the fact that some players have manufactured one.

Terry is now left in a situation where, for his own sanity as much as anything else, he ought to retire from international football.  Terry has been one of Chelsea's best players this season and remains the best centre-back available to Capello.  Yet has it all become more trouble that it's worth, for team or player?  Should Terry be found guilty, it is his own fault; but if he is acquitted, how could he have any faith in the FA or those of his senior international colleagues who have already conducted the trial in their own heads?

The Myth of the Africa Cup of Nations

You, like me, are probably looking forward to a top notch international football championship.  You, like me, are probably eagerly anticipating excellent football, lively atmospheres and wall-to-wall television coverage.  Alas, I speak of Euro 2012, coming in June, not of the Africa Cup of Nations, which begins on Saturday when Equatorial Guinea take on Libya, live on British EuroSport.

I say Equatorial Guinea.  What I actually mean is a bunch of mercenaries masquerading as a national football team for which many have only the most spurious claim to be entitled to play.  The Confederation of African Football (CAF) have for years turned a blind eye to eligibility issues.  Perhaps we should hope that Equatorial Guinea do well, leading to protests from opponents which may finally force CAF to act.

The Equatoguineans, such as they are, are only in the tournament because the tournament is in Equatorial Guinea, who co-host with Gabon.  At least Gabon have a halfway competent side.

Equatorial Guinea should have no business hosting the championship.  Though the richest country in continental Africa, its wealth is distributed with grotesque iniquity; 70% of the population live under the UN Poverty Threshold of $2 per day.  It is also listed by Freedom House as having one of the worst national human rights records in the world.

Usually around this time, the BBC wheel out a pundit – often Mark Bright – to talk about the ‘colour and vibrancy’ of the tournament.  Codswallop.  If you want colour and atmosphere at an international tournament, get hold of a DVD of the Holland-Italy match in Bern at Euro 2008.  If you want matches played in mostly empty stadia unless the home team are playing, with irritating bands playing continuously regardless of what happens on the pitch – they don’t even stop for a goal – and barely interested fans wandering idly into the stadium twenty minutes after kick-off, watch the Cup of Nations.

It is often little better on the pitch.  Some tournaments at least make up with drama what they lack in quality: the 2008 tournament in Ghana averaged well over three goals per match; the 2010 semi final between Egypt and Algeria was unforgettable, albeit for mostly the wrong reasons.

But generally it is thin gruel.  The last three Finals, and four of the last five, have been dismal.  The first tournament I followed in depth, in Mali in 2002, was wretched: barely 1.5 goals per game; atrocious pitches, often dangerously so; and lamentable football by most teams.

In Angola two years ago, the tournament started with a bang and the best match of 2010.  In the 74th minute, a Manucho penalty put the hosts 4-0 up over Mali in a delirious Estádio 11 de Novembro in Luanda.  A Seydou Keita goal seemed to be only a consolation but Mali scored again in the 88th minute, then in the 93rd and finally equalized in the 94th.  It was surely the most extraordinary opening match to any major international football tournament in history.

That, though, was a false dawn.  Take Jonathan Wilson’s word for it: “The football in Angola two years ago was rubbish.”  Overshadowed by the terrorist on the Togo team bus – evidence that this was yet another tournament misguidedly taken to an inappropriate country – the football did little to warm the blood.  Algeria and the hosts almost certainly conspired to draw 0-0 in their final group fixture, thus guaranteeing progress for both at the expense of the more adventurous but utterly incohesive Malians.

The refereeing was weak and conspired to help cynical teams.  The attendances  for matches not involving Angola were pitiful, yet our intelligence was insulted by preposterously inflated ‘official’ crowd figures which bring to mind a Carling Cup tie at the Emirates Stadium.

But this is a tournament which comes with complimentary codswallop by the bucket load.  Wilson also wrote, in a recent Guardian article, of the editor of another organ rejecting a column for being ‘too negative’ about the tournament.

The appeal of the tournament remains that it is a fascination.  But it was a fascination twenty years ago; that is not progress.  Yet the tournament is bizarrely covered much more by the BBC than the significantly superior Copa América or even the Asian Cup, and that is even after they have lost the rights to ITV.

Africa has been overtaken by Asia as the continent most likely to be the third, after South America and Europe, to produce a World Cup winning nation, or even Finalist.  Japan, or even South Korea, would probably walk this tournament.  That is its greatest condemnation.

Europa League steps out from the shadows

Is it right and proper that Manchester United and Manchester City are obliged to play football matches in the most obscure, recession-battered, dreary boondocks of Europe?

But enough of their home fixtures in the Premier League.  The Europa League draw last Friday produced some glamorous fixtures in the last 32 of the tournament.  Manchester United face Ajax in a clash-of-the-titans tie destined to have Channel 5 executives drooling.

City, meanwhile, will play the holders Porto in another high-profile tie.  Roberto Mancini’s side are likely to take the tournament more seriously than their neighbours; they are still at the stage where they need to win as many trophies as they can to legitimize their status as one of the continent’s major clubs.  Besides, City have greater squad depth than just about any club in the world, so can afford to rotate their side.

It all adds up to an more-than-usually appetizing round of fixtures.  Stoke City v Valencia looks good, too.  As long as you ignore Stoke.

The competition has its detractors and it is not hard to see why.  With the Champions League ever increasing in profile and importance, the other UEFA club competition appears increasingly tacked-on.  Tottenham Hotspur could hardly disguise their desire to be knocked out – though Harry Redknapp’s joyless dismissal of perhaps the club’s best chance of a trophy this season is hardly worthy of praise – and fielded scratch sides in most matches.

The tournament feels bloated, with too many teams, too many qualifying rounds – Fulham’s campaign began in late June, for heaven’s sake – and little glamour.  Thursday night football also has an inbuilt smell of artifice about it.

Perhaps the best thing to do would be for UEFA to bring back the much missed Cup Winners’ Cup.  The confederation would have an extra Final, surely a better occasion than the Super Cup, and an extra high-profile night for television viewers around the globe.

The problem is the wretched group stage.  Group stages work in international tournaments because teams only play each other once; every match assumes a massive importance.  Play on a home-and-away basis, however, and clubs begin to feel they can coast.  There have been few gripping nights for the English clubs in the Champions League group stages in recent seasons, until their poor performances this time around left Chelsea, Manchester United and Manchester City all needing a result on Matchday 6.

The group stages, though, guarantee teams a minimum of six matchdays, meaning more revenue from both attendances and television rights.  Another problem for UEFA is the end of communism; not in the political sense, but in the fact that what used to be the USSR is now myriad nations, each with their own domestic league and collection of qualifying teams.  The same applies to post-break-up Yugoslavia.

So we must continue to rely on the knock-out stages for real drama.  Either that or hope that the English sides continue to be mediocre in Europe.  This season’s performances have often been dismal, with only Arsenal and Stoke City sealing progress with a game to spare and only Chelsea winning through in the final round of group games.  In football as in real life, the British are having trouble in Europe.

So let’s enjoy the knock-out stages for what they are; genuine, competitive football.  Matches aren’t important simply because they are in a particularly high-profile tournament; they are important when they matter.

Euro 2012 a big draw in more ways than one

Perhaps all draws should be like this.  Maybe all we need to liven up the NCEL League Cup draw is Zinedine Zidane and Marco van Basten drawing out balls between monumentally pointless interludes pertaining to local culture.  “Lincoln Moorlands Railway… will play… Glasshoughton Welfare.  Now, here’s the Crigglestone Colliery Band playing ‘Our Lass Is A Yorkshire Lass’.”

Draws are rather like opening ceremonies; pompous, overblown and, in more ways than one, drawn out.  Perhaps I’ve become cynical but once you’ve seen one African woman in a massive headdress surrounded by schoolchildren re-enacting the dawn of time, you’ve seen them all.

Once the interminable faffery had subsided, we were treated to something dimly resembling the Euro 2012 draw.  Time taken in total: almost an hour.  Rudimentary experiments in your humble author’s study involving an ice-cream tub and some scissors have proven beyond doubt that the whole thing can be done in just under four minutes.

After a fashion, the draw threw up some mouth-watering group stage clashes; though, in reality, it was always going to.  The thing about the Euros is that good sides are crammed together more densely than in a World Cup and the major footballing nations are not all in the same pot of seeds.

So we have Germany v Portugal, Spain v Italy, France v England and Holland v Germany, all in the first six days of the championship.  By comparison, the highlight of the opening six days of the World Cup in 2010 was probably Uruguay v France.

The Euros have, for some time, been considered the highest quality tournament in football, and quite possibly all sport.  The last three tournaments have been of a consistently high quality, whereas the last three World Cups have been relatively disappointing (though not without drama).

The tournament throws up more of the international game’s major rivalries, which gives the early stages of the competition an intensity that the World Cup group stages sometimes lack.  Goalscoring rates, too, have been consistently higher in the Euros than the World Cups of the twenty-first century.

The Euro 2012 draw was helped by the fact that two lesser sides, co-hosts Poland and Ukraine, were automatically seeded, pushing Germany and Italy down into Pot 2.  Group A will be a curiosity, with arguably the worst team from each of the four seeding pots drawn together.  Yet what treats lie elsewhere.

For their part, England are in a relatively manageable Group D, in which they will face France, Sweden and finally Ukraine.  Their cause was helped this week by UEFA’s sensible decision to finally apply the laws of precedent to Wayne Rooney’s absurdly harsh three-match ban, with the Manchester United forward now able to play in the last group game against the co-hosts in Donetsk.

Yet every team at the Euros will be competitive.  In the main, the right fourteen teams came through the qualifying competition, with Turkey and Serbia the biggest absentees.  This is not bad news for England, who have no games against somebody like Algeria, and are in no danger of underestimating the task ahead of them.  England simply weren’t up for the game in Cape Town; there is little danger of complacency next summer.

For goodness' sake England fans, cheer up

Here are a couple of largely uncontroversial statements connected with tonight’s international at Wembley.  1) Spain are the favourites to beat England; 2) England are not serious contenders to win Euro 2012.

On the basis that half-decent journalism is about stating something other than the bleedin’ obvious, here are a couple of others.  1) Spain would be the favourites whoever they were playing, except possibly Germany; 2) Nobody are serious contenders to win Euro 2012, except Spain and Germany.

This is a particularly odd time for international football.  It is under attack from many directions, one of which comprises the notion that the international game is of significantly less quality than top level European club football.

And yet.  The last World Cup had the best knockout stage – surely the best measure for the quality of a tournament – of any since 1998.  There is an argument – a contrary one, perhaps, but not indefensible – that this is a golden era of international football.  It is quite possible that Spain and Germany are the two best sides in international football history.

Certainly, they are among the most consistent.  It is quite possible that, come the end of next year’s European Championship, Spain and Germany will have both gone three straight major tournaments (excluding Spain at the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup) having been knocked out only by each other.  Along with hosts Brazil, they will be the favourites to win the 2014 World Cup.

Yet the build up to the Spain match has consisted of little more than hand-wriging comparisons between the technique of the Spanish squad players and their English counterparts.  Granted, if you compare David Silva and Juan Mata with James Milner and Gareth Barry , or Fernando Torres and Fernando Llorente with Danny Welbeck and Gabriel Agbonlahor, you will probably not conclude that England are European Champions elect.  But the same game can be played with France, Italy, Portugal; indeed, any of the major nations in Europe.

Only the Dutch are realistic challengers to the Germany-Spain axis.  They have a recent record almost as consistent as the ‘big two’ and, unlike Spain, also tend to do well in friendlies.  So where does that leave the rest?  Is Euro 2012 a waste of time for England, Italy and France; never mind Denmark, Sweden and Greece?  Of course not.

International tournaments do something peculiar to the passage of time; unfancied teams can suddenly become brilliant (Italy 1982, Romania 1994, Brazil 2002) while apparently strong sides can collapse (France 2002, Italy 2010).  Just as new generations can come of age, so can experienced quality quickly become past it.

English football culture prides itself on the dedication of its fans.  Yet the ‘thick and thin’ principle now appears to apply solely to club fans, who loyally follow their side despite consecutive relegations.  Yet why does this not apply to the international side?  England go through a spell of poor results and suddenly are treated as a burden, a distraction which must be endured.  England are, quite properly, ranked as one of the top eight sides in the world.  I do not find the side a national embarrassment and nor should anybody else.

Besides, if Greece can win the European Championship…

Time for the truth about Hillsborough

by Mike Martin   @thefootietweet

The really scary thing about the Hillsborough tragedy is that it could have been far, far worse.  The perfect storm of policing error, a dilapidated ground, poor signage and ill-advised wire fencing at the front of the Leppings Lane end could have claimed far more than 96 lives.

Just think, for instance, if Peter Beardsley’s shot early in the FA Cup semi final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest on 15th April 1989 had been six inches lower.  Quite what a goal, rather than a shot striking the crossbar, would have led to is a matter best left in the darkest recesses of the imagination.

Let us not pretend that anything Parliament might do in the coming weeks – any inquiry, revelation, apology or disclosure of cabinet minutes – can remotely heal the pain felt by the families and friends of those who died, nor of the thousands who were injured and traumatized but able to walk away from the stadium.

What it will do is finally end the 22 years of deceit and cover-up that has served to slander the victims.  It will vindicate those who have campaigned tirelessly and with great dignity to shed light on what really happened that afternoon.

So many questions remained unanswered.  Why, for example, was Hillsborough chosen to host the match in the first place?  Liverpool had complained following crushing in the Leppings Lane end in the previous year’s semi final between the same two teams, while in 1981 38 fans had been injured in a crush during the Spurs-Wolves semi final.  There was

Why was it decided that the Nottingham Forest fans would occupy the larger Spion Kop End, with a capacity of 21,000, despite Liverpool having the larger support?

Why was Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield made officer in charge of a match for the first time in an FA Cup semi final between two well-supported teams, as opposed to a quiet league match at Brammall Lane?

Why did police allow only one of the forty-four ambulances which arrived at the stadium to enter the ground?

Why did Duckenfield tell the then chief executive of the FA, Graham Kelly, that the fateful Gate C had been forced open by Liverpool supporters, when he had in fact ordered it to be opened?

Why did Margareth Thatcher’s press secretary, Bernard Ingham, say that the tragedy would not have occurred “if a mob, clearly tanked up, had not tried to force their way in?”

Why did the coroner, Dr Stefan Popper, limit the main inquest to events up until 3:15 pm – a mere nine minutes after referee Ray Lewis halted the match – thereby rendering himself unable to consider the effect of the inadequate police response?

This led to a public narrative that was wholly inaccurate, defamatory and deflective.  It was maintained when the Sheffield coroner took blood alcohol measurements from every single corpse, including the youngest fatality, Jon-Paul Gilhooley, cousin of Steven Gerrard.  Jon-Paul was ten years old.

The Sun, the best-selling tabloid rag, ran a disgraceful headline, ‘The Truth’, which was anything but.  It accused Liverpool fans of picking the pockets of the dead, urinating on police officers and assaulting a constable giving artificial respiration.  All were lies, for which the execrable then-editor Kelvin Mackenzie has never properly apologized.  You do well to find a Liverpool newsagent, even 22 years on, which will stock The Sun.

Senior policemen doctored evidence to the inquiry conducted by Lord Justice Taylor in order to cast the police in a better light.  The police’s story took root because, in 1989, people were too ready to believe that this was just another instance of hooliganism.

That is why the truth must come out, warts and all.  It will achieve, after a fashion, a sort of justice for those who lived, as well as those who d