As happens at least once a year, today I have been deserted by my family.
It is not, I am pleased to report, anything to do with halitosis or excessive body odour but it is everything to with where they have gone.
I am not one who gets a kick out of being terrified. I do not enjoy being on a speeding ride over which I have no control (but that's enough about my partner's driving). I do not enjoy theme parks.
It is possible that I have been scarred by things that happened in my youth, or shortly thereafter.
I remember spending a weekend in Weymouth with my then girlfriend who for the purpose of this piece I shall refer to as Sue, which was her name.
My idea of an evening out has always been, will always be, a trip to the pub. Away in Weymouth with my girlfriend gave me the opportunity of sampling a few new pubs. Imagine my surprise when Sue wanted to go to the fun fair?
My reaction within was to say no. But she convinced me that it would be "a bit of a laugh" and I could visit a pub later. Well, if you put it like that.
There were a few modest rides which, frankly, wouldn't have scared anyone, even me, but there was a ride called 'The Wild Mouse'. It was a single car that whizzed around a metal track, up and down at what appeared to be a gentle speed. Until we got in it.
Once the ride started going, Sue and I strapped ourselves into our little cart and it clanked up the slope. And it went higher and higher until there was a clear view of the river with, seemingly nothing below us. My heart sank, but not as quickly as our vehicle which plunged towards the ground only to tear back up the hill again after a manic right angled turn. And so it went on, jerking around 50 feet above the river, me making a strange whining noise!
Finally, we got to the end, me pretending that it had been absolutely nothing. Until I tried to stand up. My legs had turned to jelly and I was staggering along like Groucho Marx on springs.
I quietly told Sue that I would rather spend a little time walking round the harbour, preferably slowly, to take in the evening air but I sensed my green complexion would have been obvious to Stevie Wonder. The truth was an alcoholic drink would have been as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit.
It was a lesson that I should have learned but years later, on a visit to the local fun fair, I was fooled by a friend, who I shall refer to as Nigel, into going on a gentle ride that went in circles. Well, it did go in circles and it went higher and higher until one moment you were facing the road and the next the sky.
I had had a beer before we got there and I became genuinely alarmed that I might suddenly become uncontrollably and violently sick.
Somehow, I managed to avoid it until I got out of the ride but it did not take long for a couple of pints of Colt 45 (ask your parents, kids) to return to the fresh air. Right in front of a bunch of girls, one of whom I had admired from a distance for some time and had thought about asking for a date.
I have since done the milder rides at places like Legoland, where the rides are timid, but as long as my bottom faces downwards the odds of my paying good money to feel ill and to raise my blood pressure to insane levels range are between extremely remote and zero.
I hope they had a nice day - I hacked my way round the Thornbury Par 3 again, far more fun - but it's not my idea of fun.
Thursday, 3 July 2014
Tuesday, 1 July 2014
End of the innocence
When Rolf Harris was first arrested on sexual assault charges, it saved me a few bob. I was seriously considering investing a fiver in a greatest hits collection from the Aussie entertainer.
I decided not to, certainly until the court case was over, and now I am no more likely to buy anything from him than I am from the Lost Prophets.
It saddens me in all sorts of ways.
To the current generation, Harris has been a cuddly family entertainer whose biggest achievement in recent years was to destroy Led Zeppelin's 'Stairway to Heaven'. As an aside, I thought that was fair enough since in my view it was the worst thing they ever did.
I grew up at a time when Harris was all over the telly, especially on Saturday nights where the 'Rolf Harris Show' topped the ratings. Since there was only one other TV channel, this should not be regarded as too much of a surprise.
He sang songs, played odd instruments, did brilliant paintings and generally larked about. He was a harmless guy and I absolutely loved 'Sun Arise'.
He'd be on 'Top of the Pops' too, hosted by Jimmy Savile and he appeared in the ITV equivalent of 'It's a Knockout', the BBC host of which was Stuart Hall. Can you see where this is going?
Not exactly icons of my youth - the icons for me were Dennis Law and Marc Bolan - but they were omnipresent.
My childhood and indeed later life featured them all too and they brought me many happy memories.
Now that part of my life has been snatched away.
When I read Harris's autobiography, I was really reading about a filthy paedophile. When I laughed at Stuart Hall, I was laughing at a rapist. And when I marvelled at Savile's generosity and charity work, I was being fooled by one of the sickest people ever born.
I'm not going to lose sleep about it but you don't think that your lifetime memories will get tarnished like this.
It's how they exploited my innocence and lied to me that really hurts, the trust I had for them gone far too late.
I decided not to, certainly until the court case was over, and now I am no more likely to buy anything from him than I am from the Lost Prophets.
It saddens me in all sorts of ways.
To the current generation, Harris has been a cuddly family entertainer whose biggest achievement in recent years was to destroy Led Zeppelin's 'Stairway to Heaven'. As an aside, I thought that was fair enough since in my view it was the worst thing they ever did.
I grew up at a time when Harris was all over the telly, especially on Saturday nights where the 'Rolf Harris Show' topped the ratings. Since there was only one other TV channel, this should not be regarded as too much of a surprise.
He sang songs, played odd instruments, did brilliant paintings and generally larked about. He was a harmless guy and I absolutely loved 'Sun Arise'.
He'd be on 'Top of the Pops' too, hosted by Jimmy Savile and he appeared in the ITV equivalent of 'It's a Knockout', the BBC host of which was Stuart Hall. Can you see where this is going?
Not exactly icons of my youth - the icons for me were Dennis Law and Marc Bolan - but they were omnipresent.
My childhood and indeed later life featured them all too and they brought me many happy memories.
Now that part of my life has been snatched away.
When I read Harris's autobiography, I was really reading about a filthy paedophile. When I laughed at Stuart Hall, I was laughing at a rapist. And when I marvelled at Savile's generosity and charity work, I was being fooled by one of the sickest people ever born.
I'm not going to lose sleep about it but you don't think that your lifetime memories will get tarnished like this.
It's how they exploited my innocence and lied to me that really hurts, the trust I had for them gone far too late.
Monday, 30 June 2014
The grass isn't greener
"This country is going to the dogs. I wish I could emigrate."
We've heard it all before. It's what the right wing press, like the Mail, wants us to believe.
We're being swamped by immigrants, everything is broken and nothing works anymore. Crime is out of control, political correctness dominates (you can't even celebrate Christmas anymore, for fear of offending muslims, don't you know?) and the country is drowning in a raft of health and safety rules. You can't even beat your own children or send them up chimneys anymore.
And it's only this country that's going to the dogs.
Not Greece where 50% of its young people are unemployed and where their pensions have been cut, or Spain which has sucked in millions of immigrants from Morocco, China and of course the UK.
No. The only problems are in England. Go to Paris and it's lovely there, so long as you stay near the Eiffel Tower and all the smart hotels and restaurants. And Barcelona? Lovely, but watch your wallet. No shitty areas anywhere else in Europe? Dream on.
Of course there is a lot that's wrong with this country.
The austerity policies of this Tory government, enabled by the Liberal Party, have made no difference to the rich but they have hammered the working poor. Iain Duncan Smith, an unpleasant man if ever there was one, pretends the food banks are not really needed, that the problems only exist because sometimes people don't get paid on time or those useless incompetents in the DWP don't pay them on time.
And there is still mass youth unemployment, especially in the sink estates which still exist, just as they do in every other major city on earth.
I could go on but the reality is that there is only one thing that really pisses people off about this country: the weather.
There's plenty wrong, of course, but I find that there are far more good people than bad. I find that the streets are no more paved with litter than they are in most other countries I have been to. There are issues with drugs and violence but that's hardly unique to us either.
No. It's the weather and it's also that when we travel abroad we don't normally go sightseeing in their sink estates. And people don't in ours either. Rarely do I see coach loads of Japanese tourists travelling down Long Cross, admiring the closed down pub of that name and salivating as they pass the traditional branch of Greggs on Riding Leaze. We see what we want to see and, as Paul Simon was fond of saying, we disregard the rest.
I see good all the time. People doing good things, people helping other people, people keeping an eye on their neighbours and just being kind.
And when all these good things are happening, it's pissing down so we dream of somewhere hot and if we're really British somewhere hot with karaoke and English beer.
The slate grey skies and rain beating on the windows do have depressing qualities because it's dark and gloomy.
But our country, far from being broken, as Mr Cameron tried to pretend when he was leader of the opposition, is actually doing all right, despite him.
So if you don't like it here, you know what to do.
The grass won't be greener because it rains so bloody much over here but you might be able to pretend it's better and some folk will believe you. I won't.
We've heard it all before. It's what the right wing press, like the Mail, wants us to believe.
We're being swamped by immigrants, everything is broken and nothing works anymore. Crime is out of control, political correctness dominates (you can't even celebrate Christmas anymore, for fear of offending muslims, don't you know?) and the country is drowning in a raft of health and safety rules. You can't even beat your own children or send them up chimneys anymore.
And it's only this country that's going to the dogs.
Not Greece where 50% of its young people are unemployed and where their pensions have been cut, or Spain which has sucked in millions of immigrants from Morocco, China and of course the UK.
No. The only problems are in England. Go to Paris and it's lovely there, so long as you stay near the Eiffel Tower and all the smart hotels and restaurants. And Barcelona? Lovely, but watch your wallet. No shitty areas anywhere else in Europe? Dream on.
Of course there is a lot that's wrong with this country.
The austerity policies of this Tory government, enabled by the Liberal Party, have made no difference to the rich but they have hammered the working poor. Iain Duncan Smith, an unpleasant man if ever there was one, pretends the food banks are not really needed, that the problems only exist because sometimes people don't get paid on time or those useless incompetents in the DWP don't pay them on time.
And there is still mass youth unemployment, especially in the sink estates which still exist, just as they do in every other major city on earth.
I could go on but the reality is that there is only one thing that really pisses people off about this country: the weather.
There's plenty wrong, of course, but I find that there are far more good people than bad. I find that the streets are no more paved with litter than they are in most other countries I have been to. There are issues with drugs and violence but that's hardly unique to us either.
No. It's the weather and it's also that when we travel abroad we don't normally go sightseeing in their sink estates. And people don't in ours either. Rarely do I see coach loads of Japanese tourists travelling down Long Cross, admiring the closed down pub of that name and salivating as they pass the traditional branch of Greggs on Riding Leaze. We see what we want to see and, as Paul Simon was fond of saying, we disregard the rest.
I see good all the time. People doing good things, people helping other people, people keeping an eye on their neighbours and just being kind.
And when all these good things are happening, it's pissing down so we dream of somewhere hot and if we're really British somewhere hot with karaoke and English beer.
The slate grey skies and rain beating on the windows do have depressing qualities because it's dark and gloomy.
But our country, far from being broken, as Mr Cameron tried to pretend when he was leader of the opposition, is actually doing all right, despite him.
So if you don't like it here, you know what to do.
The grass won't be greener because it rains so bloody much over here but you might be able to pretend it's better and some folk will believe you. I won't.
Sunday, 29 June 2014
My Glastonbury experience
Today is the final day of Glastonbury, a statement to which I shall add the comment, thank god.
It is probably just me because the thing usually sells out of tickets before they go on sale (or something like that) and the BBC must attract very healthy ratings (or why else would they send more people to sleepy Somerset than they did to the World Cup in Brail?).
But - and this is me judging the thing on the BBC coverage, never having been - I have been bored out of my mind with much of what I have seen (and heard).
On the positive side, I thought Metallica were excellent, even though I hardly knew any of their tunes. They were very smooth, too smooth if anything, but they know how to press find the G Spot of a festival audience.
The type of Metal banged out by the band is not always my cup of tea but I know a good band when I see and hear one and, despite my constant misgivings about lead singer James Hetfield's part time hobby of shooting dead large bears and supporting the NRA, I managed to tap my foot to the songs I knew. I would be lying, though, if I said I wasn't waiting the whole set for Enter Sandman.
The Manic Street Preachers were on a side stage (I do not know which stage, nor do I particularly care) and they too were excellent. They are not exactly in the first flush of youth, although they are compared to me, but they were terrific.
And Robert Plant. What can I say? Class is permanent and Robert, with a sublime backing band, is still very classy. Still on the age front, it did seem like the average age of the audience was as old as me, maybe as old as Robert himself!
But there was a lot of what us grumps call crap on view as well.
I look at Elbow and think, why? Guy Garvey, they say knows how to work an audience, but then so does Daniel O'Donnell and he's still rubbish. I sat through a few minutes of their turgid set and switched over to Sky to watch an obscure golf tournament in America. Well, what else is there to watch on a Friday night?
The oldies were there in force too.
Bryan Ferry did a set of Roxy classics and solo stuff and thanks to his blistering band he just about got away with it. But the truth remains, after 40-odd years into his career, he still can't sing; his quiet voice having to be heavily amplified above some backing singers who definitely could.
I can't knock his thinning hair - it happens to us all, especially men - and he doesn't look like a man well into bus pass territory, but it was another 'why?' moment.
Blondie played a set too. Debbie Harry suffers in the media much more than Ferry because she is a woman and women in showbiz are not allowed to become old. Of course she is not - and I am sorry to describe her in such terms - the four tissue job of the 1970s (I had friends who really said that; friends, honest) but she can still sing. They were all right and so much the better for the fact that they are a band still making music.
Part of my attitude to it could be explained by old age, although I have never fancied sleeping in a field with tens of thousands of others and needing a piss at 4.00 in the morning. Or queuing for a number two with the possible increasing of tension and desperation that might bring.
There are of course lots of other things to do, I'd imagine. I may be making this up but I am guessing there might be face-painting, fortune-telling and jugglers. And ethical burger stalls and bars selling expensive cider in plastic glasses.
And it is pretty obvious that the people there are thoroughly enjoying themselves, or at the very least good at pretending they are enjoying themselves. I can report that during Metallica's set, the traditional pretty young woman with small breasts covered, regrettably, with a bikini top, sitting high on the shoulders of a muscled young man was picked out repeatedly by the director. She plainly knew none of the words - maybe like me, not even the tunes - but she looked happy, which is probably more than the people who were standing behind her.
I have decided against watching Dolly Parton this afternoon because whilst I acknowledge her brilliance and towering presence in country music, I don't much care for the music or her voice. I am fairly sure that it is illegal to not be a massive fan of Dolly, who is playing in the Sunday afternoon novelty act spot occupied in previous years by legends such as Bruce Forsyth, Tom Jones and...er...Rolf Harris (who is currently unavailable).
I won't watch Kasabian either on the simple grounds that I don't know a single one of their songs, which makes me sound like one of those High Court Judges ("Now just who are The Beatles?").
I could watch Jo Whiley all night (and frequently do, in my dreams) and the funny one from Mark and Lard is an excellent presenter but I suspect the BBC's coverage does not do justice to Glasto, as the kids seems to call it because if they do, it's not very good.
I am guessing most people will be coming home tomorrow, knee deep in mud and god knows what else, with sopping wet belongings, no money and stinking to high heaven. And probably happy, looking forward to next year.
Metallica were this year's Jay Z so I suspect Michael Eavis will return to the safe old favourites of AOR next year, like Coldplay, but maybe he might surprise and drag the festival back to how it used to be and maybe still is given that I have never been and never will.
It is probably just me because the thing usually sells out of tickets before they go on sale (or something like that) and the BBC must attract very healthy ratings (or why else would they send more people to sleepy Somerset than they did to the World Cup in Brail?).
But - and this is me judging the thing on the BBC coverage, never having been - I have been bored out of my mind with much of what I have seen (and heard).
On the positive side, I thought Metallica were excellent, even though I hardly knew any of their tunes. They were very smooth, too smooth if anything, but they know how to press find the G Spot of a festival audience.
The type of Metal banged out by the band is not always my cup of tea but I know a good band when I see and hear one and, despite my constant misgivings about lead singer James Hetfield's part time hobby of shooting dead large bears and supporting the NRA, I managed to tap my foot to the songs I knew. I would be lying, though, if I said I wasn't waiting the whole set for Enter Sandman.
The Manic Street Preachers were on a side stage (I do not know which stage, nor do I particularly care) and they too were excellent. They are not exactly in the first flush of youth, although they are compared to me, but they were terrific.
And Robert Plant. What can I say? Class is permanent and Robert, with a sublime backing band, is still very classy. Still on the age front, it did seem like the average age of the audience was as old as me, maybe as old as Robert himself!
But there was a lot of what us grumps call crap on view as well.
I look at Elbow and think, why? Guy Garvey, they say knows how to work an audience, but then so does Daniel O'Donnell and he's still rubbish. I sat through a few minutes of their turgid set and switched over to Sky to watch an obscure golf tournament in America. Well, what else is there to watch on a Friday night?
The oldies were there in force too.
Bryan Ferry did a set of Roxy classics and solo stuff and thanks to his blistering band he just about got away with it. But the truth remains, after 40-odd years into his career, he still can't sing; his quiet voice having to be heavily amplified above some backing singers who definitely could.
I can't knock his thinning hair - it happens to us all, especially men - and he doesn't look like a man well into bus pass territory, but it was another 'why?' moment.
Blondie played a set too. Debbie Harry suffers in the media much more than Ferry because she is a woman and women in showbiz are not allowed to become old. Of course she is not - and I am sorry to describe her in such terms - the four tissue job of the 1970s (I had friends who really said that; friends, honest) but she can still sing. They were all right and so much the better for the fact that they are a band still making music.
Part of my attitude to it could be explained by old age, although I have never fancied sleeping in a field with tens of thousands of others and needing a piss at 4.00 in the morning. Or queuing for a number two with the possible increasing of tension and desperation that might bring.
There are of course lots of other things to do, I'd imagine. I may be making this up but I am guessing there might be face-painting, fortune-telling and jugglers. And ethical burger stalls and bars selling expensive cider in plastic glasses.
And it is pretty obvious that the people there are thoroughly enjoying themselves, or at the very least good at pretending they are enjoying themselves. I can report that during Metallica's set, the traditional pretty young woman with small breasts covered, regrettably, with a bikini top, sitting high on the shoulders of a muscled young man was picked out repeatedly by the director. She plainly knew none of the words - maybe like me, not even the tunes - but she looked happy, which is probably more than the people who were standing behind her.
I have decided against watching Dolly Parton this afternoon because whilst I acknowledge her brilliance and towering presence in country music, I don't much care for the music or her voice. I am fairly sure that it is illegal to not be a massive fan of Dolly, who is playing in the Sunday afternoon novelty act spot occupied in previous years by legends such as Bruce Forsyth, Tom Jones and...er...Rolf Harris (who is currently unavailable).
I won't watch Kasabian either on the simple grounds that I don't know a single one of their songs, which makes me sound like one of those High Court Judges ("Now just who are The Beatles?").
I could watch Jo Whiley all night (and frequently do, in my dreams) and the funny one from Mark and Lard is an excellent presenter but I suspect the BBC's coverage does not do justice to Glasto, as the kids seems to call it because if they do, it's not very good.
I am guessing most people will be coming home tomorrow, knee deep in mud and god knows what else, with sopping wet belongings, no money and stinking to high heaven. And probably happy, looking forward to next year.
Metallica were this year's Jay Z so I suspect Michael Eavis will return to the safe old favourites of AOR next year, like Coldplay, but maybe he might surprise and drag the festival back to how it used to be and maybe still is given that I have never been and never will.
Wednesday, 25 June 2014
Suarez
The general media and social networks reactions to the latest Luis Suarez biting incident have left me strangely uncomfortable.
I doubt that my opinion will influence Blatter's FIFA but on the face of it Suarez is guilty as charged.
He was probably wound right up up the Italians but that doesn't give him the right to take a bite out of a fellow player.
He's got history. Is it three bites and out?
I'm uncomfortable about the mental health aspects. if there are any.
I've listened to the radio phone-ins and seen the 'hilarious' jokes on Facebook and Twitter and there are those who say Suarez may have mental health issues, some who say that he may have mental health issues but that's irrelevant and others who say he just bites people, that's just the way he is. Ban him for life.
I have no idea whether Suarez has mental health issues but I have had them for a lifetime and I know from personal experience and from the experiences of others that it makes you do some pretty odd things, with some it makes you do some pretty bad things.
Some people I knew harmed themselves, some harmed others. A few killed themselves too, all misunderstood, slipping below the radar.
When I was at my lowest, sickest ebb, I didn't make the best decisions, I didn't do things that I was proud of, I got a lot of things wrong.
As a distant outsider, I know two things: Luis Suarez is one of the greatest footballers on earth. At the moment, he is up there with Ronaldo and Messi. The second is that he is flawed, deeply flawed, and before we pronounce him guilty and condemn him to a severe punishment can we not just ask why?
Even in these so-called enlightened times, mental health remains the great taboo. People don't like to talk about it, many who have never suffered from it think we should just pull ourselves together and get on with it.
In my case, I did try to pull myself through it, albeit with the assistance of a small army of therapists, counsellors and even consultant psychiatrists - oh, and anti-depressant drugs that at one stage left me unable to do anything other than lie down in a darkened room.
Is Suarez ill? I have no idea. Maybe he is just that way inclined, although how you would expect to get away with biting an opponent before TV cameras on a worldwide stage seems a little far fetched.
I'll bet those at Liverpool football club woke up today thinking, "Oh, hell. Here we go again!"
Do they sack their prize financial asset, do they discipline him; what do they do?
I just hope beyond hope that the powers that be will say, okay, this has gone far enough. Why does he do these things, is there something wrong, is there any way we can make things better so it doesn't happen again?
I am as aware as anyone that in Britain psychiatry is regarded somewhere below quack 'medicine' like homeopathy and we are quick to condemn someone who should 'snap out of it' when they are 'low' or even mad.
If Suarez is not ill, if Suarez is just a nasty piece of work, then throw him out of football and leave it at that.
But what if there is some illness running through him?
Yes, he needs to be punished - he's bitten someone, again - but maybe he needs to be cured too?
I doubt that my opinion will influence Blatter's FIFA but on the face of it Suarez is guilty as charged.
He was probably wound right up up the Italians but that doesn't give him the right to take a bite out of a fellow player.
He's got history. Is it three bites and out?
I'm uncomfortable about the mental health aspects. if there are any.
I've listened to the radio phone-ins and seen the 'hilarious' jokes on Facebook and Twitter and there are those who say Suarez may have mental health issues, some who say that he may have mental health issues but that's irrelevant and others who say he just bites people, that's just the way he is. Ban him for life.
I have no idea whether Suarez has mental health issues but I have had them for a lifetime and I know from personal experience and from the experiences of others that it makes you do some pretty odd things, with some it makes you do some pretty bad things.
Some people I knew harmed themselves, some harmed others. A few killed themselves too, all misunderstood, slipping below the radar.
When I was at my lowest, sickest ebb, I didn't make the best decisions, I didn't do things that I was proud of, I got a lot of things wrong.
As a distant outsider, I know two things: Luis Suarez is one of the greatest footballers on earth. At the moment, he is up there with Ronaldo and Messi. The second is that he is flawed, deeply flawed, and before we pronounce him guilty and condemn him to a severe punishment can we not just ask why?
Even in these so-called enlightened times, mental health remains the great taboo. People don't like to talk about it, many who have never suffered from it think we should just pull ourselves together and get on with it.
In my case, I did try to pull myself through it, albeit with the assistance of a small army of therapists, counsellors and even consultant psychiatrists - oh, and anti-depressant drugs that at one stage left me unable to do anything other than lie down in a darkened room.
Is Suarez ill? I have no idea. Maybe he is just that way inclined, although how you would expect to get away with biting an opponent before TV cameras on a worldwide stage seems a little far fetched.
I'll bet those at Liverpool football club woke up today thinking, "Oh, hell. Here we go again!"
Do they sack their prize financial asset, do they discipline him; what do they do?
I just hope beyond hope that the powers that be will say, okay, this has gone far enough. Why does he do these things, is there something wrong, is there any way we can make things better so it doesn't happen again?
I am as aware as anyone that in Britain psychiatry is regarded somewhere below quack 'medicine' like homeopathy and we are quick to condemn someone who should 'snap out of it' when they are 'low' or even mad.
If Suarez is not ill, if Suarez is just a nasty piece of work, then throw him out of football and leave it at that.
But what if there is some illness running through him?
Yes, he needs to be punished - he's bitten someone, again - but maybe he needs to be cured too?
Tuesday, 24 June 2014
Hodgson not out
So who watched the England v Costa Rica bore draw tonight in the World Cup and felt like I did?
Since we lost to the fatally flawed, it seems, genius of Suarez (Uruguay were nothing special), I have felt ever so slightly spaced-out. Our early exit, which I had been expecting, still left me in slight shock.
So I sat down to watch the final irrelevant chapter in our World Cup short story in a state of near apathy and disdain.
A game was going on but it didn't seem to have anything that was relevant to me.
I am not bothered about the result tonight or even the performance. How on earth could anyone expect this notch-potch of a 'team', selected by a man who must be in serious shock, as opposed to my far less serious shock, to suddenly 'gel' and play like world beaters? Never going to happen.
We did learn a few things, or maybe we just remembered them?
Smalling is not an international footballer, Lampard used to be a very good one. Shaw looks a great prospect, Milner works hard. And Sturridge is as good as we have as a striker but a Messi, a Moller, a Neymar, a Suarez he ain't. Give the man four or five chances and he is capable of missing the lot.
I could go on. Maybe I will.
I am at a loss why Roy Hodgson picked a team like that. He's an experienced man, a top coach and he has a vision of how football should look like. But tonight he goes and makes so many changes, the team are literally strangers to each other. And boy, did it look like it!
Whatever Roy said, that was a selection born of sentiment and experiment.
The selection of Lampard was a nice way to say farewell to a declining but very underrated player, as was the late substitution of Gerrard to play where Hodgson himself declared, on the basis of his previous selections, incapable of playing.
Rooney, the media and public hate figure, I could almost understand coming on late on, but I would have understood it more if he had started.
So where do I stand on Roy Hodgson and who cares?
Yesterday, when all my troubles seemed so far away, I was four square behind him, but tonight I am wondering why.
Odd selections, tactics that left me baffled and looked like they baffled our team too and a game plan that didn't look like any kind of plan at all.
What a mess.
Hodgson's appointment surprised many people who expected 'Arry to get the job. The people's choice, as The Sun might have it.
'Arry would never more than a sticking plaster appointment, one to to lift those who feel her is as great a manager as he thinks he is, but there would be no vision beneath the national team to address the mess that's underneath it.
Whatever Hodgson got wrong - and I think he got a lot wrong - he still knows more than me about football by quite a lot.
I'm not sure how much Hodgson messed up and how much the players messed up. But they did and it was quite a lot.
It's been a great World Cup so far and we've seen the best (Suarez) and the worst (Suarez).
Somewhere between the best and the worst, and much nearer the latter than the former, there's us.
Hodgson in, but I am no longer sure why.
Since we lost to the fatally flawed, it seems, genius of Suarez (Uruguay were nothing special), I have felt ever so slightly spaced-out. Our early exit, which I had been expecting, still left me in slight shock.
So I sat down to watch the final irrelevant chapter in our World Cup short story in a state of near apathy and disdain.
A game was going on but it didn't seem to have anything that was relevant to me.
I am not bothered about the result tonight or even the performance. How on earth could anyone expect this notch-potch of a 'team', selected by a man who must be in serious shock, as opposed to my far less serious shock, to suddenly 'gel' and play like world beaters? Never going to happen.
We did learn a few things, or maybe we just remembered them?
Smalling is not an international footballer, Lampard used to be a very good one. Shaw looks a great prospect, Milner works hard. And Sturridge is as good as we have as a striker but a Messi, a Moller, a Neymar, a Suarez he ain't. Give the man four or five chances and he is capable of missing the lot.
I could go on. Maybe I will.
I am at a loss why Roy Hodgson picked a team like that. He's an experienced man, a top coach and he has a vision of how football should look like. But tonight he goes and makes so many changes, the team are literally strangers to each other. And boy, did it look like it!
Whatever Roy said, that was a selection born of sentiment and experiment.
The selection of Lampard was a nice way to say farewell to a declining but very underrated player, as was the late substitution of Gerrard to play where Hodgson himself declared, on the basis of his previous selections, incapable of playing.
Rooney, the media and public hate figure, I could almost understand coming on late on, but I would have understood it more if he had started.
So where do I stand on Roy Hodgson and who cares?
Yesterday, when all my troubles seemed so far away, I was four square behind him, but tonight I am wondering why.
Odd selections, tactics that left me baffled and looked like they baffled our team too and a game plan that didn't look like any kind of plan at all.
What a mess.
Hodgson's appointment surprised many people who expected 'Arry to get the job. The people's choice, as The Sun might have it.
'Arry would never more than a sticking plaster appointment, one to to lift those who feel her is as great a manager as he thinks he is, but there would be no vision beneath the national team to address the mess that's underneath it.
Whatever Hodgson got wrong - and I think he got a lot wrong - he still knows more than me about football by quite a lot.
I'm not sure how much Hodgson messed up and how much the players messed up. But they did and it was quite a lot.
It's been a great World Cup so far and we've seen the best (Suarez) and the worst (Suarez).
Somewhere between the best and the worst, and much nearer the latter than the former, there's us.
Hodgson in, but I am no longer sure why.
Saturday, 21 June 2014
It's Wayne Rooney's fault.
'England crash out of the World Cup.'
That's as original a headline as 'Bear shits in woods' or 'Pope a catholic shocker.'
What I am always surprised about is why we are always surprised.
I was a less than average, bordering on crap, footballer, trundling my way through 25 years of parks football. From the touchline, I could pick a pass, spot a run, but in the middle of the action, I couldn't trap a bag of cement.
I wasn't alone. Even the better teams were based on pace, power and tackling. Smaller players were ignored because, well, they were smaller.
When I had children of my own, they both played football and I soon learned why English football was so bad.
My oldest son, happily, was coached and managed by proper football men who could see beyond winning (although I am not going to pretend they didn't want to win). They developed boys, it was not win at all costs. But these coaches were the exceptions.
Most of the rest did want to win at all costs, playing 'ringers' from academies, roared on by passionate, pushy and occasionally abusive parents. It was a chilling insight.
And the facilities? Often the boys played, in 11 a side football at age 11, on a full sized municipal mud bath. Mostly, they arrived in their kit and left in it, sitting on blankets in their parents cars. At many places, games were delayed by the need to remove cans, glass and, of course, dog shit.
In fact, in the many games my sons played over a decade, you could count on the fingers of two hands how many times they were able to use a changing room.
As the national team blunders from one tournament defeat to another, so youth football flounders the same.
In 1992, we squirmed as Carlton Palmer miscontrolled his way through the European Championships but Palmer became the template for the young players we were developing.
Strong, powerful, able to get up and down the pitch all day (a good engine, they call it) and crucially able to boot the ball a long way. I have seen scores of players like that but hardly ever a Jack Wilshere-type player.
Whilst the Premier League was trousering billions of pounds and lining the pockets of mostly foreign players, the parents of the players of our future were forking out their own kind of fortune to let them be coached by some of the players' dads.
Youth football and below is a mess.
I am not a huge fan of Jose Mourinho, but he got one thing bang on when he said, "In England they teach children to win. In Spain, they teach them to play football."
Winning comes naturally and I strongly believe the competitive instinct, which is not the same with everyone, will evolve naturally, where it exists.
No more do we want the coach to berate the small boy who has dribbled too far and lost the ball. No. The coach should be telling him to try again. But I have even seen coaches substitute boys of 10 and 11 for not 'getting rid of it.'
I have seen youth football abroad, especially in the Netherlands, and it's a different world.
The pitches are smaller, the teams are smaller, the skills are better, the parents are silent and if they say anything, anything at all, they are sent away.
I am not convinced there is any desire in our country to change things because the emphasis is always on the Premier League, particularly now we have exited the tournament.
I think we'll be back here again in two years time and literally nothing will have changed.
And it will still all be Wayne Rooney's fault.
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