Hey Gaffa! Whose Side Are You On?

Much has been written, both by RTG and other parts of the media, about how modern footballers no longer seem able to relate to the supporters who come to watch them each week and, effectively, pay their wages. RTG could offer up a great deal of evidence of events in recent times that would back this up and you’d probably have heard most of it all before. But what of managers? As the corporate animal slowly but surely devours the game of football are we now beginning to see the inevitable loss of respect for supporters from the team bosses themselves?

Supporters traditionally have always treated the manager as custodian of the team’s interests. He has always been a figurehead who fights the chairman for more money to boost the squad and, when their club was successful, you could hear no wrong said from the fans on the terraces.

The relationship between club chairmen and managers was always an uneasy one. Brian Clough was famous for criticising chairmen and it was indeed the breakdown of his relationship with Sam Longson at Derby County that led to his resignation in 1973. It is now well documented that Clough himself was no saint but he was adamant that he had deserved better treatment for what he had done for the club and its supporters.

Clough’s battles, of course, were in the days when the club chairman was usually a local successful businessman. The huge sums of money involved in football today have changed club governance immeasurably and, in RTG’s opinion, the relationship between manager and supporter is therefore beginning to look very different.

Ask any Manchester United fan and Sir Alex Ferguson is, quite rightly, a legend. He has built a dynasty at United turning them from a there-or-thereabouts team into perennial winners. And he has done it through building new team after new team.

"We don't want the club in anyone else's hands. I have always tried to the bridge between the club and the fans. I have tried to support the fans in a lot of their pleas and causes. It's important for the club to recognise the fans. When the plc started, there were grave doubts about it - I had them myself - but I think the supporters have come round to that. There's a stronger rapport between the club and the fans than there's ever been."

Sir Alex Ferguson, November 2004

When the Glazers arrived, United fans protested at the huge debts that they heaped on the club where once there were reasonable profits—profits that were spent on the team and facilities for supporters. Supporters looked to their talisman to come out and state his own disapproval regarding what was happening to the club. Surely, Sir Alex himself would be concerned at the impending money squeeze that would inevitably occur. But he remained diplomatically silent other than to state his disregard for the fans who formed FC United of Manchester, claiming they were self-publicists and had no real interest in saving Manchester United. It was, he said, more an act in their own self-interests.

"I've got close friends who've been working with me here for 15 years. They come first in all of this….If you don't like it, go and watch Chelsea."

Sir Alex Ferguson, August 2005,

And then, disappointingly, two seasons ago, to the chagrin of the United faithful, he came out in support of the Glazers management of the club. “They've been great owners”, he said. 'They have supported me every way I've asked them.”

Last season, following the departure of Christiano Ronaldo for a record £80M, saw the rise of the green and old campaign, a campaign that RTG wholeheartedly supports for its stance against the use of a football club as a cash cow to prop up their ailing business interests in a foreign country after having used the club’s own money to buy it in the first place. Surely now, Sir Alex would at least express some degree of concern about lack of spending money and perhaps some sympathy for supporters who had seen their star player sold for a record transfer fee with very little coming back in the way of class players to strengthen the squad.

But no. Sir Alex continued to maintain that his squad was good enough and he came out and, earlier this year, criticised the green and gold campaign. He effectively dismissed those behind, what is a worthy and heartfelt campaign, as idiots. United did, in fact, secure second in the Premier League last season but the signs were there that some cracks were beginning to appear.

Before you start to think, where is RTG going with this? That you’d be more than happy if your club were to finish second in the Premier League! That is not the issue. The point is that, what should be a fantastic football legacy left not only to the club by Sir Alex, but also to English football itself, is in danger of being slowly but surely squandered away. And why? So a few American businessmen can pay off their debts back home and continue to draw funds from what is their only cash generating concern. The objective of the business has clearly changed to a distinctly non-footballing agenda.

Sir Alex was reputedly paid upwards of £3.6M in 2008. RTG can only assume it is more than that now. If he comes out and criticises the Glazers, where does that leave him? He seems to be one of these people that supports socialism right up to the point that it leaves him worse off. He’ll be OK. He’ll retire, when he chooses to do so, in a more than comfortable state. United supporters, and yes, English football as a whole, will be left with the Glazers and the mess.

If this sounds like a direct attack on Sir Alex Ferguson, it is not meant to be. RTG just wishes to illustrate that he is the most successful manager and United are the biggest supported club in the world. You could equally take the case of Arsenal who, since moving to a bigger stadium in order to supposedly ‘compete’, have won nothing since. Yet, Arsene Wenger continues to claim transfer fees are there if he wants them. Nobody really knows the truth. No, the corporate interests and wealthy billionaire owners have seen to it that our managers are now well and truly at the mercy of the money god.

We already have alienation of the players and the supporters. Signs are that we may soon have managers and supporters alienated too. What next? Complete alienation of the clubs and its supporters? We don’t like you lot anymore. We can survive with our TV money and the supporters abroad. Season ticket to Dubai United anyone?

The Keeper

...he's punching above his weight

News of an almighty row from the American National Football League (NFL) has reached the Keeper. Apparently a former Miss Universe was subjected to ‘abuse’ by male players when doing the post match (sorry “game”) round of interviews in the changing (sorry “locker”) room on behalf of an obscure sports channel. The NFL has long prided itself on having equal access for all reporters of either gender or sexual orientation to players – extending to ignoring any issues arising from naked men running around flicking wet towels at each other, or for that matter, the “qualification” of said reporters. The Keeper is thankful that no such access exists here. No, not because the Keeper is loathe to flash women (after all, it’s legal!). But the spectre of Madams Balding, Barker, Irvine et al chasing naked men around with a large microphone would leave both parties, well…not worthy of fantasy. Anyway, if rumours are to be believed, they’d be a lot happier hanging around in female professional tennis changing rooms. However, it did make the Keeper wonder if the NFL’s politically correct approach extended the same privileges to males in female locker rooms?

Talking of being thankful, or not in this case, the Keeper was disappointed to see Alan Shearer back on the MOTD couch last Saturday. However, the Keeper was thankful to be distracted from his tiresome repetition of clichés, masquerading as analysis, by being mesmerised by his patchy bald pate, resembling something like a football pitch from the 1960’s. So mesmerised in fact, that he even missed Alan’s uninformed remark: “Ben Arfa – whoever ‘eard of ‘im”; referring to Newcastle United’s France International, Hatem Ben Arfa – five times French League Champion, with two different clubs, and regular on the Champions League scene over the last five years. Certainly contradicts the old saying that goes “grass doesn’t grow on a busy thoroughfare”! Not busy, just lazy.

Now that the England team establishment have stated that the next England manager will be English, jockeying for position in the role has been initiated, with several managers putting themselves forward. Sam Allardyce made his intentions clear by telling the media that he would win all the domestic honours, at least, if he was in charge at either Inter or Real Madrid. Knowing his predilection for the technical side of the game – through lap top analysis and blue tooth earpiece communications, the Keeper wonders if he has been drawing the wrong conclusions from playing too much with his EA Sports Champions League play station game. Besides which Sam, modern European managers usually have a command of several languages, not just a poor command of one!

On a serious note, the Keeper’s least favourite rogue administrator, the less than honourable Jack Warner, FIFA vice President and President of CONCACAF, is still managing to cock a snook to both the Trinidad & Tobago Players and the country’s legal system. Despite the fact that the T & T courts have ordered him to release the funds to pay players who participated in the 2006 world cup, he’s still refusing to do so. This from a man who was fined hundreds of thousands of dollars by FIFA for touting tickets and for enriching his own relative’s travel company at that tournament. The fact that Sepp Blatter keeps insisting that “Jack” is a paragon of virtue and all round top bloke, says more about Blatter than it does about Warner.

A Phoney Phase to a Phoney Competition – Part Three

In the previous two parts of the ‘Phoney Competition’ series, RTG highlighted how the unrestricted spending of billionaire owners was ruining the Premier League competition. Also highlighted, were the hyper-inflationary pressures resulting directly from the mega-millions thrown in by these wealthy owners which has led to a huge financial chasm to cross for ambitious Championship clubs to get into the Premier League. A chasm that has meant financial ruin and further losses of league status for those clubs who fail to stay in the League beyond a single season.

RTG has called for the unilateral imposition (i.e. outside of UEFA’s useless new rules) of controls by the Premier League to improve the quality of the competition. This week, RTG is calling for a reduction in the size of the League to further improve not only the competitive element, but also aid the England team by imposing less games on players.

Many would think that RTG would be against an even smaller elite Premier League – and in some senses that is true. However, if RTG’s ideas on club finances were adopted, coupled with fewer games for English players, football would benefit twofold. Firstly, less meaningless games against ‘canon fodder’ teams – thus allowing the much vaunted mid season break, and, secondly the competitiveness would be further improved.

For several decades now, newly promoted clubs have struggled to find their feet in the top division. The recent history of failure by the newly promoted to maintain their status is not new. What is new is that, the vastly increased wages and transfer fees that are needed to field a team at the top level, have caused financial ruin, that no amount of ‘parachute payments can arrest – should relegation occur. And it usually does.

The sensible financial policy would be for the ‘newbies’ not to compete by spending alone. This is what Blackpool have just done: bolstering their thin Championship squad with loans, free transfers and a solitary one million pound player transfer. In effect, they have already metaphorically thrown themselves into the wind with little expectation of success. They’re going to be in the top level for the first time in 40-odd years and they’ll enjoy it come what may. Who can blame them?

What would happen though if, as so nearly happened this season, that the English Champions are decided by whoever scores the most goals against the ‘canon fodder’ teams? Or for that matter, if Manchester United had won it because of the weakened team fielded against them by Wolves, who were resting key players before a crucial so-called ‘six-pointer’ game against fellow relegation rivals the following match? Again, what does this do for the Premier League competition?

The fact that there has been a plethora of six nil victories, not to mention eights and nines since the inception of the Premier League and a rarity of these scorelines prior to its birth is a huge pointer to the less competitive nature at the top level. The fact that there has only been four winners – and some would say two of those were “bought” – is another clear indicator. This despite Sky’s increasingly irritating assertion that it is a league “where anything can happen”. Anything that is, as long as two or three of the promoted clubs get relegated again!

RTG emphasizes that we don’t claim to have the right answers. But if as football supporters we can get a better competition with numerous clubs challenging for honours and Champions League spots AND help the England set up, surely this is worth campaigning for?

Help open up the debate by signing up to Reclaim the game.

The Keeper

…still trying to keep a clean sheet

Last week saw the Keeper confined to his sick bed for a few days. Don’t worry, there’s nothing seriously wrong with him. It just happened to be that time of year when mobile phones are on permanent alert just in case a big money opportunity presents itself before the transfer window closes. The Keeper was minding his own business over a game of golf on Monday afternoon when an anonymous text comes through linking yours truly with none other than Big Sam. Sniffing a lucrative Premier League move and, in order not to cup tie himself, the Keeper feigned sickness and did a Mascherano to rule himself out of any midweek activity. While his hardworking teammates took to the field, the Keeper waited eagerly for the call which duly came that evening. It was indeed a moneymaking opportunity with Big Sam. Sadly Big Sam turned out to be none other than ex-page three stunner and now famous cockney lesbian, Sam Fox, and the opportunity was an invitation to take part in celebrity Big Brother. Sam Fox indeed. Certainly not the Big Sam he was expecting and definitely not the ‘six yard box’ he was used to.

Speaking of transfers, there was a somewhat unique feel to the last window as the likes of Manchester City try desperately tried to offload some of their expensively assembled squad in order to comply with the Premier League’s new rules on squad size. Consequently, Craig Bellamy was welcomed with open arms on loan at his native Cardiff City. The move prompted Gwyn Davies, co-founder of Valley Rams, to state categorically that Cardiff City would much prefer to have Welshman Bellamy on their books than Wayne Rooney or Didier Drogba; a statement that goes to prove what we’ve always thought about the Welsh. As Alan Partridge would say, “you…you like your own, don’t you?” Enough said!

To other parts of the UK now and last week’s Champions League draw saw Rangers drawn in the same group as Manchester United. The Sun was very quick to refer to this as the ‘Battle of Britain’. Many, including the Keeper, were led to believe this was based purely on the fact that it was a Scottish team playing an English team. However, it seems on closer inspection that it may be more down to the fact that last time Rangers fans visited Manchester for the 2008 UEFA Cup final, they left it looking like an entire Squadron of Heinkels had unloaded it’s payload on the city during said battle. In fact, in a recent poll, where the residents of Manchester were asked which they’d prefer, Rangers or Heinkels, the Heinkels narrowly shaded it.

Speaking of being in the wars, Jerome Boateng has become the first injury worry of the new season for Manchester City. Rather than picking up a knock in training or on the pitch, Boateng became the next in a long line of unusual football injuries joining such fine examples as Robbie Keane, who ruptured his knee cartilage reaching for the TV remote control, and Steve Morrow, who broke his collar bone after being dropped on the ground by teammate Tony Adams after the Carling Cup Final in 1993. Our Jerome was harmlessly sat in his airplane seat when the stewardess bashed his knee with her trolley and tore his ligaments. It just goes to show how important it is for foreign players to learn English. She asked him if he wanted chicken or beef and his German/Ghanaian accent made it sound more like ‘biff’ when he replied. Sounds like she duly obliged.

A Phoney Phase to a Phoney Competition – Part Two

Last week RTG highlighted the total distortion of competition within the Premier League caused by the unrestricted spending of Manchester City and Chelsea. RTG also highlighted how this distortion is putting additional financial demands on the rest of the Premiership. So much so, that promotion can now be viewed increasingly as a poisoned chalice, with financial implosion and further relegation becoming the norm for those clubs failing to maintain their premiership status beyond a season or two. As RTG writes, recently relegated Hull City is believed to be on the brink of administration following a host of other clubs whose recent history has included a period in the top flight.

RTG believes the time has come to impose financial controls on this unbridled distortion. Yes, UEFA has announced rules that impose some limited constraints, but as RTG has previously pointed out before, these are very limited and will allow the continual subsidy of clubs living beyond their means until at least the 2019/2020 season! Also, they will continue to allow the purchase of clubs via leveraged buyouts, thus waving in more Glazers, Hicks and Gillettes into the English game.

Salomon Kalou made the back pages last week by asserting that Manchester City won’t be able to buy the league title. That, coming from a player whose team has already had around £700 million of subsidies from a Russian Oligarch, says much about the hypocrisy and lunacy pervading the upper tier of English football. And there’s more to come. Since Abramovich’s subsidies, Chelsea have finished in the top two in each of his six seasons as owner, winning three titles – this for a team that had finished in the top two only once in the previous 98 years. Sorry Salomon, you really can buy the title and you can buy success. You may not be able to do it by the Real Madrid ‘Galactico’ method – which in the end is more to do with a vanity ‘fantasy league’ project, than a serious football-winning team building exercise.

People have argued that the additional billions that the game has received from oligarchs and oil sheikhs have made the Premiership a more exciting league, attracting the best talent in the world. RTG argues differently: the additional money has led to absurd transfer and player salary inflation, which has only fuelled the disparity between the rich two and the rest. Yes, Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal have been able to challenge Chelsea in recent seasons, but these challenges are fading and, arguably Manchester United, without Ronaldo, would not have been able to prevent Chelsea from winning all titles since Abramovich appeared on the scene. As it stands, with UEFA’s so called financial constraints, the title for the foreseeable future will be a contest between City and Chelsea – with the rest making up the annual fodder for these two. It will also mean a lot more clubs going into administration and ruin.

No, the time is now for the Premiership to impose unilaterally its own controls to prevent not only the massive subsidies to clubs, but the obscene leveraged buy-outs which will bring ruin to both Manchester United and Liverpool. In Liverpool’s case, it already has done. Yes, it may mean the ‘best’ talent in the world may bypass the Premiership (and arguably they are doing so already) and it may mean that the Premiership’s recent ‘domination’ (according to the pundits) of the Champions League would end in the short term, but it would make for a far better competition and safeguard the future of clubs for their supporters.

So sign up to RTG to help get a proper football competition! 

The Keeper

…still waiting for the call from City! 

If the Keeper sounds a bit distracted this week then many apologies but it’s down to this new shirt they’ve got him wearing for the new season. It itches like hell. The days when the old green cotton jersey was washed and laid out on the bed in August have long since departed. Now it’s a question of making sure he gets used to at least three different luminous coloured nylon affairs. It used to be the case that the Keeper only had to go through this unpleasant process every few years but actually it seems to be a yearly occurrence now. In fact 18 from 20 Premier League clubs have changed their first team kit again this year so why should the Keeper get off scot free? At least Arsenal and Manchester United have ‘gone green’ by claiming their new replica kits are made from recycled plastic bottles. This does not unfortunately result in the shirts being cheaper to buy for the average football supporter but from a manufacturing production viewpoint, it makes perfect sense. After quenching their raging thirst in the oppressive heat of the sweatshop, a Chinese worker will be able to throw their plastic water bottle in the skip next to their work space safe in the knowledge that it will be back in front of them in a matter of days to be hewn expertly into a Nike football shirt.

Speaking of recycling in sport, the Olympic Stadium for 2012 is the first ever that is apparently totally recyclable. It is designed so that the top tier can be removed and recycled to leave a 25,000 capacity athletics stadium. Or, as talk has it, West Ham may take it over and have their own brand new home ground ready for 2012-13 presumably at taxpayers’ expense. But this doesn’t necessarily mean the recycling doesn’t have to happen. Just think how many peek-a-boo latex bras, crotch-less skin tight knickers and synthetic rubber Rampant Rabbits David Sullivan and David Gold will manage to make out of the recycled running track when it’s ripped up. 

No opportunity for Eduardo to don the reconstituted coke bottles as he thanked his old club Arsenal and departed for Shakhtar Donetsk. The unusual part of his transfer was that he had to learn Ukrainian as part of the deal. This serves as a stark reminder to the Keeper as to why so few English players travel to foreign climes to ply their trade. In three years at Lazio, the best Gazza managed was “uno birra per favour chief” (belch), while in the same time period in Madrid, David Beckham got at best to “grassy arse” and sticking an ‘o’ on the end of any English word he knows (of which, let’s face it, there aren’t that many). The Keeper wonders how many times the phrase “yer know o” was quoted in post-match interviews to the Spanish media.

Closer to home, the saga of Liverpool football club drags on and on. After last season when it seemed that a few scribblings on the back of a fag packet were enough to prove oneself worthy of buying Portsmouth, it could take many months for prospective buyers to prove their own suitability to buy the Merseyside giant while they, in turn, carry out their own due diligence. If this proves too much of a financial strain on Gillette and Hicks it may be that they will default on their loans and Royal Bank of Scotland, effectively a state owned bank, will end up running Liverpool FC. While opposition football supporters the length and breadth of the country have, for many years, taken the piss out of Liverpool folk and their supposed reliance on benefits from the state, having their football club relying on taxpayers’ handouts is surely taking it a bit too far.

A Phoney Phase to a Phoney Competition – Part One

It’s 17 days since the World Cup final and 31 since England’s exit. The post mortems have been held – and how. RTG was rather miffed that it wasn’t solicited amongst the multitude of vox pop interviews that even had contributions from family pets. This was on top of the interviews of just about every professional player of the last 30-40 years. Admittedly, it was enjoyable trying to put names to faces in Sky Sports News’ endless procession of fat, balding blokes being wheeled out for their jaundiced views of England’s failures.

Now the media’s attention is firmly focused on filling column inches and airtime minutes with news from the “eagerly awaited” transfer window. The dramatic days-‘til-end counter, the claims and counter denials, the will-they, won’t-they speculation and above all – the inaction! Currently, much wind, but no sail (sale?).


“If you offered me 15th place now, I'd take it!”

Wolves' Manager, Mick McCarthy 27th July 2010

Whilst it is not unreasonable that Sky, in particular, should attempt to sex-up the speculation, in support of their huge investment in the sport, this close season, rather like the last one, is proving to be ‘phoney’. There really isn’t that much going on compared to pre 2008 levels.

The credit crunch continues to impact the financial resources available to virtually every club. Only Manchester City, Real Madrid and, probably, Chelsea have or will spend big in this window. The rest of the Premiership, at least for the moment, is merely re-arranging resources with minor net spend. Liverpool, for instance, have taken a couple of out of contract players and single figure million pound players and, reportedly, will have to fund any further transfer activity out of sales. Equally, Manchester United’s two new recruits have been partly funded by sales for a net spend of around £3 million. United have also reduced their headcount by releasing players and loaners.

Manchester City on the other hand has so far spent £75 million – with plenty more in the pipeline. Indeed, it is widely anticipated that they will rack up spending to over £200 million in just two summer transfer windows. One of City’s new boys, the very ordinary Barca reserve, Yaya Toure, is on a contract that pays him around £1 million a month. Let’s put that into perspective. If recent reports are correct, Wayne Rooney has earned himself a rise in his wages that will pay him about 60% of what Mr Toure earns. Or another way, premiership new boys, Blackpool, have just announced their record transfer purchase: for the princely sum of £1 million.

This is a gross distortion of the football playing field and results in a gross distortion of the Premiership as a competition. What chance do promoted Premiership clubs have in this environment? What chance for that matter do other clubs have when one or two fortunate clubs have no financial boundaries? With the ever increasing disparity between what Premiership teams earn and what the rest do, the financial penalties that follow relegation are increasingly scary. Wages are up because one or two clubs are unencumbered in their spending to lure players on over-inflated contracts. Ditto transfer fees. To stay in the Premiership is the prime objective of all but a handful of clubs. Just ask the supporters of Charlton, Leeds, Southampton, Barnsley, Bradford City, Nottingham Forest, Crystal Palace and several others to see what awaits a relegated club who don’t bounce back immediately. Financial implosion and further relegation is the norm.

Is it any wonder then that the amount of defensively minded and over physical games has been increasingly boring football supporters throughout the Premiership over the last few years? Is it any wonder then that English players, in general, develop to be so uncomfortable in possession and the need to distribute that ball at break-neck speed, leads to a less than intelligent approach to the game. With so much at stake it can’t be a surprise to us that teams are going to be negative in their approach and this is a direct result of this phoney distortion of the football market.

In a previous article, RTG had already posed the question about ‘what is the difference between Portsmouth’s overspending – to their financial ruin and relegation – and Manchester City (or Chelsea), who consistently overspend – but just so happen to have an open ended cheque book’? The answer: a 10 point deduction. RTG continues this discussion next week….

The Keeper

…he’s a’puffin and a’pantin in pre-season!

The Keeper wishes to extend his own personal thank you to Tottenham for being the first club to make a stand and ban the vuvuzela from White Hart Lane for next season. Official club sources stated that they were concerned the noise might drown out important safety or security announcements. The Keeper wonders could they mean such statements as, “Put your hands up Harry, you’re under arrest” or “You are not obliged to say anything…” Neighbours Arsenal also followed their rivals soon afterwards in banning the vuvuzela for totally different reasons it seems. Rumour has it they were more concerned they might wake up some of the older patrons from their afternoon slumber in the ‘library’.

South Africa’s Zulu war trumpet was not a problem for Spain and The Keeper heartily congratulates them for their first ever World Cup success and for introducing us to their concept of ‘tiki taka’ football. The new world champions are well worthy of having named their own individual style of the game. In contrast, English players are more normally associated with ‘tacky tacky’, more on account of their terrible dress sense and their appalling taste in tattoos and jewellery. However, not to be outdone, they did come back from South Africa having stamped their own unique brand on the beautiful game, known as ‘humpa lumpa’ football!

Still, at least England did at least make it to the knockout stages unlike France who didn’t even make it past the group stage. It was only after the tournament, however, that the Keeper learned that phrases such as “inept”; “below par”; “too few scoring opportunities”; “over too early”; “lack of belief in the man on top”. were nothing to do with French football but actually describing Franck Ribery’s and Karim Benzema’s performance with the underage prostitute they allegedly procured in 2009 and for which they are now facing charges. It seems Franck Ribery’s own brother-in-law is also facing charges for his part in the procurement of said underage prostitute. Now that really is ‘tacky tacky’.

Post World Cup issues have come to the fore for England too, not least in the withdrawal of sponsorship from long-standing Team England partner, Nationwide. Ever the shrewd business operator, the FA felt compelled to rely on England’s outstanding World Cup performance to hold out on Nationwide for a bit more cash after the event. Little surprise then that the building society chose, not only to pay less money, but actually withdraw from the deal altogether after England’s demise in South Africa. Hope rests on rumours that one of the big internet search engines is waiting in the wings to add their support to Team England. Given the utter shambles exhibited once again in business negotiations by the FA, the Keeper feels the phrase ‘Ho-Hum’ might be more appropriate than Yahoo!

Time For Revolution in English Football

Following yet another dismal England failure in a major tournament, RTG is calling for a complete overhaul in the administration and running of football in this country. No more talk about tiredness, Winter breaks, technical ability or changes to the England management. Unless supporters want the discussion for the next 44 years to mirror those of the last 44 years, now is the time to have the courage to accept that the way the game is run is both archaic and anarchic and totally detrimental to the well-being of not just the national team but football in general.

“They [Holland, Germany and Spain] are the three nations who have won the greatest number of youth tournaments in the last four years. Can all this be put down to mere good luck? I don’t think so. We are witnessing a triumph for technical education programmes, sound management and good governance.”

Michel Platini, South Africa 2010

Currently, there are three distinct bodies running football in this country – all with their own agendas, all with their own objectives and all with an overriding aim couched in corporate rather than sporting terms. Any first year student of management studies could tell you that is a recipe for disaster. RTG believes there must be one body to govern football working to clear priorities and properly set objectives.

South Africa 2010 may not have been the most spectacular showcase for the game of football. But, if it showed us anything about international tournament football, it was that good coaching and intelligent players can produce a team that is far better than the sum of its parts. England, on paper, should have been more than a match for Germany and, man for man, should have stood comfortably shoulder to shoulder alongside the Dutch. However, when the chips were down against the Germans, the England players did not possess the thought-making process to understand what was going wrong and subsequently to put it right. It appeared that, running around like headless chickens and chasing shadows to show the ‘commitment’ and ‘passion’ that are so often quoted in relation to great England players was all they were capable of doing. And, in fact, that is all many simple-minded media pundits and commentators have believed to be required to win matches at this level for years.

Take Germany, as a good example (and why not since they are the most successful international European footballing nation). Following their failure to even get out of the group stage at Euro 2000, they revamped the structure of their coaching and administration as well as requiring Bundesliga teams to maintain a minimum number of home grown talent in each of their squads; together with a raft of other changes designed to help the development of the game. At the same time, England (who also went out at the same group stage) mindlessly contented themselves with a fortuitous single goal victory over the old enemy in one of the worst international matches RTG has ever witnessed.

In a similar vain, in 1976, Australia came back from the Montreal Olympic Games with no gold medals. That led to a root and branch analysis of what was wrong with sport in the country at all levels and ages. Consequently, they have punched way above their weight in every Olympics (and many other sports) since. In 1987, after suffering the humiliation of another comprehensive Ashes defeat, they did the same with cricket – the idea of being second best in their national sport simply not being acceptable. They didn’t lose the Ashes again until 2005. Likewise, English football needs to do the same with our national sport now. To do that it will have to acknowledge that the profit motive can no longer be the main driver behind how the game is run. It needs to set proper objectives and priorities for playing, coaching and governing the game in this country – and it needs to happen now.

Once a single governing body for football in England is established, RTG believes clear priorities for the game must be set out:

Priority 1: Participation. Football is our national sport and maximum participation is good for the health and well-being of the nation. Above all it must be fun to play to get the most out of it and we need to ensure that, at all ages and levels, the best possible facilities and standards of coaching are available - whatever that takes.

Priority 2: The England Team. If the first priority is met then we should be producing better players at grass roots level. But the club structure has to be revised in order that it helps the national team not hinders it. It’s obvious that the Premier League’s objectives could not be further from those of England right now. Clubs develop and buy players, quite justifiably, for their own economical and tactical needs not those of the national side. If available English players are not meeting those needs from the club’s perspective they will choose from elsewhere. And that’s exactly what they have been doing.

Priority 3: The Clubs. RTG has written plenty about this and there isn’t the space to address it fully here. But we need a fair competitive league structure that is not structured around how much money the owners are prepared to bankroll their clubs by or how much debt they feel they can get away with maintaining. The Premier League will argue that more money spent equals better players equals bigger gates. To use the German example again, grounds in Germany are full every week and clubs are not in debt. Likewise, their so-called ‘team in development’ reached the semi-finals of the World Cup – again!

These priorities represent some not insignificant changes. Like Germany, we may have to accept that our club performances in Europe will suffer in the short-term while genuinely talented players come through the ranks. In addition, qualification for the European Championships and World Cups at international level may have to be seen as a bonus rather than a given for a number of years. But removing that expectation from the shoulders of the team may, again like Germany, help them to over-achieve.

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The Keeper

….is hitting the beach instead of people!

As if England’s ignominious exit from the World Cup wasn’t bad enough already for English fans. We then had insult added to our pain by former Scotland manager Craig Brown. Mr Brown claimed that had Scotland qualified for the finals, they would have reached the quarter finals at least. This from a man who lamely responded after a 2-2 draw with the Faroe Islands with the immortal line “well, we did win the corner count”. The Keeper also recalled that Scotland later managed to lose to the mighty Faroe Islanders. Actually, on second thoughts, thank you Mr Brown, the memory of repeated humiliating Scottish failures to reach the European and World finals has cheered the Keeper up enormously.

Since the days of the sadly missed dishy Des Lynam, the Keeper has noticed that his punditry heirs have scaled ever further heights (or should that be plumb further depths?) in trying to outdo each other with the clever quips and puns. The Keeper’s favourite ‘waiting for the moment, but not worth the breath’ quotes have been Peter Drury’s USA – Ghana post match quip: “bye, bye, America sigh”. Ye-es. Sigh indeed. This was only just bettered in the cheesey stakes by Martin Keown’s comment on Japan’s “the lad Honda – played more like a Rolls Royce”.

TV pundits, however, much like tournament referees and assistants are not beyond reproach and paying for their mistakes. As the tournament progressed, various ‘expert’ panellists were culled from the initial line-ups. One of the first to go, thankfully, was the incomprehensible Emmanuel Adebayor, but much to the Keeper’s chagrin Alan Shearer remained. Now Mary Poppins, as he is known to the Geordie nation, didn’t, admittedly, attempt any cute quips or pathetic puns – to the Keeper’s knowledge – but his monotonous delivery and statement of the bleedin’ obvious was a continuous irritation. However, in response to the rest of the BBC panel’s discussion about Cesc Fabregas’ contribution in Spain’s triumph, he (boringly) told viewers that he had been outstanding “between the sticks” in the tournament and had made “two outstanding saves in the final”. Still Fabregas…..Casillas easily confused as they are only bloody foreigners to boring old Mary. Note: some media pundits were actually promoting him to be next England manager!

And finally, whilst the Keeper is sticking the proverbial boot into media pundits – this time journalists, Diego Forlan was, somewhat controversially, awarded the “Golden Ball” trophy. This, to commemorate him as the outstanding player of the tournament. Whilst admiring of Diego’s performances and his finishing as joint top scorer, the Keeper is perplexed at the overlooking of the handfuls of German, Spanish and Dutch players in favour of Diego. Until that is, it was explained that the assembled journalists in South Africa alone voted on the award. Enough said. Don’t think however, there would have been any controversy caused by the nationality of the “Golden Turd” award winner – any one from a number of Englishmen.

Back to the Classroom for Lessons Not Learnt

In just a few hours the game which will have a huge bearing on the future of football in this country kicks off. As usual, there are unlikely permutations which would allow England to progress with a draw, but basically, England need to win to get through to the last sixteen, and they need to win well to really get this world cup campaign back on track. Even a good win will not alter the feeling that 2010 is not going to be England’s year and, yet again, will stumble out limply within a couple of knock out rounds – at best.

As usual also, there will be the post mortems, the finding of a scape-goat to hang the nation’s angst onto and some more mindless optimism just before England embark on the Euro 2012 qualifying competition. Most people in football and knowledgeable supporters felt that there were grounds for optimism: we had the right manager and the world cup qualifying rounds went very well, and there had been an impressive win on German soil with an essentially England second XI. From the matches played since England’s only defeat in qualifying and especially the friendlies this year, it’s been downhill ever since.

Now press stories are circulating that irrespective of what happens, Don Fabio will be off, to be replaced by an Englishman, Roy Hodgson. There seems to be a pattern emerging here. Hire an expensive foreign manager, don’t give him the infrastructure and support to do his job properly, sack him amidst murmurings of disquiet over foreign managers, meanwhile continue to pay lip service to developing the game at lower levels and ignore the parlous state of football’s finances. Get another English manager, spurred on by the ‘little Englander’ media faction, and repeat process as before.

The truth is that millions of inches of column space and TV air time have been devoted to discussing where things go wrong and how to put them right. These have been discussed since England’s 1970 exit from the Mexican world cup. Managers have come and gone. Some were blatantly the wrong choice (Taylor, Keegan, Hoddle). Some were overlooked (Clough), but whatever and whoever the choice, RTG just can’t help coming back to the same conclusion: it’s yer basic raw talent, that’s the problem.

Clearly the ‘Golden Generation’ was totally oversold and optimistically assessed when coming through the ranks. Judging by the number of public relations gaffes that the current squad seem to be making, maybe they’re using the same PR outfit as Tony Hayward, BP’s beleaguered CEO! Let’s face it, most English footballers are pretty thick and even make a virtue of their gauche bling culture. When you see how most foreign players in England are better in English than many of their native counterparts and how English players abroad rarely pick up their local language, you realise how English players have largely ignored their off-field development. Indeed, reading an interview response by Jamie Redknapp, he boasted how his dad would encourage him to bunk off school to go training at Bournemouth.

What has resulted over the last forty years are successive generations of England players who are so singly dimensioned that you can’t really sense that any of them is going to read a game tactically and change things in real time on the field. They’ll just wait until half time and wait for the ‘hair-dyer’ treatment to be told what to do – that’s according to what all pundits say. And perhaps, RTG is finally coming to the nub of the problem. A failing education system in this country which rates the UK as one of the lowest in the developed world, allied to a celebrity culture which extols and promotes worthless people are taking their toll on our poorly educated footballing souls. Basically, England just can’t get clever players who have developed their minds to cope with adversity, to embrace change or to rationalise and deal with the pressures exerted on them by modern British society.

The Keeper

…it’s gone right through his hands

The Keeper has managed to prize himself away from his new HD TV (special offer at Tesco) to bring you his first report since the start of the World Cup. And what a week it’s been. After getting over the shock of seeing a Hyundai car drive on and score England’s first goal, the Keeper has maintained an almost permanent vigil in front of a festival of football – well, three football matches a day anyway and more of a village fete in the end than a festival. But surely the standard can only improve.

At the BBC it’s a case of recession, what recession? The Beeb seem to have upped sticks and headed mob handed over to South Africa for a last choo choo on the old gravy train before the cuts kick in. The Keeper entered into this televisual feast thinking that it was all about football but how wrong you can be. Chris Hollins has shown him that South Africa makes wine; two blokes who he’s never heard of are driving around in a bus to show that there are also exotic wild animals in South Africa and, favourite among favourites, Gabby Logan, reported live from the townships to show us that some poor people live in South Africa too, ‘you know’. What a shame that, when the Keeper wanted to learn something useful about football, all he had was Mick McCarthy, who, with the dourest of manner, sought only to repeat exactly what had just happened in full view on screen in a drab Yorkshire drawl - “Aw naw. Yer see ‘ees just missed t’pass and the chance of a counter by giving t’ball away again.” Yep, I just saw that Mick. Glad the licence fee is working hard for us over there. The Keeper’s viewing experience was also enhanced considerably by the presence of that doyen of football analysis, CBBC at Wayne Rooney’s live press conference when their incisive questioning revealed that, yes, he was missing his first born child.

The Keeper had serious reservations about the BBC’s choice of music to introduce Japan’s opening game against Cameroon – the soundtrack to ‘Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence’ which, for those who don’t know it, starred David Bowie as a rebellious PoW in a Japanese camp during the Second World War who dies a horrible death buried up to his neck in sand in the blazing heat of the day. Or, as Mick McCarthy would expertly summarise it: “Fer me ‘ees let isself down by getting ‘imself buried in t’sand up to ‘is neck and ‘ees 'anded the initiative right over t’ Japanese.” Aside from adding a huge oil slick to the fire of opinion that popstars can’t act to save their lives (see also Phil Collins in ‘Buster’, Mick Jagger in ‘Ned Kelly’), the film is a graphic illustration of the enormous cruelty exhibited by Japanese soldiers toward their captives in the appalling conditions of the PoW camps. The Keeper felt it was a rather lazy choice of music given the enlightened mood of friendliness and reconciliation of modern times (or pretend we do eh Major?) and perhaps one that should have been given a bit more thought by the BBC researcher as he sipped a glass of Stellenbosch Shiraz in his Cape Town hotel room.

The Keeper couldn’t get through his first World Cup report without mentioning the signature sound for the tournament, the vuvuzelas. Now, there have been rumblings afoot that certain viewers are not happy with the constant buzzing, resembling a swarm of angry bees, that provides the backing track to all the games. So much so in fact that there was talk of a Fifa ban on taking them into the stadium and the BBC (yes them again) were even prepared to offer a vuvuzela-free broadcast via the red button. The Keeper was astonished at this blatant disregard for the cultural heritage of the host nation. After all, what else is going to drown out the sound of that bloody awful brass band that insists on following England around?

There was more good news for the people of Southern Africa this week when it just happened that Princes Harry and Wills, who are known to love Africa ‘with a passion’, stopped by to do a bit of charity work in the region at the same time as the World Cup just happened to be taking place. What’s more, some ITV geezer just happened to have a couple of spares for the England match in Cape Town, where the Princes just happened to be at this point in their charity tour. Better start looking for a charity in Brazil in four years time, eh chaps?

Lack of Vision Means Same Old England

The England team have departed for South Africa. All the talk of who will make the 23 is over and the serious business of trying to win a World Cup begins. RTG watched the thrilling spectacle of a bunch of wealthy young sportsmen boarding a Virgin Atlantic 747 , live on Sky Sports News, and naturally, we felt a certain degree of excitement that only the World Cup can generate. But underlying the anticipation was a slight sense of regret that England have not really moved on from the huge disappointment that was Germany 2006, just like we hadn’t really moved on from Japan or France before that. Where are we as an international football nation and what have we learned?

In 2006, the team, dubbed the ‘Golden Generation’, departed these shores amidst enormous national expectation. Ultimately, the term ‘Golden Generation’ referred more to the opulence that the players and their publicity seeking WAGS lavished around the town of Baden Baden than it did the quality of their football. It was USA Today, a paper that measures its football coverage in millimetres rather than inches that stood alone in predicting that the ‘overrated’ England team would go out with a whimper. And, famously, as we know, they did.

You can’t really blame a nation like England for having unrealistic expectations of the national side. After all, supporters hear constantly about how our league is the best and richest in the world. The Premier League and Sky are forever slapping themselves on the back in congratulation at what a fine job they are doing and never stop telling us so. Surely, with the kind of sums of money we hear banded around and the celebrity status that some of our players seem to acquire in the eyes of the media, we should be winning more trophies shouldn’t we?

This time, as the team left to do battle in South Africa, there was undoubtedly a more distinct sense of realism about this squad and their chances? There are the inevitable last minute injuries to key players that inevitably reduce the chances of success. That always happens and this year is no exception. But, RTG wonders if maybe the football watching public are feeling, like us, that this is just a case of here-we-go-again.

The first choice team for South Africa bears a striking resemblance to the one that failed last time. They are obviously older and, perhaps to our benefit, more experienced. But it is worrying in the extreme that we don’t seem to have produced any players in the interim to challenge those that turned out in 2006 for places. Even the ‘Wonderkid’ of last time, Theo Walcott, didn’t even make the cut. Yes folks. This is just the ‘Golden Generation’, four years on, minus a few faces – left out mainly due to injury. Capello has been forced to stick with what he knows because there simply doesn’t seem to be anything better out there.

You may not even know it, because the coverage was so sparse, but the England Under 17s recently won their version of the European Championship. The Under 21s got to the last final of theirs. So there are good young players out there, there just aren’t enough of them pushing on to greatness once they make it to the ‘big time’.

When England went lamely out of the competition in 2006, at that point we needed planning, vision and proper footballing objectives from the governing body of our national sport. We needed the kind of strong leadership that could take this recurring problem by the scruff of the neck and deliver us an England team full of players capable of winning a tournament and giving the long-suffering, overpaying English supporter something to be proud of? Four years later and one failure to qualify for Euro 2008, where are we? The FA promise to focus on all the right objectives – that are supposed to be in the interests of football - but have continued to deliver all the wrong ones. Even England’s state-of-the-art new home, the New Wembley Stadium, was built with revenue raising as its main objective, while failing to deliver a playing surface worthy of Sunday League let alone potential world beaters.

The Premier League is increasingly the playground bully in English football. No one at the FA seems willing to stand up to them in the name of football development and, when they do, they seem to disappear without trace. Development of players is very much a random process left to the will of the clubs. If they make it, they make it. If they don’t – well who cares? This situation has allowed promising young English players to be swallowed up by big spending Premier League clubs only to spend many of their formative years languishing on the bench. Meanwhile, the experienced English talent that does feature regularly in the first team seem to arrive at the end of the season either injured or too tired to compete meaningfully in a four week tournament. The so-called ‘richest league in the world’ does not seem to be able to generate enough wealth or expertise to produce talent at grass roots level, merely to pamper and pay fortunes to its overrated stars.

There are some positives. St. George’s Park, once the national football academy at Burton is due for completion in 2012. Exactly what its role is, and what purpose it has, RTG is not sure. We wait to see. We do have a new manager and one that most supporters will feel was the right appointment, even if it took the FA, yet again, to throw huge sums of money at him to come over.

RTG desperately hopes that the Capello factor, and a little bit of luck, spur England on to victory. Of course we do. But there’s a distinct sense that our governing body’s refusal to change and their inability to set, and follow, proper football objectives, rather than corporate ones, means we are once again entering a major tournament having learned nothing from our failings at the last one and having squandered the huge resources that the game generates in this country.

As stated earlier, RTG believes we have the right manager. If it goes wrong again, surely it is time for supporters to start asking more questions of the powers that keep making the same mistakes over and over again with seemingly precious little will or ability to do anything about it.

The Keeper

He’s complaining about the ball already!

The Keeper apologises for his tardy appearance this week and can only blame the mountain of special and not so special world cup pull outs that has blocked his path to his desk. Amidst the mass of information of absolute no need to know facts and figures, very few media pundits were making predictions and of those that were, none were backing England to win. No bad thing since the jingoism of previous world cups has raised expectations that have only served to act as an additional squirt of lemon to the eye in the run of disappointing results. The Keeper notes that the last time the press was so pessimistic, in 1990, we did rather well!

Well the Keeper is going to make a prediction. Yes, the Keeper believes that come July, the words “arise Sir David Beckham” will be proclaimed. The Keeper predicts that under the astute tutelage and inspirational presence of himself, the Queen will respond to the will of the People (and the Sun, News of the World, Mirror, Daily Star, Hello magazine etc) to knight our favourite footballer for his outstanding contribution in getting England to the quarter finals, only to go out on penalties. Needless to say, Beckham’s Ingerlund was (sic) undone by cheating foreign bastards playing for Manchester United. The Queen will overlook the inauspicious start to Sir David’s coaching career, as his well publicised advice to “hit the space” to Theo Walcott prior to the final squad trials, was taken by Theo to be an invitation to go onto the deserted private beaches of recession hit five star resorts this summer.

Talking of Theo, the Keeper was truly taken by the humility shown in his acceptance of Don Fabio’s decision to leave him out of the final squad, along with his “will try harder” guarantees for the future. His PR company really did a bang up job issuing their client’s statement within minutes of the news. Well, he was too busy on a golf course with his dad to do it himself. Let’s hope though that Theo, before he hits the beaches, remembers his environmental duties in switching off some or all of his ten plasma TV screens that fill his mansion acquired on becoming a multi-millionaire before even kicking a ball for Arsenal. And no, professional solidarity means the Keeper totally refutes suggestions of too much too young in his career.

Having not much, too young, didn’t affect the greatest ever footballer too badly however - as the picture showing England fans’ most loved foreign footballer proves. Maradona has promised (threatened more like) to run naked through the centre of Buenos Aires if Argentina wins the world cup. Expect a run on magnifying glasses in the capital if they do. Although given his managerial record – in a word, awful – the most naturally gifted squad at the tournament will not make this happen.

The Keeper truly hopes England and their fans have a great world cup! We’re going to need a lot of luck, but with, for the first time ever, temperatures more suited to English players, you never know!