Itisi

The nebulous ramblings; grammatical & punctuational experiments of a girl born on the fifth of November

Category: Football

The trouble with England? Where do I start …

Oh dear. How bad were we? Don’t answer that, I already know. That is the worst England World Cup performance I’ve seen since Glenn Hoddle’s days, when the team did at least compensate for the inadequacies of the manager by trying so much harder. This time? Not so much. We had two mediocre games, scraped through one, then today – we were awful.

And how much worse would it have been if it wasn’t for David James, who threw off his Calamity James nickname and played fantastically. He’s the one member of the squad who can come home with his head held high; many of the rest should consider withdrawing from selection, leaving their place to someone who is actually prepared to play as well at national level as they do for the clubs that pay them millions. Talent means nothing if players drift about the pitch, shrugging like Vicki Pollard whenever called upon to do something – yes, Rooney, I’m looking at you.

In this World Cup, one of the New Zealand team was a bank clerk; he took unpaid leave to play in South Africa and acquitted himself admirably. We should have done that, we should have fielded a team of bank clerks, and postmen, and dentists, and …. because what they lacked in talent they would have more than made up for in enthusiasm. No, we wouldn’t have got any further, but at least we’d have known our  team tried as hard as they possibly could, and been proud of them.

Of course, it’s not just the players; the manager should do some soul searching too. Capello is reputed to be a very successful manager in mainland Europe. I’m wondering if anyone bothered to check his credentials to make sure that was with real football teams, and not Championship Manager with the cheats enabled.

Some of his tactics are bizarre to say the least. This weird obsession with playing people out of position, what’s that about? It defies logic. I’m pretty sure if Gerrard and Terry were naturally left-sided players, someone would have noticed long before now. (And being stuck in a position they have no aptitude for could explain below average performances from players who are usually stalwarts.) Then there are Capello’s puzzling substitutions, such as:  bringing Heskey on when we desperately needed goals, and with Crouch sitting on the bench!

Speaking after the match, Capello stated that England played “very well”, and seemed quite nonchalant about the debacle he had just witnessed. Meanwhile, the radio phone-in shows are inundated with calls from people calling for his resignation: I can see why. We need a manager who understands how England play, and who doesn’t want to turn them into Italy v.2; we need a manager who cares passionately about results, who wants us to win as much as we do. Capello doesn’t seem to be that person.

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How Dare The Guardian Stereotype Me!

If I was to adequately express just how bloody annoyed I am at the moment, this post would consist of one long GAH! But that would be very dull, and wouldn’t explain the source of my current ill temper, so I’ll try to convey it in prose, of a sort.

This cartoon. In the Guardian. You know, the newspaper that prides itself on being liberal, unbiased and not promoting stereotypes.

“Oh I see. As a female football fan I must be a morbidly obese peroxide blonde with really bad dress sense. Thanks for letting me know, I’ll get to work on that.”

That’s the comment I left beneath this, umm, steaming pile of someone’s prejudices. Then I thought, maybe some people might think I was being a bit thin-skinned, so I thought I’d drop in here and explain why it offended me so much.

I love football. I don’t just mean I enjoy watching the occasional match, it’s not a hobby. I adore it. I get the same kind of thrill out of a beautifully executed pass that opera buffs get from a pitch perfect aria. I love the passion and drama that unfolds on the pitch, and the roller-coaster of emotions a closely fought match can bring.

I even love the tribalism. Not the nasty, bigoted variety that leads to people yelling, ‘you’re going to get your f****** head kicked in’. No, I love the tribalism that comes from supporting the same team as your grandfather, and great grandfather. The tribalism that occurs when you meet another fan of your team in some far flung place, and immediately know you share a special bond; you too exalt/despair at their form this season, you too remember that cup final when …

The thing is – yes, finally, I’m getting to the point – being a female football fan can be tough. Even harder, is being a female football writer. This is something I have done in the past, and something I hope to do again. The problem is, although blogging is male dominated, football blogging makes the blogosphere in general look like a Blogher convention. Really.

I can count on one hand the women football bloggers I’ve come across, and I’m one of them, and I don’t even need to use all my fingers. There are still a significant number of people who believe women who claim – of course we are only pretending – to like football fall into two categories.

Category One – the airhead who watches because she likes to ogle the players, but who really has no concept of the game and thinks the offside rule is something to do with half-time refreshments.

Category Two – the yob who drinks cheap cider and only watches because she likes a good punch-up afterwards.

The above linked cartoon puts female football fans into that second category. In the Guardian. You know, the newspaper that prides itself on being liberal, unbiased and not promoting stereotypes.

Which is why GAH! would have most adequately expressed how I feel.

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