Recent Posts
September 23rd 2008 06:37
The phrase Big Four should have been trademarked by the FA years ago. Its a buzz word so regularly uttered that it will surely be remembered by history alongside such marvels as Millennium Bug, Furby and Blog. The familiar phrase has become resented almost as much as its meaning and is now usually prefaced by the words, the so-called.
Now, imagine for a second if the phrase wasnt Big Four but rather Big Two. Scary thought.
Well, thats Scottish Football. Rangers and Celtic, Glasgows rival teams, have dominated Scotlands top division since its inception in 1890. In fact only two other clubs have won it in the last 40 years. Fans up and down the country know at the start of each season, and I mean literally know, that the eventual winner will be either Rangers or Celtic; and English fans think they have it bad.
English fans, and even the ones outside the so-called Big Four, can and do find solace in knowing that every week they are watching the very best footballers in the world. In Scotland they are not, no matter what they claim. Despite the incoherent bleating about Celtics good European record or the massive Rangers fan base, lets get one thing perfectly clear. Scottish football and its top division are justifiably derided in England because it was, is, and always will be a joke.
The Glasgow teams can afford to be mediocre because their opposition is poor and they know that they really only have to finish above one single team to ensure Premier League victory. That doesnt exactly put demands on the top two to go out and sign the worlds finest. Of course, they will argue that they do but the fact that the current transfer record in Scotland is the ridiculously inflated £12 million that Rangers paid for Tore Andre Flo back in 2000, would suggest otherwise.
Even the best teams in Scotland have taken to mixing average home grown talent with mediocre imports that are held up for praise despite pitting their talents against no marks. Take lanky Greek striker, Georgios Samaras, who floundered around the English Premier League looking like Bambi, on ice, on roller-skates. He was and still is an astonishingly ordinary player. In Scotland, at Celtic, he is thriving.
Similarly lets look at rubbish Australian striker, Scott McDonald, who continues to be a force in the SPL, despite looking like hes been eating way too much haggis. At any other club he would be forced to slim down and get his act together, but at Celtic there seems little point as his little talent is enough to get by against defenders that have no place earning money from the game.
That is the calibre of player that plies his trade in Scotland though and there is no scenario under which that will change. They just cant attract the superstars that might actually make their league watchable, despite having the promise of the Holy Grail that we hear so much about
Champions League football.
The fact that Scotland gets two places for the Champions League is ridiculous and makes a mockery of the fact that the competition should be about finding the continents finest. If you cant win the league in Scotland then rest assured youre not the best team in Europe.
My suggestion, for what its worth, is to shut it down completely. Disband the entire league and allow them to be incorporated into the English one, much like Cardiff and Swansea are. That is the only way the teams up there are going to improve and get to a level that will really give their fans something to turn up for.
Then if Glasgows best really are as good as they say they are, who knows, maybe well be talking about the (so-called) Big Six. Hmmm, I might just go and trademark that, right now.
September 19th 2008 04:30
Alf Ramsey, Matt Busby, Joe Mercer, Brian Clough. These are just a few of the great managers of the game and none of them would shy away from speaking their minds. The victim on the end of one their tongue lashings would usually be one of their own players, occasionally the referee, but very rarely the opposition or their manager. In fact, Ol Big Ead would strike fear into his own players much more than that of the opposition. Its part of what kept them and the game honest.
Unfortunately, those days are long gone and were now presented with equally as skilled managers but ones who are too cowardly to accept responsibility for their own teams failings and would go to sometimes ridiculous lengths to find someone else to blame for their defeat. The referee, an opposing player, the opposing manager, ball boys and girls
even the choice of kit has been blamed in the past by these bullies. Anything so they dont have to put their hands up and say, Look on the day my team didnt perform, or better still, I chose a team and tactics today that simply didnt work. It would be too much for their egos to take, Im sure.
I know I dont have to name names, but I will nonetheless. Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho, Luiz Felipe Scolari, Steve Bruce, Kevin Keegan and Rafa Benitez (I could go on) are all guilty of passing the buck and putting the blame anywhere but at their own feet.
You may have noticed I left out one obvious name there. A man who could arguably be called the best manager in England right now. A man who has challenged for the title and maintained a top four position, whilst spending a fraction of his peers. Thats right, its Arsene Wenger. I thought Id single Mr Wenger out for special treatment as this is a man who has become a caricature of exactly what a whingeing manager is.
The genius of the man is not in question; let me get that straight from the start. He was, is and, I imagine, always be an incredibly shrewd operator in the transfer market and a tactical behemoth. Despite these strengths, or maybe because of these strengths, he feels the need to bitch and moan more than any man I have known of. Its becoming a joke.
Ferguson, you might say is getting off lightly, and I freely accept the red-faced Scot is up there in terms of petulance and hypocrisy. The difference between Wenger and Fergie is that Sir Alexs gripes are always related somehow to his own team and how they have been cheated out of a goal or a result, whereas Wenger will moan about anything and everything. In fact, its his out spoken nonsense about subjects to which he is completely unrelated that gets under the skin of most.
I used to love the man. He was a crusader. A man who was willing to stand up and say, No, this is getting silly. Im not going to pay such ridiculous money in fees and wages. Im going to find a different way. For a while he successfully did just that. Times change though, and his antiquated and stubborn refusal to splash the cash is going to cost Arsenal their place at the top. Its that simple.
Wenger can complain all he wants about the immoral way in which players are tapped up or how money is ruining the game, but I suggest he take a long hard look in the mirror and ask himself if is as innocent as he portrays.
Wengers tactics arent to tap up established and brilliant players. No. That would still cost money. Hed rather trawl his way across the globe, raping and pillaging other clubs of their star youth team prospects, getting them at a snip of what they one day could be worth. Its a gamble, I admit. Ill repeat though that this is a truly great manager and one that has an incredible eye for talent. However, his way of doing things is no more moral or ethical than Ferguson practically screeching up in his car at Manchester airport, bundling Berbatov into the boot, and driving off at high speed.
I cant but wonder what Cloughie would make of the so-called mind games of today too? I dare say hed claim to be the best at it, without really knowing what they were. He was an arrogant so and so, but unlike todays gaffers he handled himself with both dignity and humour, as did all the old legends.
Matt Busby once said, It was a very simple team talk. All I used to say was: 'Whenever possible, give the ball to George.' Can you imagine Benitez saying the same about Kuyt? Okay, bad example
Gabby Logan recently criticised the Manchester City fans by claiming that if Newcastle United had been taken over by one of the richest men in the world promising unimaginable success, there would have been 30,000 elated screaming (and no doubt top naked) fans outside St James Park welcoming the new owners, rather than the one man in an Arab headdress at Eastlands. Why is this? Gabby, rather hysterically, claims this is because the Newcastle United fans are the best in the country. Oh Gabby. Obviously the fact that her beloved Toon Army was only 16,000 strong when they were in the Englands second tier, less than 20 years ago, did not factor into her exaggerated claim.
Manchester City fans spout the same annoying, sometimes cringe-worthy nonsense because they still get 35,000 plus fans at their games despite the last 30 years being little more than a pantomime. Its an understandable argument, but still one thats completely lost on me.
Perhaps the best and most valid shout comes from those outstanding 5,377 fans who turned up at the horribly named Fitness First Stadium on the opening day of this season to watch Bournemouths 1-1 draw with Gillingham. Nothing particularly impressive in that I concede, but when you consider that Bournemouths biggest achievement in the last fifty years is reaching the quarter finals of the FA Cup in 1971 and they started this season in the football leagues lowest division on minus 17 points without any real hope of promotion, you start to realise what a true die-hard fan really is. And West Ham think theyve got it bad.
But how exactly do we measure best?
The criteria we use in this ridiculous but nonetheless heated and popular debate is as subjective as the outcome itself. Do we simply go on the number of fans? In which case, Manchester United are unrivalled. Or do we look at the volume of fans during the leaner times? That may well bring City back to the top. Heres a thought. Why dont we take the mean number of fans over the last fifty years, divide it by the number of trophies, add 10,000 for each division you drop from the Premier League, then subtract the number of executive boxes (times the number of fans able to sit in them)
wah, wah, wah! You see my point.
The truth is every club has its share of die-hard fans. Obviously, in the cases of Man United, Chelsea, Liverpool, etcetera, success also brings those infamous glory hunting and arm chair supporters, but its probably unfair for this to reflect negatively upon the real fans, who would be there trophies or not. Whos to say that if Bournemouth miraculously staged a surge up the divisions on their way to Premier League glory, picking up the odd cup along the way, their attendances wouldnt begin to miraculously swell? I quite imagine they would.
The football fan is a curious creature and one not easily profiled. They differ from country to country, league to league, club to club, hell, even stand to stand and making generalisations is fraught with difficulties. What we can all be sure of is that every single club in the football league and beyond (big shout out to the non-league supporters) has a selection of fans that would lie down in the road, in their colours, and die for their team. Except maybe Newcastle United
their chubby supporters would probably still have their tops off. Eat that, Gabby Logan.
This blog comes to you from a very drained and exhausted writer. If transfer deadline day was this bad for us fans, let's spare a thought for the likes of Mark Hughes, Alex Ferguson, Juande Ramos, and David Moyes who would literally have put in a 20 hour day, making sure their clubs ended up with the players they wanted.
It will comes as no shock to regular readers that I am a Manchester City fan. However, the goings on at Eastlands have been well documented and whilst I of course have one or two opinions on the events of the last few days, I thought it best to spread this blog around a little and talk about the Premier League in general and more specifically the winners and losers of transfer deadline day
[ Click here to read more ]
There is one thing that unites all football fans throughout the land, whether youre riding high as a Portsmouth fan or watching your club struggle just to stay in business like a lowly Bournemouth supporter (shout going out to my mate, Alf). There is one thing that brings us all together in harmony. One thing that can bring peace between Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday, Newcastle and Sunderland, Everton and Liverpool, heck, even Rangers and Celtic.
That one thing is Dirty Leeds. Well, actually our combined hatred of the aforementioned team, but you get my drift
[ Click here to read more ]
In a hushed court room, the judge laid down his gavel (that small hammer thing), pulled open his draw and withdrew the dreaded black cloth. He placed the cloth atop his off-white, cotton syrup and dramatically bellowed the verdict. Joseph De Do Doe Dont De Doe Barton, you have been found guilty of thuggery of the first degree. I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until dead. Executioner, take the prisoner away!
Jooooeeeeyyyy! Kevin Keegan sprang up startled and sweaty, his Newcastle United bedspread wetter than a trouts satchel and his Newcastle United pyjamas dripping more than an otters pocket. But it was all a dream. King Kev took a swig of Brown Ale from his plastic Newcastle United tumbler, complete with black and white striped bendy straw, and laid his permed head back down onto his Newcastle United crested pillow. He turned over, his eyes glancing to his Newcastle United alarm clock that would wake him up again in two short hours to the tune of Theres only one Kevin Keegan. He glanced over and smiled at his life size Terry McDermott poster before his gaze dropped to his Newcastle United carpet, upon which lay a copy of todays Big Paper. Staring back at him, the headline read, Barton jailed for six months. Jooooeeeeyyyy
[ Click here to read more ]
Manchester United won their tenth Premier League this past weekend, amidst calls from their manager that this was his best team ever a claim I imagine Eric Cantona might disagree with. Its worth remembering though that Alex Ferguson makes this claim every time United lift the trophy. He might be right too. I imagine this side would turn over the previous league winning teams, and convincingly so.
Dont get me wrong, though, Im not unequivocally agreeing with the red faced Scot. Im simply saying that in a one on one contest the class of 2007/8 would beat the, say, the 1996/7 champions. However, Ferguson has had better squads and better groups of players than this current bunch, which are, so United fans convince themselves, doused with unlimited potential
[ Click here to read more ]
Ahhh Man City. They have given journalists more to talk about in the last 25 years, than Michael Jackson and Bindi Irwin put together. Well, not together, but you know what I mean.
Being neighbours to the biggest club in the world is never easy, but far from keeping their heads down and plodding along quietly, City constantly flirt with greatness only to be slapped back down again, like a dog getting frisky with your nether regions
[ Click here to read more ]
The race for the Premier League title, whilst still to be contested by the three clubs you would have predicted in August last year, promises to be a very close and exciting affair. Manchester United, Arsenal and now even Chelsea all have an excellent chance of holding the trophy aloft come May.
As I said, theres no real surprise that theyre the three teams were talking about, though Chelsea have stealthily one-nilled their way into contention, but we could see the lowest points tally for a Premier League winning side in quite some time. All of the so-called Big Four have slipped up far too many times this season to be called dominant and some people are even suggesting this might be the beginning of the end for the dominant quintet
[ Click here to read more ]
Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, yesterday announced the final resting place of HMAS Sydney, putting to rest a mystery that has plagued the families of 645 missing Australian Defence Force personnel for more than 65 years.
Yesterday I also had a conversation with a colleague about the merits of revisiting the HMAS Sydney mystery, where, rather obviously, his argument came down to funding. He wanted to know who was funding the expedition, if it was costing the tax payer, and, utterly naively, if it was draining money away from a childrens hospital somewhere. Like thats a real choice
[ Click here to read more ]
|
|
|
Comments (8)
Add Comments
Read More
Comment by Wooderbeen
on Valentines day(.com)
The Daily Sydney
The State Of The Game