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OK I got my prediction wrong, but things aren’t that bad, so did everyone else. Virtually every programme on air has gone through the motions of dredging up all the usual ideas - the fact is that Glenn Hoddle’s England were not good enough for Italy on the night. We’re not talking a Taylor scale disaster, just a fluke result, things are still moving forward, not rapidly declining as they were in 1993.
It was pretty amusing to hear the supposed experts blaming everything from influence of foreign players in our game to the amount of money amassed by our top clubs. What exactly are these supposed pundits talking about ? When Man Utd leaked 14 goals in three games no one fundamentally questioned Alex Ferguson’s youth policy or wrote off Peter Schmeical as a poor keeper. Yet when England are pretty unlucky against one of the world’s best sides at Wembley the entire team are cast off. If you believed the more outrageous sports writers Le Tissier wouldn’t get another game for Southampton and Ian Walker and Sol Campbell would be dropped for eternity. I said last week that Ferdinand, Merson and Martyn should be in the side and I stand by what I said, but I don’t pretend that I could do a better job than Hoddle. The fact is that Shearer struggled against his young marker and it was Le Tissier who got the space and consequently the chances. Campbell was always going to struggle in that defence and Pearce was marking Zola when the pass was made.
A certain Howard Wilkinson, the FA’s Technical Director was heard to say that young players aren’t getting the chance. Has this bloke been locked in his office since cocking up Leeds ? The present sides fielded by teams such as Man Utd, Liverpool, Spurs, Chelsea, Leicester, Wimbledon and even Arsenal contain exciting new talent. The exceptions to the rule are probably Newcastle and Middlesborough, but even at those clubs Darren Huckerby and Phil Stamp have caught the eye.
The growing gap between the perceived rich and poor was also regurgitated, surely the consistently good performances against richer teams by Wimbledon, Chesterfield, Stockport, Wrexham and Portsmouth suggest that the gap is only financial and that many of the smaller teams are better organised and play with more spirit. The examples of Millwall, Bournemouth, Brighton and other cash struck clubs are all very well, but that is due to bad management rather than uneven distribution of wealth. Small clubs can survive in the big time, Wimbledon in the Premier, Grimsby in the First (just) and sides run on a shoestring like Doncaster and Scarborough in the third prove that.
Mike Atherton pulled off his usual trick of putting in a world class performance in the last test of the winter to survive into the early stage of the summer, on the field for over four days solidly playing two near faultless innings. His ability to pull off escapes that Houdini would be proud of is near legendary, his 140 not out to save the test in South Africa last year confirmed his status as the world’s most stubborn batsman on his day. He has now developed a knack of catapulting himself up the rankings in time for the summer home tests. The only other England player who really contributed was Robert Croft who was only thirty runs short with the bat of the cumulative total made by the other five members of Engand’s elite batting club in the first innings. The considerable ease with which a teenager was able to polish off England’s attack in both innings can only have dismayed the captain.
