Game called off!!

Amazing really that this game has been called off for non-football issues. Here's the official statement so far;


It is with regret that tomorrow’s international fixture with Holland at Wembley (Wednesday 10 August) has been called-off. More news will follow on www.TheFA.com and englandfans shortly.

The World Cup Draw

Most casual observers of the draw for the qualifying rounds which takes place in Rio this Saturday will be hoping that England avoid the big guns and the slippery banana skins of some odd ball East European nation. Not much chance of that happening though as England are seeded in Pot One along with the other key nations of Spain, Holland, Germany, Italy, Croatia, Norway and Greece.

English fans who travel the planet following the team are eagerly awaiting the draw but for totally different reasons. What they wish for is the footballing Mecca of places they haven't been to before, including Iceland, the Faro Isles, Malta or Cyprus. The last two in the hope that we can wallow in a bit of sun for a change! The trouble with so much International football these days is that you visit the same places over and over, and to be frank we don't always go for for footballing reasons. No, what we want is somewhere new, somewhere warm, somewhere the beer and food is cheap and within a few hours travel time. The results don't matter too much but the travel does. Here's a bunch of crossed fingers, bring it on!

The mad scramble for England tickets

England away! It's why we all do it of course, the travel, meeting your mates, having a few days away, seeing folk who you know very well but surprisingly you don't talk to between England games. The flights and hotels are booked well in advance, sneaky phone calls and e-mails ensure we are well prepared, and the less your 'other half' knows the better. But the match tickets are a different matter, and sometimes they are in very short supply.

A case in point.  Montenegro v England, Friday October the 7th 2011, kick off TBC but the venue will be the City Stadium, (great name!) in Podgorica. The flights and hotels were booked many weeks ago, time off from work was all arranged and the ticket application submitted to the FA. The bad bit though, we were only allocated 1,182 tickets and the mad scramble meant that 3,500 England fans applied. No matter how you look at that there will be some very disappointed people. 3,500 applications for the few tickets available means that the ballot system that the FA use has to be enforced again.

And it works like this. 70% of the tickets, i.e. 826 will go to the England fans who are at the top of the 'Caps' table, that is those who have attended most games home or away over the qualifying period. The other 356 tickets would be balloted to the remaining 2,318 fans who wanted to travel to Montenegro. Not very good odds eh?

So the result for me is what? I got mine, fortunately I just sneak into the top 826 but my 3 travelling companions didn't get one. Flights and hotels are still booked but no match ticket available. So the options are very limited, there will be a chance of obtaining a ticket from any of the 1,182 who don't wish to travel now, very unlikely, or travel and cross your fingers that we can purchase tickets from some kind hearted Montenegrin who doesn't want to attend the biggest match in the short history of the Montenegro national football team. Again, very unlikely!

Sometimes it does make you consider if all of this is worth the trouble. But believe me, when we hear the roar of the crowd and see the massed ranks of the England fans, that is all 1,182 plus the unofficial travellers too, it does seem worthwhile. Roll on October!

Fabio names squad for the Swiss roll!

Monday, 23 May 2011

Fabio Capello has named his squad to face Switzerland at Wembley.

Fabio Capello has named a 26-man squad to face Switzerland in a Euro 2012 qualifier at Wembley.

Bobby Zamora and Rio Ferdinand return to the squad for the first time in 2011, while there is also a recall for Manchester United midfielder Michael Carrick.

Wayne Rooney is suspended for the qualifier with the Swiss, so Darren Bent, Peter Crouch, Jermain Defoe and Bobby Zamora are the forward options.

England squad in full:

Scott Carson, Joe Hart, David Stockdale

Leighton Baines, Gary Cahill, Ashley Cole, Rio Ferdinand, Phil Jagielka, Glen Johnson, Joleon Lescott, John Terry, Kyle Walker

Gareth Barry, Michael Carrick, Stewart Downing, Adam Johnson, Frank Lampard, James Milner, Scott Parker, Theo Walcott, Jack Wilshere, Ashley Young

Darren Bent, Peter Crouch, Jermain Defoe, Bobby Zamora

FIFA give us our game back!

I have resisted the temptation on more than one occasion to submit my feelings over the recent voting fiasco to print. No matter how much we can all insist that we are writing from a moral position it will always seem and feel like one of sour grapes. And now doubt this article will be accused of falling into that particular category although I hasten to add I do so with the best of intentions. However I do feel the points I am about to make are relevant and therefore I am going to make them!

Interestingly, Uli Hoeness, now president of Bayern Munich after a long and distinguished playing and administrative career with the club,  speaking to the German magazine Sport Bild said last week:

"I think Mr. Blatter and the others responsible have to begin asking themselves whether it can carry on like this," Hoeness said in reference to the selection of Russia and Qatar as hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, respectively.

"It is a scandal how things are being done there. Clearly, these days a candidate can only be successful when additional payments are made under the table. Here I have to say that football's good image is being ruined.

"It's time the strong federations from Germany, England, Spain or France start to clean things up." 

So, at the moment I appear to be in good company, if Uli Hoeness can speak quite openly about FIFA's shortcomings then so can I. But lets look at the issues as I see them;

The recent voting, any  corruption allegations put to one side, was based on several criteria which all bidding nations had to comply with, failure to do so would render your bid as weak or inferior. But yet that criteria was totally ignored when the voting took place. What's the point of having to submit a very expensive technical bid if its then ignored? Why rank two countries bids as being 'at risk' and then award them the prize? It beggars belief!

FIFA have now stated that in their view their role is to expand the game and take it into new areas. But if that's the main criteria why wasn't it listed as such? And if it is the main criteria then why is it? FIFA's income streams are wholly from TV rights for its major competitions, so surely a successful World Cup from an established footballing nation makes more sense. Well it does if you compare any country with Qatar. What legacy, or match experience or anything resembling a successful World Cup will be achieved in holding the competition in a country the size of a postage stamp? I hear the arguments, I just don't see the logic. Expect the next few World Cups to see a decline in the travelling support of the major nations, Brazil too far and too expensive, Russia too big and without any hospitality or attraction and Doha (Qatar) as big as my back garden, although a lot hotter! Get that armchair ready, I'm joining everybody else.

FIFA, Corruption and Andrew Jennings

So far we've tried to keep politics and match reports away from this blog, but as you all know its been a bit slow on the news front, so;

You have to take your hat off to the persistent reporting by Andrew Jennings and his brass neck style. He knows full well that the FIFA executive hate the sight of him yet he still turns up at their meetings, still sticks his face in front of theirs and still asks the same questions. One of these days he's going to get a result, its almost written is it not? Surprising though, or maybe not, the main protagonists are from Brazil, Trinidad & Tobago and Thailand. Now in our pursuit of the tarnished prize of World Cup hosting where did we go for one of our illustrious friendlies, that's right T&T, and where did we plan to go? Right again, Thailand!

Why doesn't Andrew investigate those two trips? As any right minded England fan knew we weren't going to T&T and Thailand for the quality of the football. Lets see, where else did we go? Of course, we visited Doha for a friendly against Brazil, yet another country implicated by Andrew in his recent transmission.

Interestingly the Trinidad & Tobago's Newsday, 'The People's Newspaper' chooses to focus on Lord Triesman, or Friesman as they call him, and the FA's refusal to vote in the upcoming elections for FIFA President. The FA have taken their particular stance because of corruption allegations and a lack of confidence in both candidates. The T&T paper suggests that the allegations should be withdrawn quickly because every man is innocent until proven guilty and, on top of that, the slur against Warner is damaging to the T&T economy! How ludicrous! Judging by Andrew Jennings reporting the easiest way to resolve all the problems with the T&T economy would be to remove Warner and allow the funds to find the pockets they were intended for. This story will run and run, hold on to your hats!

World football - who has the best system?

I have to take my hat off to Jonathan Wilson, a Guardian journalist who produces some great articles on football. His latest piece, written for the FSF's magazine TFS (The Football Supporter) entitled 'Stolen thoughts of a football robot' attempts to answer the question most England fans ask every 4 years or so, sometimes every two years when we fail to qualify for Europe! The question of course is who has the best system in the world for producing good competitive league football, a good national team which competes at a world level and club sides who compete in their respective area competitions?

So who is it? Spain are currently European and World Champions, so is it natural that their league system is the best? Not when you consider that their league is one of the least competitive around and essentially is a two horse race. So, what about the Germans? Or even the Brazilians or the Argentinians?

Do yourself a favour and read the article here, it might just brighten your morning!

Stolen-Thoughts-Of-Football-Robot

Rooney, is it time to drop him from the squad?

Wayne Rooney suffered an ankle injury towards the end of last season, and since then he hasn't produced a single performance of merit for club or country, World Cup or Premier League included. So far this season he's scored one goal for club and another for his country. This is not the performance level required of a so called 'world star'!

His very public misdemeanour's, his contract wrangles and a stated desire to leave Manchester United all add up to a very troubled individual. The performance of Man Utd seems so much better without him that I'm now tempted to suggest he's not worth a starting berth with England. How could anybody ever suggest such a thing? Unfortunately even Fabio has now contemplated the impossible, and the next two friendlies provide him with the ideal opportunity to test that theory without doing any damage to our qualification for Euro 2012.

Fabio has constantly suggested that he won't pick anybody who isn't playing well for his club, but those seem empty words when you examine his selection for South Africa! How poor were some of his choices, both in the squad and the starting 11? Yet he seems determined to leave Rooney out of the next two games, at least that seems to be the rhetoric coming out of the Fabio camp this week. If he is even remotely serious about doing this I suggest he goes the whole hog and drops some of the other lame ducks that currently occupy the starting 11 for England. Then again, what's written in the newspapers and repeated on Sky News doesn't always bear any resemblance to anything that really happens. Watch this space as they say!

Montenegro - who are you and why are you here?

On Tuesday 12th October 2010 England welcome Montenegro to Wembley Stadium to play a fixture in the qualifying campaign for the 2012 European Championships. So who are they and why is this fixture unique? In English eyes of course they are just another minnow nation that need to be put to the sword in the Wembley fortress, but are they, and should we afford them more respect?

Image via Wikipedia

It has long been a view of mine that qualifying competitions of this nature hold very little value, the playing of another fixture of this stature just increases the frustration of the average spectator who wants to see good and competitive football at international level. The group we find ourselves in for the next competition does not hold any promise of exciting football, with the exception of Wales, who we anticipate for historical and geographical reasons, just a series of games to play to ensure our participation in Poland and the Ukraine.

International football is the pinnacle of our game, it should highlight all that's good about the sport and reflect the skill levels needed to be chosen for your national side. And yet this invariably happens. The recent World Cup in South Africa, for various reasons, failed to capture the imagination and left very few embedded glory moments that we replay in our heads over and over again. From an England perspective the two incidents I recall are both disappointments, the disallowed Lampard goal and the Green error. Aside from that the horror show that was the Netherlands attempts to disembowel the Spanish remains uppermost in my mind. Good football? No, as rare as a Scottish team qualifying for anything better than the Mickey Mouse cup.

So what has this got to do with Montenegro?  Well it could be argued that its a further dilution of the standards required to play international football. Montenegro are the newest international side and were formed just after the 2006 World Cup, becoming FIFA's 208th member. 3 years later they are playing England at Wembley in an official competition. At their inception they were ranked 199th in the world, bottom place I might add with 0 points. England are currently ranked 5th. That's like Man Utd playing Forest Green from the Conference. Does that do any of these sides any good at all? I doubt it very much. It probably does more harm for both sides, and prolonging the impatience to see England involved in a decent game of football. At international level they are so few and far between, even during the competition the groups are arranged so that nothing good happens until the knock out stages. No wonder club football holds more interest for the football paying public.



The recent Montenegro victory over Switzerland was a dour affair, yet again ending up with a 1-0 scoreline demonstrating yet again functionality over art. Played 3, won 3, does not give football a reason to pat itself on the back in reflected self satisfaction of a job well done. Rather we should despair that international football is again attempting to achieve even  lower standards. No disrespect to Montenegro, I'm pleased for you and your recent achievements on and off the football field, but not here, not at Wembley and not against England.

What to do with a herd of white elephants?

Those magnificent new stadiums built in South Africa for the 2010 World Cup appear to be heading for a catastrophe, as the reality of keeping their financial heads above water looms ever closer. The ongoing use of the stadia should have been decided before the first brick was laid, but this seems to have been a bit of an afterthought. The run up to a World Cup can be a bit headstrong for a lot of people, and decisions made then can be regretted later and will continue for a generation or more.



The recent Tri Nations match held at Soccer City appeared to be a success, despite an All Blacks victory securing the Tri Nations trophy. However this is a lone swallow in a very long summer. The Cape Town stadium  has been offered to Western Province Rugby as a proposed move and a bid had been made by them to run the stadium in partnership with Sail StadeFrance. Despite the willingness on the part of Western Province unsatisfactory council conditions coupled with the financial aspect has led them to remain at Newlands.



Each of the new stadiums needs to host between 12 and 15 sell out venues annually with tickets costing between R200 and R250 each to be able to balance the books. This is looking increasingly unlikely as they are not multi purpose stadiums, but were designed for sole use, under strict FIFA guidance. One of the main problems is size, as they cannot, in their existing format, host international cricket matches. Without input from these major sports, all more commercially successful than football (soccer), the long term future is very bleak and that hefty R16 billion investment appears  a poor choice.