Why We Love A Skipper

Okay. Fabio Capello has dropped some clangers. No doubt about that. This time he's brought in Stewart Downing - presumably to remind Adam Johnson of what he could've been if life had been less kind. And picking Shaun Wright-Phillips AGAIN will have every Clanger on their planet - and the Soup Dragon - and the Iron Chicken - laughing their little woollen togs off.

Some Clangers search vainly for a football after it was crossed by Shaun Wright-Phillips

But this captaincy business. I confess I've tried to get with the Italian's line of thinking. There should be 11 skippers on the park. It hasn't worked. The Germans did us up like 11 kippers. So why does it matter?

Well, I think it's mattered to me since the forgettably-named quicksilver carrot-top Andy Smudger Smith got the school captainct aged 9 when clearly I was the better candidate. People were scared of me. A knowledge of fags, French kissing and intercourse put me way above the ginger lad.

Smudger bathed in the worshipful glow that blazed down on him every time he passed thiry keepy-uppies, but was it him nicking the football cards from Oundsworth's?

Oh Smudger could tie up a defender in knots so complex even Akela hadn't seen 'em before, but was it him found the discarded porn mag in the truckers lay-by?

Nah. I had respect of a more solid kind. I had a gob on me n all. I was socks-round-me-ankles, mud-from-tip-to-toe, he was a prancing Persil ad, all bigheadedness and bluey-whiteness.

And our the teacher made him skipper. You wanted your role-model to be Captain Fantastic and what we got was Lieutenant Pigeon.

In England, you grow up with the belief that one day, if you work hard, if you're gritty, honest and never-say-die, if you are the still, certain pulsing heartbeat of the men with whom you play, then you, sunshine, shall wear the armband.

And not only the heart. The bloody guts n all.

That's how it is. It's not an award that gets passed around like toffees at a dentists convention. Not for us.

You only have to look at John Terry's reaction to being relieved of the honour. (That sounds like a sordid euphemism, but it always does if 'John Terry' is in the sentence.) He played like a carthorse and whined like a girl. And he's out the squad again cos of a bad back. Who was it this time, JT?

You could also look at Gerrard's marked improvement. Admittedly, this has summat to do with not having to shar his football boots with Frank Lampard (while they're both on the pitch) but Stevie has proved time and time again that the added responsibility suits him.

I reckon the lad can be a right whiny pain-in-the-backside but give him his best position and a stretchy little ribbon round his skinny Scouse arm and he can do the business for you.

Of course he should stay skipper. Rio's got the job back cos Capello has this inflexible approach to everything. The man must be a nightmare to be married to. I can see him being like Richard Briers in Ever Decreasing Circles, folding napkins in particular ways and writing out his team-sheet with a ruler to underline everyone's name.

Thank Christ he's not a referee. He'd be getting the tape measure out every time a wall is formed wouldn't he? You'd have penalties retaken so many times that even Graham Alexander could miss one.

And you know, if Fabio really doesn't think it means owt, he could try asking his players. Or that vein-bulging slab of Full English, his assistant Stuart Psycho Pearce. (Although the Psycho reputation has been utterly undermined by the fact that Capello has reduced his bench-buddy to the role of hapless stooge and punchbag. A sort of Phil Neal with bruises.)

There's the language barrier but I'm sure if he gets Stuart to speak slowly he'll come up with summat resembling English.

And if he does he'll hear the word 'honour' mentioned over and over again. And even the pampered millionaires that so frequently distribute so much silage across our international playing-fields do actually mean it when they say it.

And not only does it matter from a sentimental point-of-view. To someone of my vintage it means you can be mentioned in the same breath as Bobby Moore. The greatest English centre-half there ever was, by the way, if any wet-behind-the-ears whipper-snappers are reading.

It matters from a pure ego point of view. You're the captain. The team wins summat. Yes, it's about everybody. Not just about me... blah blah... Great bunch of lads... blah blah... really pulled together... blah blah... the gaffer's been amazing blah blah...

...but when it comes down to it the lad wearing the armband is the lad that steps up to the front, leads his mates forward, shakes the parasitic hands of all the no-mark dignitaries and disinterested blue-bloods, and clasps his big hairy mitts around the glorious glowing goblet of gold and holds it aloft while your mates and fans roar you into paradise!

And any man that doesn't want that job isn't fit to wear the shirt.

And I mean you Smudger, wherever you are. Cos we won fuck-all with you at the helm.

In the meantime England's squad members have been making more withdrawals than a queue of savings account holders outside a branch of Anglo-Irish.

I'm reckoning Capello will have to go with:

Hart; G. Johnson (And please if there is a God can you find someone in the country who is a better right-back and isn't called Neville), Lescott, Ferdinand, A.Cole; Young, Barry (cue ponderous comedy music played on the tuba), Gerrard, A.Johnson; Rooney, Crouch.

Or Kevin Davies.



Honest lad, Kev. Dirty. And honest. But Kevin Davies. Truly, the cupboard is bare.

The Hell of Hicksville

Okay. I’ll be honest. There’s been a bit of me smirking like a third-rate Eastenders villain at the plight of Liverpool Football Club. I’m as ready as the next Englishman to wallow in the misfortune of the mighty.

Old Ollie said he got tingles just reading the ‘This Is Anfield’ sign on his way on to the pitch. Me too Ian. I get a frisson when I know you’ve got three points in the bag even before the game’s begun. Thing it’s all gone a bit unbelievable now. Like the most blatant plastic surgery, Liverpool’s gone tits up.

There are five tits in question. Though I think quite possibly the American tits (strictly speaking, chickadees) are the ones with most to answer. From what I can gather, Martin Broughton responded to Hicks’s intransigence over decent offers for the club by just huffing off to the press and leaving the poker-faced Yank billionaire playing Texas Hold ‘Em (Till a Playboy Oil Baron Comes A Calling).

At the present rate Hicks and Gillett stand to lose 140 million – not sure if that’s pounds or dollars – like it makes a flamin’ difference. Basically, it’s shitloads. Even Georgie Osborne might blench at taking that much cash off someone in one fell swoop. So in a way you can understand their resistance.

And in another way – just take the money and eff off, lads. It’s not like it’s the first time for Tom. No, he’s done this with other sports franchises in the States.



He seems to have the capacity to get other people’s money to buy him into new businesses without ever making making a decent fist of any of them.

Why are these people he’s borrowing from still chucking cash at him? And why, when he was making such a patent mess of US franchises like the Dallas Stars and the recently bankrupted (sound familiar?) Texas Rangers, did LFC think he was such a good catch? The only connection I can find between the two is that they both spend a lot of time in the red.

At least in the other two instances Hicks was shitting on his own doorstep. Texas. The Lone Star State. Or should that be Loan Star? I don’t reckon it’s a part of the world we Brits have ever felt that enamoured of. JR Ewing, George Dubya, Tom Hicks... there was the Texan bar in the 70s which I liked but I do blame it for the fact I’ve now got so many fillings the dentist uses cavity wall insulation to keep the teeth from crumbling altogether.

I looked up a site of Famous Texans. Here’s the bloke who invented Star Trek. And Jayne Mansfield. That’s about your lot.

Hicks’s response to the crisis was straight out of Southfork too. The Brits on the board go blabbing. They’re not on the board anymore. According to Tom. Possibly not according to law. He’s replaced them with two objective people. His friend and his son. Meanwhile Martin Brought-In reveals he signed up on the understanding that the owners would not frustrate his attempts to find a buyer for the club. Unless that buyer costs the owners the GDP of Belgium. Maybe.

It’s carnage. Like two lions fighting each other while the press vultures pick at the Anfield carcass til there’s nowt left.

Still, like in all good Texan yarns, the cavalry have just appeared on the horizon. Reday to ride to the rescue is... another yank.

This one, and his pals own the Boston Red Sox. That’s right. They spell ‘socks’ that way in the US of A. They tell the time by their clox, their ships are moored in dox, and their geese gather in flox. What a bunch of Cox.

Except they’re not. And this bloke, John Henry, doesn’t appear to be all bad either. Given that his predecessor will be Hicks, even Nick Flaming Leeson would look a decent bet.

From what I can glean – and remember I’m about as financially literate as Wayne Rooney is... well... literate – he doesn’t rely too much on piling loads of debt onto his acquisitions at the first possible opportunity. And he doesn’t seem to be too much of a bullshitter either. His consortium saved a famous sports stadium rather than building a brand new utterly soulless slightly out of town facility with all the buzz and atmos of a Trappist monks karaoke night.

If Hicks can have the club wrenched from his cold dead hand (and here I paraphrase Charlton Heston who may not have been Texan but would have fitted in dead well there) there may still be an Anfield to go watch football at. And despite the piss-taking earlier on, it is a great stadium and I doubt a new ‘un in the centre of Stanley Park would have nearly the same resonance.

Were it not for the fact of John Henry’s birthplace I reckon Liverpool fans might be able to see a glimmer of light.

But the trouble is, once you just let the nearest billionaire take a hold of your football club you are at the mercy of whoever the hell might want it next. And hellfire that person could be anyone... Thaksin Shinawatra, Sulaiman Al-Fahim, Malcolm (Shudder, United fans, Shudder!) Glazer... any Johnny-come-lately basically.

'Yes sir, I'm tellin y'all, Ewe-nah-ted are next!'

Abramovich set the benchmark. But even he won’t just sit around coughing up tenners like a malfunctioning cashpoint. I hope this rich man’s plaything of a League rights itself sooner or later and we just have a bunch of similarly endowed institutions all battling it out on a level playing field (not that there are any bloody playing-fields left in this country) and all will be right with the world.

Although we’d still have Man Friggin’ City.

Bugger.

You'll Never Win Again

First off, well done Europe!

We all had confidence in G-Mac didn't we? Not to mention L-Don, M-Jim and I-Pou. In fact whenever a European bagged a birdie and shouted 'C'Mon!' they were actually hollering for the team captain Monty. As LifeUniStudent tweeted us, no one ever calls Tom Watson T-Wat - we reserve that for Jeff Overton.

'Looks like it's going to be a close shave - Immac for G-Mac!'

I'm pleased that they managed to rescue the Cup from a flood of Biblical proportions on the first day. They all went out two by two on Monday and well it lived up to the billing in the end. My only regret is that no one managed to attack some of them lads with a pair of clippers.

Bubba Watson looked like a Silvikrin ad, Ricky Fowler like some lost sibling of the Partridge Family and Rory McIlroy looks for all the world like the illegitimate offspring of Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction and Jimmy Nesbitt. Get a bleeding haircut.

It was the right result in the end though eh?

As it was at Anfield. Blackpool walked it really. I hope they stumble again soon cos by God am I fed up of hearing some numpty commentator use the phrase 'Tangerine Dream'.

But it's more likely that Liverpool will continue to suffer. Poor Woy. It's been a while since we've heard 'You'll Never Walk Alone' on the Kop. I reckon Hodgson might be doing just that - straight out of Anfield - very soon. Incidentally, Nigel de Jong's favourite terrace anthem is 'You'll Never Walk Again'. And for Fernando Torres, it should be 'You'll Never Run Again'.

Torres's lack of confidence in either his ability or his groin is the tip of Woy's iceberg. He insists he's one of the most wespected coaches in Europe but that hardly matters if he's one of the least wespected in Liverpool.

'Wot Wubbish! This weally couldn't be any worse if my name was Gwaeme Souness.'

His main problem, as far as I can make out, is in my own limited, naive, objective, ill-informed opinion, that he's got a shit squad.

'Course Benitez had the gall to say, as they finally got shot of him, that he'd left the club in good nick. Which is like watching a man fall past your twenty-seventh floor window and remarking on how good his skin looks.

Hodgson's always had his work cut out but at the moment he resembles a man trying to stop a runaway piano from going down a 1 in 4 hill. And it would be a damn sight easier if it didn't seem like the players and most of the board were sitting on top of the bloody piano while he put his shoulder to it.

Not that Woy's immune from criticism. Poulsen looks like his Voronin. Joe Cole is playing like a wasp in a jam-jar. Glen Johnson's form is literally indefensible. He looks less like an international full-back and more like a four-year-old who's just got off a roundabout.

And you have to look really hard at Jamie Carragher to reassure yourself that he is actually moving.

Thirty years after the death of Bill Shankly, there was an appropriately feisty march by The Spirit of Shankly supporters, demanding that Tom Hicks (T-Hick) take the first horse outa town.

It's a very understandable point of view. It's incomprehensible that the man can't just accept he and his grey pint-sized fellow prospector have done little more than trash a proud institution to the edge of insolvency and madness. And get out quick.

I guess they're afraid of losing face, or more likely money. Thing is, football isn't about money. Not to the supporter. It's about love. And love, like a lot of Liverpool's first XI right now, is blind.

It's also a dangerous sentiment when practical solutions are required. The worst noise Hodgson could've heard on Sunday (apart from the dim and ugly ping of the sinews of Torres's inside leg) was the chant of 'Dalglish, Dalglish'.

Every one knows Dalglish in Geordie is 'Shearer'. And look how he turned around Newcastle. He picked them up, dusted 'em down and marched 'em straight into the Championship.

The reason Al did that job was cos he couldn't turn down a loved one in need. Fact is, the Lard Ashley got him in cos whatever Al did he was beyond reproach as afr as the Gallowgate were concerned. Same with King Kenny.

The Liverpool board might soon be dead keen to get him in cos even if he can't reinvent Dirk Kuyt as a flaxen-haired Lionel Messi, he'd still be worshipped at the Kop End.
Dirk Kuyt dreams he's playing for Blackpool.

But then here's Hodgson's real problem. He's not allowed to tell the fans that their expectations are too high, even though they are. Mine would be too if I supported Liverpool FC.

Here's a club so steeped in its recent history that you need a bloody good mangle to squeeze all that sentiment out and give it a dose of reality. And the fact that Hodgson appears to be doing this by selecting teams with all the ambition and adventurousness of a giant panda's diet means he really isn't going to last long.

In the meantime the likes of Rushy, Kenny and co can gaze down on to their playpen and shake their sorry heads as Liverpool Football Club careers into the abyss.

As someone who grew up hollering for Liverpool in Europe, and who still rates that team Arsenal pipped in '89 as one of the finest sets of entertainers ever to set foot on English soil, it doesn't fill me with great glee to see the Red demise.

But, face it, my Scouse friends, the good times, Woy or not, are a long way behind you and until the white charger arrives bearing its truckload of Oriental cash, you'll have to make do with Average.

You've had a good run. Now Welcome To Our World.