THE above re-writing of Barry White's masterwork perhaps, better than anything, sums-up the English and helps explain why schadenfreude is wide-spread throughout Scotland and the world these days.
Poor old Kevin Pietersen; a genuine class act who scores a tremendous double century, has Aussie's spread-eagled at his feet, and nobody back home notices, because they are still aghast at the way FIFA humiliated Becks and Prince William.
Get over it lads, shit happens, even to the Master Race, and after recent results in major competitions, it's not as if our dear neighbours are unused to abject failure.
But, before the FA blazers heed the advice of their obnoxious media and set-about cleaning up world football, they've got to clean up their own game. English football is hardly a paragon of probity and good governance (any more than the SFA is up here).
As I have pointed-out before, football alone of the major sports doesn't allow the top players to have an after-life as administrators; at least in this country. Michel Platini runs UEFA, former top players are in top administrative jobs in most of the major European and South American countries, but not here.
I cannot think of a single famous internationalist who has held a leading post in the (English) FA since the war. OK, Bobby Charlton and now David Beckham are wheeled-out in ambassadorial roles, while Trevor Brooking is nominally in charge of English youth development - and that's a joke given the omnipresence of the let's buy foreign Premier League.
Up here, Tommy Younger was the last big-name internationalist to head the SFA, but the great Hibs goalkeeper and former Scotland captain died in office in office 26 years ago, since when we've seen some right numpties represent Scottish football globally.
British football is, like much of Britain, still class-ridden. The players are kept in their place as the performing dogs, in fact, since most of them wear their IQ on their backs, that's perhaps for the best. The important decisions as to how football is run on this island is left to club directors - whose knowledge of the game was so-memorably summed-up in Len Shackelton's autobiography, more than half a century ago.
For those too-young to remember the great Sunderland icon, he entitled one chapter of his book: "What the average club director knows about football", then left the rest of the page blank.
The odd former player with ideas and a burning desire to try to sort-out the game's faults is side-lined, even when, as with the great Jimmy Hill, he does appear to be getting into a position from which he can influence things for the better.
The English FA has over the years sold-out their friends, put England's interests first and made little effort to address the English air of superiority which puts-off so many people.
Perhaps a little introspection, a sorting-out of themselves and acquiring a taste for humble pie is necessary before the FA leads the crusade to clean-up football.
I still believe an English-led movement with, (as in the British Empire) the Scots in-charge of day-to-day implementation of the major decisions, is the way forward in the necessary clean-up of football.
I simply don't think the present lot within Wembley's and to a lesser degree Hampden's corridors of power have the wit, intelligence and drive to lead it.
And in any case - the Crusades were a failure.
No comments:
Post a Comment