Post by QPR Report on Jul 31, 2009 6:19:53 GMT
BRIAN GLANVILLE - World Soccer
writes for worldsoccer.com each week.
SCOT FREE
29/07/09
At Liverpool Crown Court the judge has spoken and of course the judge must have the last word. Steve Gerrard, captain of England and of Liverpool, one of Europe’s undoubted finest, leaves court – says the judge – without a stain on his character. The while five of his drinking companions on that ill-omened night in a Southport club awaited sentence for largely admitted affray.
True, Gerrard himself had punched the hapless temporary disc jockey – who would not surrender his controls – several times, with left-handers, described as looking highly professional. True, the poor fellow hadn’t, it seems, attempted to punch him back or indeed to punch him at all, though Gerrard insisted he had felt threatened.
So deep relief not only at Anfield but in English soccer at large; the captain, far from going inside and missing vital games will be with us still. A judicial verdict is not something to contest but it is beyond doubt that Gerrard in his Liverpudlian time, has had his problems. Though not as an offender, but with the criminal classes.
Why, his very own wife was once the girlfriend of a notorious local tough, a fact of which the chivalrous Everton fans constantly and loudly remind him, on the occasion of local derbies. Some time back Gerrard’s own father gave evidence in court on behalf of another local reprobate, accused of robbery and tying up a night watchman; this, because a somewhat lesser thug had been persecuting poor Steven and demanding money with menaces.
Father Gerrard might, in fact, have spared his efforts, since the said gangster simply skipped out of the court, spending some years abroad, before ultimately being repatriated from Holland; on extradition.
So, jolly good luck to Gerrard, and let us all celebrate, though for some reason I seem to remember an ingenious headline in The Sun. A group of Leeds United players had just been largely exculpated in a local court for the brutal beating up of a hapless young student. The headline read: What Do You Call 12 Leeds United Fans In One Room? Answer: A Jury! Cannot think why that should have occurred to me. Viva Gerrard!
***************
What a hopeless, half-baked affair was that so-called Wembley Cup tournament played, perversely, on a Friday and a Sunday, but not on a Saturday. The following weekend at the Emirates, Arsenal logically stage their annual tournament, which includes Rangers and Atletico Madrid on a Saturday and Sunday.
Barcelona, though they so embarrassingly showed up the painful deficiencies of Spurs in the opening game, came cynically with a plethora of reserves, and juniors. Toure, Krstic and Gudjohnsen, it is true made transfer appearances, and Barca even sent on the illustrious little Messi for the second half of their second game, against feeble Egyptians, Ali Ahli, but to little purpose.
They sacrificed him as a spearhead, small as he is, where he was crudely blocked and sent to earth by a defender. No, the referee didn’t flourish a yellow card. In each of their matches, Barca made no fewer than 11 changes at half time. Yet it still took Spurs till the final moments to head an undeserved goal, and thus scrape a 1-1 draw.
Afterwards Harry Redknapp went into ecstasies about the way the way the young Barcelona players passed the ball and put such pressure on his team. Well, it was one way of avoiding the sharp criticism that his own wretched team deserved; even if they were without three central defenders. And how it showed in both their games, for a bright and lively Celtic reserve team beat them in their second game, 2-0. The Greek striker, Samouras, scoring a spectacular individual goal.
But if the sponsors were hoping in their non Saturday folly for a wide newspaper coverage, they didn’t remotely get it; or deserve it. Moreover, it was hard to understand why, for the first match, which was Celtic against Al Ahli, no tickets were to be sold before the kick off. So we had a minuscule crowd of twenty odd thousand.
Rising, for the Spurs-Barcelona game, to 57,000 deluded mug punters, who thought they were going to see their Tottenham team play the real Barcelona. But they weren’t going to be caught out twice, and when it came to the Sunday game against Celtic, well deserved winners of the so called tournament, a mere twenty odd thousand was all there were, again. In vain did the announcer boom his banalities over the tannoy. This, my masters, was a flop and next time Barca come over in such circumstances, whoever invited them had better get it in writing that they will send a full team.
***************
More strange surprises in summer football. Yes folks, it really is Sven Goran Eriksson who will be the new supremo, or whatever you want to call it, at humble, lowly Notts County.
It’s for the challenge he says, having recently been kicked out of his job as manager of Mexico, not for the money, and you can actually believe him. Not least, because, with his infinity of pay offs, not least the fatuous amount given him when Mark Palios was in power at the FA, he can surely put up his feet, or put his shoes outside selected doors, for the rest of his well heeled life.
No one at Notts County, our oldest League club, and once bright sparks in the 1980s in the top division under Jimmy Sirrel and Howard Wilkinson, seems to know what Eriksson will exactly be doing. In manager Ian McParland they seem to have a respected and competent coach, though the new owners, reportedly from Dubai, may want bigger fish. And even then?
They can hardly expect Eriksson, even with his high level background, to recruit star players from all over the globe! At least soon after Eriksson’s arrival, County, in a friendly, beat their more successful neighbours (so splendid under Brian Clough) Forest 2-1 in a friendly; the first time for many years. The Notts County players are plainly and outspokenly baffled by Eriksson’s arrival. And so am I.
***************
David Beckham taken volubly to task at last in Los Angeles, where Galaxy fans have every reason to feel that they have been blatantly exploited. Twice, now, Beckham has been abused by supporters, incensed that he went off to play for Milan and thus missed 17 games. This, despite the huge amount of money that the deluded Galaxy decided to pay him.
The cat was recently put among the pigeons in a book about the Galaxy: Landon Donovan, that excellent attacker, recently in fine form in the South African Confederations Cup, had every right to state that Beckham hadn’t been committed to the cause. In the first fan incident, Beckham made the mistake of trying to confront the abusive fans. In the second incident, a fan apparently insulted his wife, which was inexcusable: and brought unpleasant memories of the way young English hooligans insulted him and his family in 1999 in the backwash to the 1998 World Cup game versus Argentina, when he got himself petulantly sent off. There was no excuse for that, either.
Like Eriksson, Beckham and his millions could retire tomorrow. I often wish he would.
***************
Some slight irony in the costly pursuit of Peter Crouch by Tottenham. As a teenager he was on their books but they didn’t want to keep him. So when Gerry Francis the manager left to go across London to manage Queens Park Rangers, he took the lofty, lanky, ball playing Peter with him. The rest you might well say is history.
www.worldsoccer.com/glanville/
writes for worldsoccer.com each week.
SCOT FREE
29/07/09
At Liverpool Crown Court the judge has spoken and of course the judge must have the last word. Steve Gerrard, captain of England and of Liverpool, one of Europe’s undoubted finest, leaves court – says the judge – without a stain on his character. The while five of his drinking companions on that ill-omened night in a Southport club awaited sentence for largely admitted affray.
True, Gerrard himself had punched the hapless temporary disc jockey – who would not surrender his controls – several times, with left-handers, described as looking highly professional. True, the poor fellow hadn’t, it seems, attempted to punch him back or indeed to punch him at all, though Gerrard insisted he had felt threatened.
So deep relief not only at Anfield but in English soccer at large; the captain, far from going inside and missing vital games will be with us still. A judicial verdict is not something to contest but it is beyond doubt that Gerrard in his Liverpudlian time, has had his problems. Though not as an offender, but with the criminal classes.
Why, his very own wife was once the girlfriend of a notorious local tough, a fact of which the chivalrous Everton fans constantly and loudly remind him, on the occasion of local derbies. Some time back Gerrard’s own father gave evidence in court on behalf of another local reprobate, accused of robbery and tying up a night watchman; this, because a somewhat lesser thug had been persecuting poor Steven and demanding money with menaces.
Father Gerrard might, in fact, have spared his efforts, since the said gangster simply skipped out of the court, spending some years abroad, before ultimately being repatriated from Holland; on extradition.
So, jolly good luck to Gerrard, and let us all celebrate, though for some reason I seem to remember an ingenious headline in The Sun. A group of Leeds United players had just been largely exculpated in a local court for the brutal beating up of a hapless young student. The headline read: What Do You Call 12 Leeds United Fans In One Room? Answer: A Jury! Cannot think why that should have occurred to me. Viva Gerrard!
***************
What a hopeless, half-baked affair was that so-called Wembley Cup tournament played, perversely, on a Friday and a Sunday, but not on a Saturday. The following weekend at the Emirates, Arsenal logically stage their annual tournament, which includes Rangers and Atletico Madrid on a Saturday and Sunday.
Barcelona, though they so embarrassingly showed up the painful deficiencies of Spurs in the opening game, came cynically with a plethora of reserves, and juniors. Toure, Krstic and Gudjohnsen, it is true made transfer appearances, and Barca even sent on the illustrious little Messi for the second half of their second game, against feeble Egyptians, Ali Ahli, but to little purpose.
They sacrificed him as a spearhead, small as he is, where he was crudely blocked and sent to earth by a defender. No, the referee didn’t flourish a yellow card. In each of their matches, Barca made no fewer than 11 changes at half time. Yet it still took Spurs till the final moments to head an undeserved goal, and thus scrape a 1-1 draw.
Afterwards Harry Redknapp went into ecstasies about the way the way the young Barcelona players passed the ball and put such pressure on his team. Well, it was one way of avoiding the sharp criticism that his own wretched team deserved; even if they were without three central defenders. And how it showed in both their games, for a bright and lively Celtic reserve team beat them in their second game, 2-0. The Greek striker, Samouras, scoring a spectacular individual goal.
But if the sponsors were hoping in their non Saturday folly for a wide newspaper coverage, they didn’t remotely get it; or deserve it. Moreover, it was hard to understand why, for the first match, which was Celtic against Al Ahli, no tickets were to be sold before the kick off. So we had a minuscule crowd of twenty odd thousand.
Rising, for the Spurs-Barcelona game, to 57,000 deluded mug punters, who thought they were going to see their Tottenham team play the real Barcelona. But they weren’t going to be caught out twice, and when it came to the Sunday game against Celtic, well deserved winners of the so called tournament, a mere twenty odd thousand was all there were, again. In vain did the announcer boom his banalities over the tannoy. This, my masters, was a flop and next time Barca come over in such circumstances, whoever invited them had better get it in writing that they will send a full team.
***************
More strange surprises in summer football. Yes folks, it really is Sven Goran Eriksson who will be the new supremo, or whatever you want to call it, at humble, lowly Notts County.
It’s for the challenge he says, having recently been kicked out of his job as manager of Mexico, not for the money, and you can actually believe him. Not least, because, with his infinity of pay offs, not least the fatuous amount given him when Mark Palios was in power at the FA, he can surely put up his feet, or put his shoes outside selected doors, for the rest of his well heeled life.
No one at Notts County, our oldest League club, and once bright sparks in the 1980s in the top division under Jimmy Sirrel and Howard Wilkinson, seems to know what Eriksson will exactly be doing. In manager Ian McParland they seem to have a respected and competent coach, though the new owners, reportedly from Dubai, may want bigger fish. And even then?
They can hardly expect Eriksson, even with his high level background, to recruit star players from all over the globe! At least soon after Eriksson’s arrival, County, in a friendly, beat their more successful neighbours (so splendid under Brian Clough) Forest 2-1 in a friendly; the first time for many years. The Notts County players are plainly and outspokenly baffled by Eriksson’s arrival. And so am I.
***************
David Beckham taken volubly to task at last in Los Angeles, where Galaxy fans have every reason to feel that they have been blatantly exploited. Twice, now, Beckham has been abused by supporters, incensed that he went off to play for Milan and thus missed 17 games. This, despite the huge amount of money that the deluded Galaxy decided to pay him.
The cat was recently put among the pigeons in a book about the Galaxy: Landon Donovan, that excellent attacker, recently in fine form in the South African Confederations Cup, had every right to state that Beckham hadn’t been committed to the cause. In the first fan incident, Beckham made the mistake of trying to confront the abusive fans. In the second incident, a fan apparently insulted his wife, which was inexcusable: and brought unpleasant memories of the way young English hooligans insulted him and his family in 1999 in the backwash to the 1998 World Cup game versus Argentina, when he got himself petulantly sent off. There was no excuse for that, either.
Like Eriksson, Beckham and his millions could retire tomorrow. I often wish he would.
***************
Some slight irony in the costly pursuit of Peter Crouch by Tottenham. As a teenager he was on their books but they didn’t want to keep him. So when Gerry Francis the manager left to go across London to manage Queens Park Rangers, he took the lofty, lanky, ball playing Peter with him. The rest you might well say is history.
www.worldsoccer.com/glanville/