All the wars that were won and lost, Somehow don't seem to matter very much anymore. ~ 'Living on a Thin Line' by the Kinks I can't believe it's been a week since me and the rest of the England Times team jumped through the Embankment wormhole to visit July 30, 1966. What a truly stupendous experience it was. Not just the iconic match itself inside the old Wembley Stadium but all the interactions our paradox inhibitors allowed us to have with the people, sights, sounds (and smells!) of the day. Top of mind for me is a conversation we had with a group of England fans in a pub on Wembley High Road after the game. One of the group, a young man who looked to be in early twenties, was saying how well he thought Alan Ball had played and how optimistic he was for the future of the English game. He rolled off some names of young players just breaking through in 1966 including John Hollins, Howard Kendall, Don Rogers and Frank Lampard (senior obviously!) to name a few. We would easily win the 1968 Euros he said and must be shoo-ins to retain the World Cup in Mexico. Waves of pity flowed through me for the guy over what would actually transpire for the Three Lions and their hexed fans over the next half century. I hope to god it never showed in my face. Time traveler's delight - our view last weekend from the East End of Wembley Stadium (taken from Brian's mobile phone, disguised as a spectacles case!) On leaving the pub to make our way back to King Edward VII Park and our time jump home we all fell silent as the reality of the "this was as good as it ever gets" moment sank in. Eventually though we felt the need to process our thoughts aloud and by the time we reached the jump point had enthusiastically bantered on numerous themes, the majority of them centering on one fairly predictable question - WHAT WENT WRONG? All the usual suspects got exhumed and debated - falling behind in technical skills, inadequate attention to young player development, growth in power of the Premier League, lack of a winter break, and on and on. As we circled around each issue again and again it was Brian, one of our research analysts, who broke in with a question. "At the end of 90 minutes Alf Ramsey called all the England team across to him at the touchline. He was really animated, wagging his finger at them like crazy. Whatever he said worked. England really came out of the traps at the start of extra time. Anyone remember what he said?" "Yeah sure" Sue, our office manager, responded "You've won it once. Now you'll have to go out there and win it again!" We all mused on Sue's perfectly remembered restatement of Alf's famous gee-up speech to his charges after Wolfgang Weber had just snatched the World Cup from their grasp seconds before the end of normal time. Was that all it had taken? A motivational speech? Perhaps. Perhaps that and, in return from his captive audience of eleven, BELIEF. Ramsey could have delivered his lines with Olivier-like passion but if his team decided they didn't WANT it or NEED it enough the hoped for result would not occur. Bobby Charlton's tears in the Royal box are testament to how much he realized he had wanted and needed to bring football home. A lesson in desire and reward from the Wembley pitch in '66: Alf Ramsey inspires England players to "win it again" (left) while Bobby Charlton's face during the post-match celebrations clearly exhibits how much he was prepared to give to ensure victory (right) Maybe that was the key learning from our 1966 experience. Maybe it's not only about responding to the changes in the football environment of the Premier League era. Perhaps it's just as much about nurturing the desire to succeed and excel in an England shirt. Implement all the winter breaks you like but if England players can't get just a little closer to the chin trembling band-of-brothers fervor exhibited by our Welsh and Irish kinfolks at major tournaments then we'll likely still fall short. Take off the headphones and listen to what your country is asking of you. You've done it before. Go out there and do it again.
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I'm old. Well, middle aged by commonly accepted terminology. On very rare occasions I'll rejoice to the address of "young man" but that's only from Percy who's run the newsagent on the corner since 1968 and Vi Beale, the barmaid who served me my first beer when my brother took me in the Rose and Crown on my 16th birthday. To millenials and much of Generation X however I am most definitely old. I'm actually old enough to have been alive when England last won the World Cup. Five in fact. Being only five at the time I have absolutely no memory of the day. Nothing. Not even vague recollections of parents or older siblings swearing at Weber's equaliser or screaming with joy at Hurst's fourth. I've tried to remember. I've even asked family members over the years to describe their recollections of the day in the hope a small memory would be jogged free and float to the surface of my consciousness, but to no avail. Compounding my frustration is the fact that almost everyone I've ever met in my life who was just one or two years older than me DID remember. My first flatmate when I started work - one year older - "Do I remember 1966? Yeah it was crazy. Dad was dancing in the street!" My wife - two years older than me - "What a day! Mrs. Trask was screaming next door!" July 30, 1966 - If I'm in the room I don't remember it It's very cruel really. To have been there when it happened. The only time England have ever won the World Cup and perhaps the only time they ever will. To have BEEN there in the vicinity of a television with the match PLAYING. But not to have had the wherewithal to linger, to appreciate the moment, to bloody REMEMBER. What kind of a five year old was I? Didn't I have enough smarts to realize this could be THE DAY for English football? Obviously not. I was probably upstairs spreading peanut butter on my brother's school books or in the back garden stuffing a frog's mouth with marbles. It's just as likely I was chatting up that blonde 6-year old Christine who lived a couple doors down. Clearly I was a five year old who just didn't have his priorities straight. I chose love over Jules Rimet. That, or peanut butter. Or frogs.
So here we are again. The revolving door at the Football Association has spat forth in the person of Sam Allardyce the next brave soul to try his hand at rehabilitating the crushed, barely breathing reputation of the England football team. In my opinion the appointment of Big Sam could turn out to be master stroke by the FA, a happening most would consider less likely than the sighting of a 1933 penny. And for good reason. In 2012 Roy Hodgson was, according to the FA, the right man at the right time for England. Unfortunately for the FA and success-starved England fans it transpired that Roy was the wrong man all of the time, including the times he promised "next time" and we gave him more time. Big Sam on day 1. Hopefully not as good as it gets. So why my optimism with Allardyce? Well, for a start he's English but not TOO English. Roy Hodgson was the archetypal "muddling though" Englishman as Three Lions boss, never 100% certain of anything but possessed of a gravitas that allowed him to get away with a fiddling, adjusting the knobs approach to managing England. As England's hammer horror of a last 16 exit played out in Nice, Hodgson cast a tragic figure in the dugout, the brilliant but eternally unproductive mad professor whose chemistry set has just blown up in his face. Allardyce on the other hand issues a more earthly aroma while going about his business in the beautiful game. Born in England of working class Scottish parents his is a style born of needing to do more with less, and quickly before someone with more steals your lunch, gets your girl and nicks your job. Through necessity Sam has consistently knitted satisfactory purses from second rate sow's ears whether succeeding as a journeyman defender at Bolton who couldn't hit a ten yard pass or as a manager at Sunderland avoiding relegation while having access only to defensive midfielders, wingers and a five foot six (admittedly ex-England) centre forward.
That last example is at the heart of my argument for why Sam Allardyce stands a better chance than most of reinvigorating the Three Lions. Today's England manager will get favors from absolutely NOBODY. Forget Mourinho's "I'll make sure I supply Sam with plenty of high quality players for England" - that's Mourinho saying what a Manchester United boss is supposed to say and, well, saying what he wants to say for whatever reason he wants to say it. The Premier League is bigger business than ever with the League's managers under more pressure than ever to succeed. Unlike when Germany and Spain transformed their national team philosophies in lockstep with their domestic leagues, the new England manager will have absolutely no control over the environment from which his talent is drawn. It might sound very desirable to implement a back to front possession-based playing style for the England team but if the Premier League is only serving him up water carrier midfielders, wingers and target men then we'll have to make do. This doesn't mean we can't have a winning England team. What it does mean is that the England manager must possess the tactical know-how to adopt flexible playing styles based on the skills and positional abilities of the English players available. Of the candidates who were up for the England job this go-around Sam meets this requirement best in my opinion. So there you have it, my money is on Sam to turn around England's fortunes and restore some national pride in our Three Lions. Not too much money though. I've had hope too many times before and been disappointed. Maybe this time, though. Maybe this time he'll get it right. |
AuthorMark Usher is an Englishman and a passionate supporter of the Three Lions. With many England fans drained of hope long ago, Mark steadfastly retains an unhealthy optimism for the future of his national side. Archivesblogs of noteThe blogs below are all better than this one: "Hope less, |