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IN THE NAME OF GOD, GO 19-8-05
How appropriate that the birthday of Hans Christian Andersen was being celebrated in Denmark on Wednesday night.
His legacy lives on and not just in name. Surely he would have been proud of those English exponents of the art that he mastered, namely the experts who reckon that England have a chance of lifting the World Cup next summer.
Do me a favour. You'd be better off putting your money and your hopes on a much smaller country with far less pedigree and history. Like Denmark maybe? A 4-1 defeat to the Danes is just a total embarrassment really, friendly match or not.
What an absolute pig's bollock our national football team has turned into but what on earth did we expect when the FA in its lack of wisdom decided that no English manager was good enough for the top job?
The players have always sung his praises but I always believed that was because he was a soft touch with them. I haven't seen any evidence to disprove that theory yet.
The press cast him as ice cool. A suave debonair character who would not crack under pressure. For diginified silence read a distinct lack of eloquence and no ability to put his thoughts across in a convincing manner.
Its common knowledge that this lame duck who carries the hopes of the nation has only hung onto his position because it would have cost too much money to fire him after he committed gross misconduct.
I don't have a problem with him screwing his secretary but he lied to his bosses and there is only one conclusion that can be drawn from that. The man cannot be trusted.
And it gets worst for Boro fans as our manager is still the hot favouite to succeed him, so when the curtain comes down on the saddest ever chapter in English footballing history, it is highly likely that it will be Boro who will be the club to suffer.
This has made the situation difficult for Steve Gibson who was faced with the scenario of having to agree to improved contracts for the backroom staff who will inevitably be replaced when the new manager takes over.
When the new man arrives he will want his own people with him and so those improved contracts will have to be paid up. Unless Bill Beswick and co. resign to follow McClaren to the FA.
Its a sorry situation and it has been forced upon us by the hapless beaurocrats at the FA who lacked the spine to fire Erikksson when they had the chance to. Surely gross misconduct is a sackable offence under any circumstances, regardless of what is written into your contract?
England will provide us with a couple of weeks of excitement next summer before being knocked out, on penalties probably, before returning home as glorious failures once again.
You could write the headlines now and probably the article as well. Just make sure that you include a healthy dose of vitriol about the opposition's tactics or an incompetent referee and hail the team as heroes for getting beaten again.
Same as 2002, 2000, 1998, 1996 and all the way back to 1968. We've been there so many times now that its now well beyond Groundhog Day and deja-vu.
But at least when the beaten English return home next July, it will be the end of the reign of the worst manager we have ever had. Now that is most certainly a good reason to celebrate.
At times like these, I am very happy to be a Middlesbrough supporter. We have provided more entertainment and excitement over the last few months than our international team could ever dream of doing.
There are still obvious concerns like nobody wanting to sign for us and our best players being turned down for the pay rises they feel they deserve but still, we could set our season up very nicely this weekend.
I won't start harpimg on about our unbeaten record just yet. I want to get the Spurs game out of the way first. Then hopefully we will still be unbeaten, having played the European champions and the hot tip for glory this season.
Not a bad record by anybody's standards. We could be standing on the verge of major success and whatever position we are in, everything is in our own hands.
Yet the spectre of an oversized injury list is hanging over us already. We lost Tony McMahon to a shoulder injury this week and we are now long past the stage of being unlucky with injuries.
It is blatantly obvious that something is very wrong with either our training methods or facilities and it is even more obvious that nothing is being done about it.
Let's just hope that it doesn't play havoc with our season, like it did last time round. But when people start blaming bad luck for problems that are their responsibility, then alarm bells start to ring.
We can only hope that Steve McClaren hasn't learnt too much from Sven Goran Eriksson, despite it all probably being irrelevant to Boro this time next year.
Until next week.
Steve
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