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EASY LIKE SUNDAY MORNING 20-10-06
Calum Law
The happy chirrup of the birds, the pungent tang of the morning coffee, the sun-dappled stroll to the newsagents - there's a marked uplift in one's sensual appreciation when an emollient Sports Section is the destination.
A pleasure granted to the Boro faithful for only the second time this season on a Sunday - indeed a pleasure not indulged in on a Sunday since last April; and one made sweeter by a unanimity of cliché from watching hacks: 'hard fought', 'deserved', 'host of chances', [should've had the] 'game wrapped up' being the gist.
Gareth showed he's getting up to speed with the P.R. game by (implicitly) claiming most of the credit, asserting that since the Bramall Lane nadir he'd 'reviewed everything' - even down to his wardrobe. Whilst I hope his navy-blue suit is in and out of the dry cleaners all season rather than down the Oxfam shop come May, I'll reserve judgement.
This column has never numbered among the doom prophets lambasted this week by The Anti News, but I've seen enough to know that despite its undoubted talent (not to mention potential) this team exhibits a brittle underside on occasion that no amount of natty attire is likely to remedy. Let's win two games in a row eh?
This said, the (by all accounts) impressive debut of Huth added to the (from this quarter unexpected) improvement in Pogotetz is hugely reassuring, for the fact that Woodgate may not have to carry the entire defence all season. Of greater importance however is the return of Boateng for, as the past couple of seasons tell us: when he's missing, Boro struggle; we win less ball in midfield and it gets circulated less efficiently. And when you lose in midfield - you generally lose.
Whilst there was a genuine feeling that on Saturday (in the cliché du jour) a corner had been turned, one is entitled to wonder if, with all the talk of overhauling things and new brooms etc., Boro fans haven't been victims of a massive confidence trick these last few years - having weathered the incessant recitation of 'state of the art training facilities', 'Prozone', 'sports psychologists', 'dietitians' etc. Was Prozone just this funny box that Steve Mclaren found in the Blue Peter storeroom? Who are we to believe?
Though the players went 'on-message' with respect to their twice-daily training with a fidelity that would do credit to a North Korean diplomatic retinue, the momentary calm that ensues from a 'turned corner' fools nobody. Discord, heroism, despair and euphoria surely await round the next corner - it's the Boro way.
Chain of Fools
Is there any organisation as shoddy and useless as the F.A.? For decades it was a byword for anachronistic amateurism, - it's seniority a constant source of exasperation to the more pragmatic Football League. It was run by Lord Whatnots and staffed by non-entities like Graham Kelly - a man who would make a speak-your-weight machine sound charismatic.
Since television flooded the game with money it has tried to reinvent itself as a slick, professional type of monopoly - and now exists primarily for purposes of its own enrichment. Its charge sheet grows in length: from the saga of incompetence that was the Wembley contract to the scandal of Eriksson and the bungling of his replacement.
Since I would imagine the ever-shrewd Steve Gibson is well-appraised of Employment Law, I suspect the 'ongoing negotiations' regarding Gareth Southgate's tenure are designed primarily to save face for the F.A. and to deflect attention from their mutually beneficial arrangement with the League Managers Association which, to all intent and purpose, amounts to a closed shop.
As the boss of a private limited company there is nothing to stop Steve Gibson employing the boy who sells programmes as manager if he so wishes, but over and above that is how the affair exposes the know-nothing sinecured fakery that runs the game: for can you imagine the scorn that would greet you if you told Bill Shankly, Jock Stein (or Brian Clough!) that they needed a coaching badge.
Dream Lovers
Out of the ether comes the 'news' that the Abramovich's marriage is 'on the rocks', with feverish speculation that this could mean 'the biggest divorce settlement in history' for Mrs A - who looks so unlike the wife of a Russian billionaire it's uncanny.
Whilst it's to be hoped the affect on their two young...(check: why the hell am I feeling sorry for Abramovich's kids?!)
Let's try again. Sharing tabloid hopes that the divorce (if it comes) will be as bitter, messy and rancorous as possible we may gleefully fantasise how Roman's missus might choose to invest her gargantuan pay-off. Will she drop a couple of billion into Arsenal perhaps? But then would the dreary managerialism of David Dein give her that extra warm tingle beneath her fur coat.
No, surely any feelings of revenge might be better sated further north where she would be more likely to encounter 'her type'. Can anyone think of a ruggedly handsome young self-made football Chairman from a tough industrial background (with a track record for beating up on Chelsea)?
Dirty Old Town
In an exchange of e-mails with Generalissimo Goldby it dawns on us that we attended neighbouring schools at the same time and hence have quite a few mutual acquaintances. I had to laugh at his lament for one particular tearaway of legend. I've seldom come across a casual phrase that illustrates more poignantly the small boy that dwells eternally in the heart of the football fan.
'He could've played for Hartlepool, but he chose to smoke and drink instead', he penned, in a report free of explanatory clauses. Of course, I wasn't laughing at Steve, but with him - for naturally I shared his assumption that even the humblest pro football posting must be better than any and every other job. It was our own personal 'where did it all go wrong, Mr Best?' moment, and so elegiac it could almost be a folk song:
Young Potter had a wasted youth
His hobnail boots ne'er dwelt in school.
He chose to smoke and drink
Instead of play for Hartlepool.
NOW HAVE YOUR SAY IN THE NEW HOLGATE FORUM
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