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DON'T PANIC 3-11-06
Calum Law
There's a certain look she gave you once - I can only call it that bored look - which, in hindsight, you mark as the moment the fissure opened: the vent through which the icy chill of rejection began to creep.
As you get older, and you begin to see that different faces are capable of the same look, you naturally run the risk of becoming over-sensitive - of seeing it even when it's not there. (This is what's known as 'baggage'.)
Middlesbrough fans like myself, who've felt that ol' sinking feeling on multiple occasions, can be forgiven for thinking that destiny has once again thrown us that bored look. Despite being cock 'o the walk a few short months ago - the envy of all but the elite, there's a nagging feeling that we've lost our swagger, that our bon mots no longer sparkle, that she's discovered our collection of white socks.
And it seems strange that such fearfulness about a club (whom back in May the phrase 'bright future' seemed coined especially for) can appear justified. Yet the feeling persists that we have regressed somehow - to the point where we're approaching a trip to Watford with a sense of foreboding!
I believe that we'll be okay - indeed that we still have every reason to be optimistic in the medium-term, but that Monday night's supine display pointed out faults that need to be addressed if this optimism is to be warranted.
Toby Higgins has already nailed most of the problems - Massimo deserves more trust from us after his UEFA heroics and, with Viduka out, now is the time to give him a run of games. And clearly, the lack of penetration from midfield is a worry. But I believe the problem starts further back in the full-back positions.
Pogotetz is at best a stand-in centre-half. Full back is a position where your opponent spends the whole game trying to turn you and mobility is key. Pogo turns like a supertanker, and though the crowd loves a trier an' all, for me he's a squad player at best. He offers little as an attacking threat and this is the main difference with last season. In hindsight it becomes clear just how much of our attacking intent was initiated through Quederue. Since Arca was bought as a 'like for like' replacement - it's time to get him in the team.
On the other flank we have four fit players bidding for the right-back berth - and if I'm honest I don't fancy any of them. I'd go for Bates because I think he's the best footballer. Ahead of him Morrison can look lightweight but offers a goal threat and at present is a more rounded player than Cattermole, whose decision-making remains at apprentice level and who consequently surrenders possession too cheaply.
Another apprentice decision-maker is Southgate, who reacted far too late to the unfolding of events on Monday night. He'd picked a team to contain and that by half-time we were one down having failed to muster a shot. The gameplan wasn't working and he should have made at least one personnel change at that point - I believe McLaren certainly would've done - rather than allow the game to drift away.
Southgate will learn, and in any case he already deserves credit for managing to bring in Woodgate and Huth. For all their huff and puff, City rarely looked like breaking us down from open play. Along with Schwarzer and Boateng ( who's far from finished) we have a spine that's robust enough to see us through.
There's no 'Dear John' on the mantelpiece yet.
'You Little Scrote!'
'If you don't like Dennis Wise, you can fuck off!' says Ken Bates. But pray where to, O Bearded One? For if there's to be a 'People-Who-Don't-Like-D.Wise Convention' we're going to need a pretty big venue. I've heard the Maracana once held 200,000 - or perhaps we'd squeeze in the Houston Astrodome.
Some eleven years ago, I sat in a pub in West London, the only Boro fan among a crowd of charmless and faintly menacing Chelsea supporters, humbly taking my punishment as we slid to a 3-0 half-time deficit.
Wise, who was injured and had been invited on as a summariser, was asked for his verdict. 'Well,' he smirked, 'we've got this one wrapped up. We can start thinking about the next game now!'
The fact that he was, of course, correct - that his interlocutor didn't even bother to question whether he wasn't being the teensiest bit disrespectful to the opponents - just made his smug little cockney mug all the more deserving of exemplary and merciless pulverisation.
When I later read, in a newspaper questionnaire, that the living person he most admired was Margaret Thatcher, his position as my personal Football Antichrist was cemented. He somehow crysallised my ambivalence towards the white working-class of the south, who seemed to have a surfeit of the less appealing working-class characteristics (pugnacity, bigotry) but lacked its charms (fraternity, generosity).
That pub was full of blokes who looked and sounded like Wise, and as the fifth goal went in I could take no more from them and left to a chorus of derision. (In truth, I would have left sooner, but the snow was a foot deep outside and I was on crutches!)
You'd imagine then that I'd be about to say - viz his move to Leeds - that loathsomeness has neatly and economically packaged itself, and no misfortune is too extravagant to wish upon this gruesome twosome.
But though I know I should feel this, the fact is I don't. For my best friend is a Leeds fan and five years ago I shared with him his excitement at their march to the Champions League semi-finals. They were the most thrilling young side in England who looked to have the world at its feet, and it was with a feeling of something approaching empathy that I accompanied him to QPR last season and watched a team of utter nonentities trot out in the all-white.
The Leeds fans that day were nothing short of astonishing. They took over an entire end and sang (deafeningly) from the first minute to the last - the Rangers fans simply gave up after about fifteen minutes.
Despite having a manager that Clement and LeFrenais could have coined the pejorative of the title especially for, Leeds fans deserve a Premiership team.
'I'm free!'
Okay, so that other Bates (Matthew) was probably stiched up by mates and he's as manly as Crocodile Dundee's jockstrap, but his appearance on Monday nonetheless led me to ponder the eerie statistical anomaly that, briefly, it looked possible he might confound.
After all, in an age when gay police and servicemen have benefitted from modernity's insouciant shrug, surely the odd talented fellow is going to eschew the delights of a career in floristry or window dressing and train his ambition on the beautiful game.
Of course the gay footballer exists, and one can understand his reluctance to throw open the closet door when the scorn of thousands awaits him every weekend. It will take a brave man for sure, but perhaps also a shrewd one for, unless he's pig ugly, many million pink pounds will be his for the taking.
And my guess is that the English game (both clubs and fans) that is so fond of congratulating itself on its enlightened stand against racism, may be forced to confront this remaining blindspot rather more quickly than it's comfortable with.
Terry and Drogba running out with 'Kick Homophobia Out Of Football' t-shirts? Now that I'd like to see.
NOW HAVE YOUR SAY IN THE NEW HOLGATE FORUM
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