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NOT DROWNING, BUT WAVING 5-1-07
Calum Law
Boro's season thus far has resembled the bibulous Bishop of Southwark's journey home - improbable zigzags amidst a general theme of decline. But then like His Dipsoness they might justifiably declare: 'but I'm Middlesbrough F.C., it's what I do!'
For a support that, in recent years has become as accustomed as it's ever likely to to thinking of it's team as an 'established' Premiership outfit, a certain sort of schizophrenia has bedded in. On the one hand, we cling to the optimism engendered by last season's European heroics, by the fecundity of our Academy and by the quality and experience of our big players.
Conversely, our lack of goals, our inability to dominate games from midfield and hence create chances, and the realisation of just how dependent we've become on the aforementioned 'big players' performing, lead many towards concurring with the 'experts', and (worryingly) the bookies, in casting gloom on our chances.
A similar ambivalence is felt regarding the manager. A genuine hero during his four years as a Boro player and respected by almost everyone in the game, we desperately want the 'Gate to succeed whilst remaining fearful he may be too nice, too callow to survive in the cut-throat Premiership world of horse-trading, ego-primping and tactical ruthlessness.
And as stated, this season has seen a collective shift in the confidence of the betting exchanges. For the last few seasons, the bookmakers have noticed the stable well-run club that always seems to find cash if needs be, and have laid heavily against us going down. At one point a couple of seasons ago with a dozen or so games left we were 66/1 to be relegated while Charlton, two points ahead, were 8/1! Now, our odds shadow our position far more closely - an inauspicious development, for we know how the bookie, like his cousin in the animal kingdom, has a sixth sense when it comes to the sinking ship.
Again, the untested Management appears likely to be the factor that has produced this caution, particularly as Southgate's apologetic demeanour seems almost designed to stoke the bonfire of doubt raging beneath his executive swivel chair. A cerebral approach is one style of governance, but arguably wasted on the footballer with his preposterous ego and shrivelled capacity for self-analysis.
More likely to succeed is the ersatz-guru motivation-speak of the McClaren/Beswick school. As Reading keeper Marcus Hanheman, speaking of Pardew, put it: 'every day he made me feel I was the best goalkeeper in the world.' A cynic might sometimes wonder if there was, in essence, little more to it than that.
Having said that, I believe a strong case can be mounted for Gareth's defence. The Woodgate/Huth double signing will prove a masterstroke should we stay up and with luck could be the foundation to an era of unsurpassed achievement. Similarly, the conversion of Arca to putative playmaker could turn out to be a piece of improvisation akin to that wielded by McClaren vis a vis Zenden. The crying need for a technical player who takes responsibility and always makes himself available for the ball has been apparent to all.
If Gareth can convince him he's the best playmaker in the world (or in Gareth-speak probably 'perhaps the best left-footed playmaker in the bottom six') then we may cop our £30 million SkySports booty after all.
Memo to Southgate: wearing a v-necked pullover under a suit is a sartorial whimsy carried to its acme by R.E. Teachers and old blokes who shout out the bingo at the British Legion. On balance, the ComeOnBoro fashion team believes the combination to be one that deserves roughly this level of profile. Get yourself an overcoat man!
Not Clever, but Big
Childhood is a time when unrealistic expectations of your own abilities are properly indulged. Your first job is traditionally when the scales are unceremoniously (often brutally) removed from your eyes. In olden times you'd be sent to the workshops for a glasshammer, or striped paint, or down to the station for a 'long stand'.
Any number of humiliations were devised, and all in a strange way were acts of love; the lesson being that the world was cruel and you needed to learn to take it. Once you could take it then you were accorded the status of a 'man' (or 'woman'). Years later, you'd begin to see what a deluded and conceited twerp you'd been when you'd arrived, and you might have cause to be grateful for the rough ride you were given.
Latin countries (where boys are pampered by their mothers far more and far longer) and elite Football Academies (where agents conspire to inflate puerile self-image) are not perhaps natural environments for such humility-based value-systems to breed, which is maybe why diving has become so prevalent in the British game - where ten years ago it barely existed.
It's typical that it took a man, Stuart Pearce, who came through the no-bullshit world of the old-fashioned apprenticeship, to cut through the crap and fail to defend his player when he'd clearly dived - and it's why I make him my Man of the Year.
Now it merely remains for the F.A. to likewise cut the crap and institute a Standing Committee on Simulation, with the power to act retrospectively on video evidence. Thence people whose bosses take the the piss all week long don't have to pay good money to watch some tart doing it on a Saturday. Job, as Psycho would say, done.
Not Also, but Only
So, following on from Fergie, both Harry Redknapp and Sam Allardyce are refusing to talk to the B.B.C. following its most-inconvenient Panorama investigation - instead sending out their respective number twos to do the honours on Match of the Day.
Whilst it's possible to regret the absence of Redknapp, with his air of a beleaguered peepshow proprietor, anyone familiar with this column will guess that I'll hardly be writing to Big Sam to beg him to reconsider. Now, if some enterprising B.B.C. hack could uncover evidence of Mrs Warnock's streetwalking past or Don Mourinho's spell heading up a fascist torture unit, we'd have a full house.
I think we can safely assume there's no skeletons in Gareth's closet - unless you count the couple of times he rode his bike home from the chess club without any lights.
If Gareth's not on MoTD next season, it'll be for a more prosaic reason.
NOW HAVE YOUR SAY IN THE NEW HOLGATE FORUM
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