Loony Toons

Newcastle United are the new Princess Diana. A bold statement I know but think on. Like Diana they have thousands of overtly loyal followers who feel the existence of the object of their affections has a correlation with their own life because they once saw them in the flesh... from behind a barrier... a few hundred feet away. Remember the woman on Match of the Day after Kevin Keegan left who proclaimed "My whole life is ruined", I can't be the only one who suspected that she was one of those took a month off from work eleven years ago to mourn the 'Princes of our Hearts'. And, like Diana they are also receiving blanket and daily newspaper coverage as they move steadily towards their ultimate demise.

If you are a Newcastle fan, then beware of the following. If you see pictures of Newcastle United reclining on a yacht with a wealthy heir, then grainy footage of the club leaving a lift in a Paris Hotel, followed lastly by commemorative Magpies of Our Hearts plate offers in the Daily Express, then don't complain you weren't warned. Each of these occurrences is just the next step in your club's slow death-march to, well, probably to a bright new dawn.

Call me a cynical lower league fan if you will, but can the recent events at Newcastle really be classed as 'turmoil'? Given the money available to top flight clubs at the moment all this supposed demise can possibly mean is a club dropping from being a well-supported mid-table Premier League team to a well supported mid-table Championship team. Until Mike Ashley is hiring henchmen to set fire to the Gallowgate End or Joe Kinnear is picking his next-door neighbour in goal then the word 'crisis' need be used in connection with St James Park as seldom as the word 'overcoat'.

I have no sympathies with the Toon Army I'm afraid, as I am firmly of the belief that any group of people who describe a managerial partnership of Kevin Keegan and Alan Shearer as a 'dream ticket' has already crossed the fine line from loyal to madness. Keegan on his own is speculative, as his managerial carrer has had a distinctive downward arc to it since his initial spell on Tyneside. Shearer meanwhile as a pundit on Match of the Day has taken three years to hone his tell-the-public-exactly-what-they've-just-seen style of tactical incitement which is as necessary and useful as subtitles for the blind. Its a 'dream ticket' yes, but only for Sunderland fans.

Anyone for Tennis?

“He’s silencing the crowd now Melzer, thats half the battle won,” said the commentator as the Austrian put his nation 5-2 up in the third set of their Davis Cup tie at Wimbledon. A reasonable statement in many senses, but not when it has come within a minute of a close up camera shot of a young fan asleep, and is followed by a wide angled shot of sparsely populated Number One court seats, save for the occasional person with a newspaper on their head, then I take issue with it.

Tennis folk love to make it known that ‘nothing compares to the partisan atmosphere’ of Davis Cup ties. After over an hour of Alex Bogdanovic’s opening rubber against Johan Melzer I can instead conclude that several things compare to a Davis Cup tie’s ‘partizan atmosphere’. Non-league football, school swimming galas, Robot Wars... the list could go on. The truth is, whilst in central and eastern Europe a tennis crowd can seem intimidating, when it comes to Britain a tennis audience is about as fearsome as marginally irate goldfish.

Think back, if you can bear it, to what the late 1990s press dubbed ‘Henmania’. Far from being a free for all of unwavering support what this ‘mania’ actually resembled was nearer a cross between the Last Night of the Proms and a meeting of the Women’s Institute Amateur Dramatics Society. No amount of plastic Union Jack hats and giant autographed tennis balls could disguise from what essentially was menopausal, suburban housewives getting unnaturally giddy over a middle-class man playing a middle-class sport.

Thats the problem with tennis, despite its desire to appeal to a wider demographic, it remains very much in this country a middle-class world. Wimbledon’s British Racing Green hoardings and hedgerows, strawberries and cream and Roger Federer’s blazers are no more catalysts for a partisan atmosphere than a wine-tasting nor a jam making contest. So please get things in perspective, stop describing this mini flag waving and air horn toting as partisan and instead draw a more direct parallel; think of a village fete where Maude from the post office has spent a little too long sampling Farmer Thompson’s home-made cider.

Cap That

There were genuine fears that the world might end yesterday. Deep in a Swiss lab that resembled a Bond Villain’s hideout scientists conducted an experiment on sub atomic particles which allegedly, had it gone wrong, could have destroyed the planet. My heart goes out to whoever had to compile the Health and Safety report. However, instead of the world’s end England fans and the national press have been treated to an apparent new dawn. Andorra forgotten as quickly as it was judged; Capello is OK after all.

Yesterday’s news is no longer today’s chip wrappers. This is mainly because its hard to fold a webpage around a large haddock, but also because yesterday’s news is no longer simply discarded. Its stored on file ready for ‘We told you so’ features and articles when premonitions come to pass. However when things are called wrongly yesterday’s news is glossed over quicker than a 1ft window sill. So for all those journalists and pundits who turned on the England manager after Saturday’s result expect precisely to be standing sheepishly on Fabio’s doorstep clutching a box of roses and some hastily purchased carnations from the nearby Tesco Express.

On Sunday the common consensus in the press was ‘Joe Cole saves Capello’s blushes’ (The Independent, Daily Mirror). The manager had begun his competitive England reign with a win, an away win, but for many it was not good enough. Even renowned world news service Reuters were questioning Capello’s credentials; “England have now played six matches under the Italian and although they have won four of them, they have rarely looked much better than they did when McClaren was in charge”. And bizarrely much was made also of the England manager shouting instructions at Wayne Rooney and Joe Cole. Too much passion perhaps?

Today the outlook is suddenly very different, as if Saturday and its subsequent doom-mongering never really existed as claimed in the News of the World’s online coverage; “[Theo Walcott] scored a hat-trick as the Capello’s quest for World Cup qualification began in earnest.” Andorra? Questioning the manager? Don’t know what you’re talking about... this is where it starts. Why bother being pragmatic when you can change your stance as it suits? A mantra seemingly adopted by The Sun (“Fabio Capello is leading the country out of the dark ages and we are on course for the 2010 World Cup finals”) and the Daily Mail (“in Capello the Football Association [has] indeed found someone who can guide England out of the darkness and on to the next World Cup”).

Another subject that is raised and forgotten as it suits is the issue of ‘passion’, and how it is shown by a manager. Unless a manager is jumping around like Martin O’Neil trying to escape from a pack of wasps then it is taken that they don’t care enough. After all how many England managers have succeeded when displaying the sort of touchline stoicism of, erm, Alf Ramsey? Last night Capello showed no passion in the House of Pain sense, but instead he perfected a very continental film noire-esque style of satisfaction. As the England bench leapt in celebration of Wayne Rooney’s goal Capello instead went for the long stare into the middle distance followed by a wry whimsical smile as if the goal had just reminded him of a fond childhood toy; probably a Mr Potato Head.

Load of Tosh?

Load of Tosh?

The seemingly inevitable doom-mongering amongst the media and vast numbers of supporters following Fabio Capello’s first game in charge of the national team has reminded me just what it’s like to be an England fan. And more importantly, why I’m so glad I’m not one.

Fabio Capello has after all done his job. He has gone away in his first competitive game as manager and returned with three points... the maximum three points. Sadly for Capello, with the way the Premiership is hyped up a win is sometimes not enough. If these players are paid ludicrous sums to play in ‘the best league in the world’ then surely they should be winning by at least double figures against ‘a team of postmen and bank clerks’. International football doesn’t work like that. Points win prizes more often than style; as the international records of Germany and the Netherlands will testify.

That said, even as a fan of lowly Wales, it’s still possible to be frustrated in victory. I went to the Azerbaijan game on Saturday and in my newspaper on the train down to Cardiff there was a promotional booklet for Wales. “Its easy to act on impulse here,” it read. “Dylan Thomas only wrote when he was inspired. In bars. In parks. In his shed”. Had he been in the Millennium Stadium Dyalan Thomas would have written f*** all. Not only that, he’d have probably eaten his pen as well in sheer frustration

Yes a win is a win, but against a team who have never won away, surely the aim should be a little higher. Inside the opening half an hour it was already clear to those in the sparsely populated Millennium Stadium stands that Wales had the beating of their opponents out wide, and that a back four was at least one more defender than was needed against Azerbaijan’s increasingly lonely centre forward.

But despite boos at the end of a goalless first half and cat calls and yells for an extra forward Wales fans had to wait until the 72nd minute for John Toshack to deliver what had for so long seemed the obvious call. By which point the Azeri were already down to ten men, and had been for nigh on ten minutes. That 72nd minute sub was goalscorer Sam Vokes, on paper a tactical masterstroke, yet in the flesh a long overdue move. The game in this respect seemed to sum up vast parts of John Toshack’s reign; whilst he often makes the key decisions, he has a frustrating tendency to make them when its close to being too little too late.

The commitment and enthusiasm shown by Wales younger stars is the harbinger of hope for many Welsh fans. Wayne Henessey in goal, Chris Gunther and Gareth Bale at full-back, Joe Ledley and David Edwards in midfield, the introduction of Ched Evans and Sam Volkes up front. The crux of the squad is scarily young, but refreshingly happy to be playing for their nation. The future is certainly bright, its Toshack's misty present that just confuses issues. He gets the tactics right eventually, but for the sake of our nerves Tosh please do it sooner.