Wednesday 24 August 2011

Nasri move to the Dark Side leaves Arsenal in crisis. Crisis? What crisis?

How many times have you heard the following statements this summer? Arsenal are in crisis. They must buy players. Arsene Wenger must go. He has lost the plot. How many times have you heard them over the past six years?

These sentiments amongst pundits, journalists and fans will no doubt intensify in the wake of today's sale of yet another prized asset - midfielder Samir Nasri - to their big-spending rivals Manchester City.

But has Wenger lost the plot, or is he the one keeping his head whilst everyone around him is losing theirs? What is Arsenal's plot? What is Manchester City's?

In Wenger's case you can draw a straight line, slap a couple of post-its on it and write on them 'invest in youth development' and 'run a self-funding, competitive club' and leave it there. That is the story at Arsenal, beginning, middle and hopefully end. At City you might need more post-it notes, some gold stars and a couple of tubes of glitter. You might end up with a shinier picture, maybe even including a sickly-sparkley trophy or two, but you might also create an awful mess.

The Wenger mantra, which now infuriates even his own fans, has kept his team in the top four. It has kept them competitive in Europe and the domestic cups. In short, it has done everything it set out to, and it has done it within its own very strict principles.

Nasri has jumped ship 'to win things' and pick up sack loads of cash in the process. He may achieve the first of those objectives. No doubt with his signing on fee banked he has already achieved the latter. He may also join Emmanuel Adebayor in, at least teporarily, derailing a promising career by leaving Arsenal for the lustier pursuits of Manchester's new money.

He might not even get a game. How does Roberto Mancini fit him in with all of the other galacticos at his disposal? Surely his 'buy attacking talent' post-it was already fully encrusted with shiny gold stars. Isn't it time to add another post-it to City's latest spider-diagram and to write 'make these players I have bought in to a TEAM' on it?

Mancini's City might out-perform Wenger's Arsenal on the pitch this season. They certainly should, based on comparative spends and squads. There is, however, a tiny glimmer of hope that they might not. Either way, it is Wenger's philosophy which shows football its greater moral core.

A trophy for Arsenal this season would be vindication for this, and a great example to other aspirational clubs. Trophies for City would be further nails in the coffin of the soul of the game.
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Media seek flaw in Cook's near perfect innings

BBC Sport - Alastair Cook rejects criticism of his batting style

294 runs. 545 balls. Over 13 hours. These are figures which could perhaps belong to a slightly under par innings from a test match team. They do not. They belong to Alastair Cook, who batted throughout a team effort which saw England rack up 710-7 against the number one ranked team in test cricket. Cook's personal total beat that number one ranked team's by itself. It virtually guarantees the England will beat India, and take that number one crown from them. So what's the problem then?

Cook batted slowly. "Turgid," the article called it, citing Geoffrey Boycott of Test Match Special as the antagonist behind the remark. Of course. We are perhaps the only nation who can find such fault with such victory.

If our football team won the World Cup, winning each game either 1-0 or on penalties, after a turgid 0-0, you can imagine our own fans, hopefully tongue-on-cheek, chanting: 'Boring boring England.'

In cricket we revere the Kevin Pietersens and the Freddie Flintoffs. Alastair Cook is well on his way, at only 26, to being, without hyperbole, the greatest English batsman of all time. His stats are already up there. But he should play with more panache. Perhaps he should emulate the Kevin Pietersens rather than the (ironically) Geoff Boycotts of this world.

Or, perhaps we should get off his back and praise him for doing what we should have been crying out for someone to step up and do years ago: to play the way we have had to endure others playing against us. Mohammed Youssuf of Pakistan. Rahul Dravid of India. Now Alastair Cook of England. Batsmen with the mindset to bat and bat and bat. To make big hundreds. To make double hundreds. To make bowling attacks despair. To concentrate, for hours or days, on not getting out. Taking the runs as they are offered, never searching for them. Never offering your wicket for them.

This is, after all, test match cricket. And, yes, we do enjoy watching KP, but we do need a lynch-pin too. In Cook we have that, and long may it continue.
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Tuesday 9 August 2011

UK cities were powder kegs, fueled with decades of anger

You're young, and you're unemployed. Maybe you should still be at school, but your school was a no-go zone. You don't know your dad and your mum is too disaffected or just too damn busy, perhaps with your little half-siblings, to give you her time. There is no schooling and no parenting in your life. Where do you turn for direction?

That's the sort of problem that many of the youths involved in this week's riots face. The gang culture supporting the riots is part and parcel of their solution. It follows logical process that these aimless kids would seek solidarity with others like them, and leadership from those a bit older and further down the same path.

This neither excuses nor fully explains the events of these past few nights, but it does set them in context. This is not violence as a reaction to Coalition cuts, it is a reaction to a generation of negligent social policy from a series of UK governments. These angry youths did not suddenly morph out of decent law-abiding folk this weekend, nor when the last Budget was announced. The anger has been accumulating for a generation. The social underclass of the unemployed, uneducated and unruly is not newborn, it is maturing in to adulthood.

Perhaps Labour's more generous benefits helped subdue the feelings of resentment for socio-economic plans which have left Britain without major independent industries, without jobs for its populus and without any sense of genuine national pride. Now, however, the children of that generation, raised with that resentment in their blood, are finding their voice.

You were a teenager when Margaret Thatcher was privatising our industries. You have lived your life without purpose or direction, unemployed, useless, with no self worth. Now you're forty, your boy is twenty, and as parents do you've passed on your disaffection like a family heirloom. In fact, you did it in the most effective manner possible, by fucking off and leaving him to grow up rudderless, amid a sea of malcontent.

That's how our underclass has been spawned. Maybe my focus on absent fathers is unfair. Perhaps the mothers are equally to blame. Perhaps none of them are entirely to blame for where they are (and what they are) - IT WOULDN'T HAPPEN ON SUCH A MASS SCALE IF IT WASN'T A SOCIETAL PROBLEM, SO LET'S STOP VILLIFYING INDIVIDUALS.

To dismiss these people as 'morons' or to say they are 'just out for what they can get' is to miss the point entirely. To say 'they should all be shot' is a wonderful contradiction for a nation which ostensibly abhors such 'iron fist' tactics on foreign soil. And yet these are the most common reactions from our better classes. Perhaps they should be asking why there are people like this on our doorstep.

Civil unrest does not grow without deep-lying roots. Whether a gang member (or non-gang member) was unjustly (or justly) killed by police is neither here nor there. This was a mere spark which ignited a gun-powder spill which has been pouring since the 80s, since the Tories' last spell in charge. It's no big surprise is it? The poorest getting angriest when the government represent the rich? Labour didn't fix it either though. If they had have, then this would not have set light so quickly after their rein. The fact is that, whichever way we turn, British politics has given us at least three decades now of catastrophic mismanagement. These riots are the ugly manifestation of that.
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Saturday 6 August 2011

Fly me to the moon... Boro's brave new adventure

"If I had to pick one man to fly to the moon with, I'd pick Tony Mowbray."

So, legend has it, said Bruce Rioch, then Middlesbrough manager, of his centre-half and talismanic '86 era captain. Now, Mowbray is the manager embarking on his first full season in charge of his boyhood club, and the task he faces is one of lunar proportions.

The club has already crashed. Two years on from relegation and parachute-paymentless, Mowbray inherited a flaming wreckage. His most urgent task has been to douse the flames: the squad was over-burdened with high-earners, imbalanced and largely devoid of creativity and pace.

Addressing the squad's deficiencies has had to wait while the wage bill is trimmed. This summer has seen minimal incoming players and some inevitable losses.

The result of this disaster management was, after the sale of Leroy Lita, a return to what Mowbray calls "Ground Zero." The club once again has a stable platform from which to launch.

This launch will be fueled by genuine Boro spirit. The spirit of '86, which Mowbray embodies, if you like. The word 'our' has seeped in to club's communication strategy, from the website's tagline "It's in our blood," to the idea of "one of our own," which fits Mowbray and the core of young talent he commands.

There are still players from the Strachan era which Mowbray may have preferred to move out ahead of the likes of Lita and Andrew Taylor, but demand has dictated which players have gone. There is a challenge ahead in making use of the experienced, predominantly Scottish contingent of the squad and blending that with the young, homegrown talent. The signings of Marouane Zemmama, last season, and Marvin Emnes, on a longer contract, have at least equipped the team with some pace and flair. The retention of Matthew Bates and Rhys Williams is key.

The preparations have been made. Today we launch. The moon may seem a long way off, but at least the right man is at the helm.
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Wednesday 29 June 2011

British sportsmen, and journalists, just don't get it

I have a tendency to become enraged when the British media, our media, come down so hard on our failing sports stars. I will argue until I'm blue in the face that one error does not make a bad goalkeeper, as the media has insisted in the past cases of Rob Green and Paul Robinson. I will vehemently rebuke suggestions that Andrew Strauss is not fit to captain the English cricket team because he has had a patchy run off form. I do not believe that Andy Murray is British when he wins but Scottish when he loses: I believe he should be measured on his consistency of performance. Whether you support him is up to you.

In the case of Alastair Cook, newly appointed One Day International captain of England I am going to argue precisely the opposite. Why on earth is he receiving glowing praise in today's papers? Why, for that matter, are the press so rambunctiously undulating with glee at yesterday's rain-affected victory over Sri Lanka.

I'm all for taking the positives from negative situations. For completeness though, it is only proper to address what went wrong when things, result-wise, have gone well.

There were some overly defensive field placings as England should have been maneuvering for the kill. There were one or two strange bowling changes and two bowlers in particular - Jade Dernbach and Stuart Broad - looked worryongly short of invention from a position which any fast bowler should have relished. Blowing away tails should be routine for a pace attack. Sri Lanka's 9th wicket partnership was worth 52 from just 34 balls, before the guile of Graeme Swann was required to dismiss both partners in this improbable stand, Lasith Malinga and Suraj Randiv.

This is what bothers me most: we should have rolled them over more easily, more quickly, more brutally. We should not have trundled over the line as we did. In the grand scheme of things it may seem pedantic to quibble over so moot a point. The game was dead. Why shouldn't we just trundle through? Why bare our teeth and savage the already mortally wounded foe?

Why? Because that is what winners do. That is what winning mentality is. That is why the Australian greats Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne were so deadly. They were merciless. The same could be said of the West Indian fast-bowling duo of Curtley Ambrose and Courtney Walsh which wreacked havoc through the 1990s. They were savages, lusty for blood and a little thing like match circumstances was not enough to quell that. Their purest joy was in simply taking wickets.

It is a trait of British sportsmen, I fear, that they feel they can turn their killer instincts on and off at will. Frank Lampard, Wayne Rooney and co might saunter through a friendly match knowing they will be subbed at half-time anyway. It's only a friendly, who cares? And then the World Cup arrives and all of a sudden England have forgotten how to shift through the gears and pick teams apart (assuming they ever knew). Why? Because they have learnt bad habits. They've purposefully practiced how to coast rather than how to motor on.

In cricket, England's bowlers know what to do when the going is good. Last night James Anderson disposed of Sri Lanka's top order in stormy, swing-friendly conditions, perfect for his style of bowling. In this year's World Cup he was bereft of such helpful conditions and was exposed as having no plan B. Dernbach and Broad bowled predominantly slower balls and bouncers respectively and Sri Lanka's tail wagged. It didn't matter in the game, but if England's bowlers can't better adapt to differing conditions they will never be a serious force in the limited-overs games. If they can't fully integrate a killer-instinct in to their mindsets they will, on occasion, struggle in all forms of the game.

The same principle applies to our football team and English tennis players gone by. If only Tim Henman had wanted to win every tournament as much as Wimbledon, he might have actually won Wimbledon. Of our boxers, Ricky Hatton might have been able to compete with the well-oiled machine of Floyd Mayweather Jr if only his winning habits had been fully integrated in to his psyche, rather than picked up for every fight, then put down in favour of pies and peas and pints.

Winning is not a part-time sojourn in sport. It is a lifetime of practice and labour. Should Great British sportsmen and women ever yearn to reach the greatest of sporting heights, they must learn that greatness is hard-earned with sacrifice, persistence and, above all, practice.
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Sunday 12 June 2011

Wally For Hire (Brolly optional)

Former England manager Steve McClaren is looking for a new job and wants to return to the Premier League. Would you want him at your club?

I imagine a resounding cry of 'no, thank you!' in response. McClaren is 'The Wally with the Brolly.' He is a figure of public ridicule. Appointing him manager would be like re-appointing Gordon Brown as Prime Minister: unthinkable.

But, on the other hand, McClaren has a CV which any current Premier League manager would look at and take note. First headline - he has managed England. True, when itemising his experience with England, he does need to use the old CV-writing adage of turning negatives in to positives. For example, he has learnt that a manager should never try to be one of the lads and, under no circumstances, should he ever, EVER, use an umbrella. Still, who else in the Premier League can match this credential?

Second headline - he has managed in the Champions League. Again this might need some dressing up, but it is a box ticked nevertheless.

He has managed in three countries, including a remarkable title-winning spell at the unfashionable Dutch club, Twente.

He has taken a middle of the road English team in to Europe, twice consecutively, and steered them to a Uefa Cup final.

He learnt his trade (in part) from the great Sir Alex Ferguson, who would endorse the fact that McClaren is an absolutely top-class coach.

So, remind me again why no-one would want him? Ah, yes. Because of his troublesome England rein, in which he was lambasted by media and fans alike. His failed England rein for which he, and not the players nor the fans nor the weight of expectation, is solely responsible. Yes, that's why. Even the perspective of seeing the revered Fabio Capello also fail as England manager, in alarmingly similar fashion, does not get McClaren of the hook.

How many fans who turn their noses up at McClaren also turned their noses up at the appointment of Roy Hodgson at Fulham? They were proven wrong. After his abortive Liverpool misadventure, he is now proving himself all over again at West Brom. From the current bunch of Premier League managers, Hodgson is McClaren's nearest rival in terms of experience, having managed Inter Milan and Switzerland in his long career. He has not managed England though, which is what makes McClaren unique.

Aston Villa have a vacancy and they could probably do worse than appoint the Wally with the Brolly.

I should point out here that, as a supporter of Middlesbrough and England, I am not a great fan of McClaren. His rein at Boro (not Gareth Southgate's immediately after it) is responsible for the club's current position - floundering in the Championship, financially wrecked and in desperate need of rebuilding from bottom to top.

However, it is possible that he has learnt from both his negative and his positive experiences. This, after all, is the point of experience, and why it is such a commodity in football, and in life.

If he has, then he should be in a position to go to a club like Villa or even back to the England job when Capello stands down. If he hasn't, then he truly is a wally.
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Saturday 11 June 2011

I have a dream

Last night I had a dream. I dreamt that the Big Six English clubs severed themselves from the Premier League to join a Global Elite League formed, for pure commercial gain, by the monstrous Overlord of Fifa, Joseph S. Blatter. I dreamt that they took their stars with them, English and foreign alike, complete with their big wages and commercial value. They left the Premier League and England bereft of top-class talent, and the true English fans mourned as if their game had been lost: sold forever to the great God capitalism.

Fabio Capello had gone to manage the new 'national' team, the Global Elite All-Stars, whose place at the next World Cup Blatter had already assured. Sir Alex Ferguson, 'Arry Redknapp, Arsene Wenger, Roberto Mancini, Kenny Dalgliesh and the top seven bookies' favourites for the Chelsea job had all been snapped up by Blatter's new hybrid super league. Other countries, of course, all did the same thing. There were no star managers left.

I thought it was a nightmare.

The FA held a crisis meeting to discuss disbanding the national side and postponing the new Premier League season. But, like Manchester United in the wake of the Munich air disaster, a sense of purpose arose. English Football should go on, dismembered shell of its former self though it is.

The first game of the new era was the New Charity Shield, held between the New Champions of England (based on League standings prior to the split) Everton and the New FA Cup winners (runners up before the split) Stoke City. Pleasingly, although the Wembley crowd were tentative at first, the game was enjoyable. It was hardly a classic, but it was highly competitive blood and thunder stuff. Stoke City won 3-2 to win their first ever Charity Shield.

The League season started with Everton the favourites to retain their artificially acquired title. Within a few games though, the table was different to anyone's predictions. Everton were 8th. Stoke were top and, along with Fulham, Aston Villa and Bolton were setting the pace in the New Top Four. There was no Champions League to qualify for now, of course, so the New Top Four was a pretty abstract concept with no meaningful financial reward. Nevertheless, the teams up there seemed to be enjoying the lofty heights, expressing themselves through free-flowing attacks and meaty tackling. It was, as one commentator exclaimed, "the greatest Sunday-league football of all time."

The first meaningful international fixture, a qualifier away in Bulgaria, loomed darkly on the horizon though. How could an England side without Lampard, Gerrard and Rooney hope to succeed? How could we possibly replace Terry and Ferdinand and Hart and Cole. Even the Johnsons of this world, Adam and Glen, were no longer available. The squad had been annihilated by the split. And who would replace Capello, with all the great star tacticians gone?

Stuart Pearce, as Under-21 manager, had not been commandeered by the Global Elite League. He agreed to step up in the interim, with advice and assistance from the suddenly rather fashionable Stoke manager, Tony Pulis. Pulis brought some of his club players along with him, and some of his tactics too.

The New England team set up in a 4-4-2 formation with two wingers - Jermaine Pennant and Matthew Etherington - and this immediately seemed to cause the Bulgarian's problems. The natural width on either flank stretched the game. The natural crossers on either side provided service to the New Big Lad up front, Fulham's Bobby Zamora. The first goal came from a cross, nodded down by Zamora and banged in by the attacking central midfielder, Newcastle's Kevin Nolan. The second came when Nolan's midfield partner and club team-mate Joey Barton broke up a Bulgaria attack and pumped an intelligent ball up to Zamora's chest. Holding his man off, Zamora was able to lay the ball down to his strike partner, Villa's Darren Bent, who provided a cool finish from inside the box.

Surprisingly two down, the shell-shocked Bulgaria side (who had not lost many, if any, players to the Elite League) started to fight back. Barton's industry in front of the back four helped to snuff out Bulgaria's attacks and, when they did get through, Birmingham's Roger Johnson and Stoke's Ryan Shawcross performed heroically. With authentic passion, physical stature and national pride, they battled to keep the Bulgarians at bay and, together with the full-backs Ryan Taylor (Newcastle) and Leighton Baines (Everton), they formed a pretty solid unit. David Stockdale, the Fulham goalkeeper, made a couple of good saves and, generally, commanded his area well. Mentally, he seemed pretty well-balanced and comfortable with the task in hand.

With Bulgaria forced to chase the game and starting to tire, Pearce's super-sub DJ Campbell (Blackpool) managed to beat an offside trap and bang the ball joyfully in to the roof of the net. 3-0. A resounding win for the New England, against all odds. Whether it was spirit or fluke, something made this team of misfits and cast-offs perform above themselves and win the tricky away tie. Pearce himself was staggered, reflecting that the team had achieved something "miraculous."

The Premier League season went on, and became highly competitive as Everton, Newcastle and Sunderland improved during the season and, for one reason or another, Fulham and Bolton tailed off. In the final weekend's fixtures, there were four teams still in contention for the title, and nine still in danger of relegation. Mid-table obscurity had become a narrower channel than anyone could remember.

New England comfortably qualified for the European Championships and, in a massive upset, went on to win the tournament. Bobby Zamora scored the winning goal in the final, his only goal of the tournament. Eight-goal Darren Bent dedicated his Golden Boot to the New Big Man's tireless, selfless hold-up play.

This was not a nightmare. It was a beautiful dream of an unrealistic short-term future and, perhaps, a simplistic prophecy of a New Bright Future to come.

Thursday 9 June 2011

United and Liverpool show the path to the future

Phil Jones, 19, has signed for Manchester United for £16m. 20 year-old Jordan Henderson has gone to Liverpool, for £20m. It's yet more evidence that football has gone mad, with fat-cat clubs squandering silly money while everyone else struggles. It's outrageous. It's abhorrent. It's wastefulness at its worst. Except that it isn't that at all. It's exactly the opposite.

In Alex Ferguson and Kenny Dalgliesh the two red giants of the North West have two of the wiliest old foxes in world football. Between the two clubs, they have thirty-seven league titles. How many of those have been won because of cash-splashing on established foreign superstars? I can't think of a single instance.

Even Eric Cantona arrived at Manchester United relatively unproven. He left Old Trafford with a stash of medals and God-like status. The same could be said of Christiano Ronaldo.

Liverpool's titles were won in the era before big foreign stars were considered fundamental to success, and Manchester United have, in many ways, stuck to that old-fashioned ethos. Their success in the mid-nineties was built on British foundations: Bruce and Pallister; Ince and Robson; Hughes and McClair. The emergence of the golden generation of Giggs, Beckham, Scholes, Butt and the Neville brothers was the catalyst for a further decade and a half at the very top of the English tree.

There have been foreign cameos in the United story, such as Cantona and Ronaldo, but those who have made the biggest impacts have been those who have proven themselves to be what the fans call 'United Players.' It may be an obvious label, but it is evocative.

Bobby Charlton was, is and always will be a United Player. So will Duncan Edwards, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Gary Neville. They are the ones who are synonymous with the club, and with Old Trafford. There is one shared identity between these figures: the fans, the stadium and the players and managers, past and present. On the other hand, the Cantonas, the Beckhams, the Ronaldos: they all became separate to that identity, and each of their United tenures was subsequently allowed a premature end.

If Phil Jones is to become the next United Player then £16m may prove to be a bargain. At 19, that could realistically equate to a million pounds per year of service. His initial wages are a fraction of what an established international star would expect and, if he doesn't work out, he will retain a resale value. There really is very little risk for exponentially high potential reward. At a club with the culture of United, he could become a great.

The idea of United's collective identity resonates for Liverpool too. They had it a generation ago, but have been wayward since parting with Roy Evans in the nineties. Gerard Houllier and Rafa Benitez brought continental ideas, but little success, with Benitez's Champions League win very much the exception rather than the norm. With Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard on the pitch and Sammy Lee in the back room, there has been lip-service to the old days. King Kenny's return could spark a full on return. The signings of Andy Carroll and Jordan Henderson certainly seem to be a statement of intent.

The future for United and Liverpool will be built predominantly upon young, British talent, schooled in the history, identity and value of the red shirts they wear.

Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City could stand to learn from their rivals or, if they dont, there will be many more titles heading to the men in red.
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Wednesday 8 June 2011

Imogen Thomas: vixen, victim or symptom of the disease?

Shining star, or burnt out?
Over the past few weeks there have been two main themes in the tabloids: the right royal wedding (aka Pippa Middleton's bum) and the right royal scandal of the Ryan Giggs-Imogen Thomas affair. Both stories suggest peculiarly British traits of media consumption - like our soap operas suggest, we are obsessed with other people's dirty laundry and, as if we have never grown beyond our collective Carry On film phase, we are obsessed with boobs and bums and all things so mundanely and so Britishly bawdy.

Ryan Giggs cheated on his wife with a glamour model. This tit-bit of intrigue is now public property, and it seemingly takes precedent over his twenty year career at the absolute peak of English football. Our future monarch has a new wife - we have a new potential queen - but what matters is that her sister is well fit.

As Pippa Middleton has done nothing to attract such attention (other than happening to have a sister who married a prince and happening to have a rather nice bottom), let's leave her out of this debate. Let's focus instead on Miss Thomas. To the anonymous death-threateners from cyberspace, she is an abhorrent slut. A home-wrecker. A fame-hungry whore. That, of course, is only one side of the argument. The other extremity is that she is the victim. Used by Giggs. Persecuted by the society that created her, and all those other wannabes like her. The truth, as ever, probably lies somewhere in the middle.


Charlotte Jackson
 Yes, her moral code appears to be somewhere roughly around the gutter - but is that her fault? Allow me to preempt various possible feminist readings of this story here: Imogen Thomas is symptomatic of British culture. She is a victim of a male-driven media's lust for flesh. Only women who sexualise themselves can 'get anywhere' in the pop-culture. These points are valid. In a previous post, I commented on how Sky Sports'  presenters include an overly high proportion of attractive young women (such as Charlotte Jackson, who was at the centre of the Andy Gray sacking furore). Miriam O'Reilly, at that time, won a landmark case for feminism and age equality. Since then she has been rehired by the BBC to film a documentary about herself and, it seems, very little else. She is not sexy enough for Prime Time TV - Jackson and co. are the future.

But it is not enough to write off Thomas, in broad, structuralist terms, as a victim of society. She is an individual. She makes her own decisions. She has at least some input in to the path she treads. She chose to appear on Big Brother - which brought her in to the public eye - and chose to pose in Lads Mags and to date sports stars: Ryan Giggs was not the first. The reason for these choices lies in the previous paragraph - she felt she had to do this if she wanted to 'get anywhere' in show-business. This is indeed symptomatic of a culture in which 'stars' are born without any discernible talent and hyped up to the supernova of fame, before burning out, breaking down and, ultimately, disappearing.


Sex sells
This is a societal disease, that much is true. The afore-mentioned blog featuring Charlotte Jackson included a picture sourced from Bing Images, of Miss Jackson in a rather revealing bikini. That image has generated more traffic to this site than any other article, picture, link or tag. Some five months after it was posted, there are still more weekly visitors to that picture than there are to the rest of the site combined. The Bing Images pictures in this post will probably do the same - of course, I would probably rather have people actually reading the blog but, hey, that's life! In modern media, it seems, sex sell more than ever.

Nevertheless, Thomas could have chosen another path. She could have become a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer or anything else she wanted, or, if access to the requisite education was not available to her, she could have gone to work in a bar or an office or a factory. The problem is simple: everyone wants to be famous. Great artists and honest professional alike hone their skills, not for the pursuit of the fame but for the love of their endeavour. Thomas does not even have any skills to hone, only her mortal body, which will age and wither and ultimately die. She has already had a boob-job to improve its longevity. But how long can she deny the tide of age? She is young and beautiful now, and lives on that. What will she do when she is Miriam O'Reilly's age?

Unlike Charlotte Jackson, Thomas doesn't have a craft. While Jackson's looks may have propelled her career, she is also good at her job. She is a trained professional. As such, her star may yet shine brightly beyond the glamour of her youth. Thomas is not even talented enough, or hard-working enough, for that - she simply makes her money through column inches and professional self-exposure.



Stony-faced
It must be horrible to be hated by strangers - even more so because, on a purely human level, married-man Giggs is far more at fault than she is. But this is the life Imogen Thomas chose - fame, wealth and the adulation and derision that constitutes modern-day celebrity. This is the path she chose. That is why it is hard to feel sorry for her when she sobs her way through morning television shows, or looks stony-faced outside the court-room. She didn't have it coming. She doesn't deserve it. But she did go out and get it.


Crocodile tears, or genuine remorse?
Even if the tears are genuine (about which I am, at best, dubious), perhaps she weeps because she realises that she has made her own bed, with some very famous notches on the post, and now she has to lie in it. Perhaps she realises that her amoral, materially-driven life is not the ticket to happiness she once thought. Perhaps she wishes she was just a bar-maid in a Welsh local, with a nice, normal boyfriend, wedding plans and a future based on more old-fashioned notions of contentedness: family and friends, a stable home-life and just enough money to get by on.

******************************************************************************

Oh, and for those of you who have accidentally stumbled across this site whilst looking for pics of lovely Imogen, and can't really be bothered with distractions like words and thoughts and general opinion-making, here's some more tits. And Pippa Middleton's bum. Enjoy!










Tuesday 7 June 2011

I'm a bit weird

Yes. Today I realised something. I'm a bit weird. I'm different to other people.

A colleague read my blog and commented on the entry "Sailing this ship alone." It moved her. This reduced me not to tears but to something more snivelling: lamenting the past, contacting the ex, being all soppy. Weird.

I genuinely care about people. That is, I care about people close to me. My friends, my family. The women I have loved and in at least one case still do. I'm no good at expressing that. I'm male. I'm northern. I'm stoic. I'm weird.

It doesn't mean I don't care. When one ex said she just didn't know how I would react to things - and that was why she wanted to break up - I had to agree. I don't know how I will react to things. I'm weird.

So yeah, I suppose the point is that my blog might be moving (on the occasion I write about something other than football, cricket or politics) but I can't translate this to real life. Writing, yes. Real life, no. Because I'm weird.

Ah well. Better than being boring isn't it? Is it? Sometimes I wish I was boring. But then I wouldn't be me, would I?
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Sunday 5 June 2011

Philosopher Southgate has found his cause

Former Middlesbrough manager Gareth Southgate seems to be growing in to his new role as the FA's Head of Elite Development. At the very least, he is becoming increasingly vocal about the philosophy of the role.

In The Mail on Sunday, he is quoted talking about the power of practice - candidly citing his own Euro 96 penalty miss as evidence of what happens without it. Earlier in the week he unveiled plans to ban 11 a-side games for under 13s - a move which would bring England, finally, in line with the greatest exponents of youth development in Europe: Holland, Spain, France, Italy and Germany.

I am reminded at this point of a scene in 'Auf Wiedersehen, Pet', in which Jimmy Nail's character, Oz, discusses English schoolboy football with his estranged wife's new Italian lover, Sandro.

"The pitch is too big - all they learn about is space," Sandro says. "In Italy they play on the street, the beach - they learn control."

The mismatched pair are watching Oz's son, who Sandro has been coaching, dictate his team's victory on a full-sized pitch. Sandro is beaming with pride and Oz, grudgingly, has to concede that the Italian is right.

That episode was made in 1985. It has taken the FA a further 26 years to come to the same conclusion.

Southgate is spearheading the new blueprints for youth development. Smaller pitches. Smaller goals. Greater emphasis on skill over athleticism. It's a major overhaul of a system which has produced too little indigenous talent - and even less variety of talent types - in the modern era. The English era of hard-running, hard-hitting kick and rush players (Rooney, Gerrard, Lampard and co all fit this bill) is coming to an end. Our newest and shiniest light, Jack Wilshere, has already benefited from being schooled under similarly forward-thinking conditions. Arsene Wenger shares Southgate's philosophy, and was one of the few people to openly endorse his management style.

As Middlesbrough manager Southgate was often derided, even by Boro fans, and was ultimately sacked in favour of the more 'old-school' Gordon Strachan (who, as a Boro fan, I would quite like to punch in the face - but that's beside the point).

Southgate's long-term vision for Middlesbrough was centred around Dave Parnaby's highly productive youth academy. He knew that building a culture of development at a club, as Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson have done, is conducive to long-term success. Strachan systematically un-picked the seams Southgate had sewn, in pursuit of shorter-term achievement. He failed spectacularly.

Perhaps Southgate's patient philosophy does not marry up to the modern pressures of front-line management. Fortunately for him, and for England, it does marry up to his new role. English footballing generations to come will reap the rewards.
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Saturday 4 June 2011

No snap judgement: it's time to talk about Kevin

Kevin Pietersen: superstar batsman
It is wrong to make snap judgements in Test cricket. A batsman may take days to craft a great innings, and then, in one ball he might throw his wicket away. A bowler might bowl an inspired session, taking wickets for fun, and then spend hours toiling fruitlessly the next day.

The temptation as commentators and as fans is to laud immediate achievement and to condemn instant failure. More often than not, our instincts to do this are misleading. Over the span of careers, we have dismissed Ian Bell for his lack of mental strength, only for him to come back stronger than ever, and looking an outstanding middle-order player. We have lauded Monty Panesar, only for the emergence of Graeme Swann to show the difference that a genuine top-class spinner can really make.
For England at present, there is plenty to be positive about. Along with Bell, Jonathan Trott and Alastair Cook have blossomed over the last twelve months. Andrew Strauss looks comfortable both at the top of the innings and as captain. Eoin Morgan is showing early promise in his Test career at number six. Against Sri Lanka this morning, wicket-keeper Matthew Prior notched up his fifth Test century.
In the bowling department, Stuart Broad and James Anderson are now considered the established leaders of the seam attack. In Chris Tremlett England have a third seamer, whose 6’8” frame alone makes him an imposing prospect. Steven Finn (playing in place of the injured Anderson today) is not quite as tall, or as established, but is a useful option, and that is the point – we have genuine options with the seam attack. In Swann, and since the retirements of Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan, England have perhaps the top spinner in the game.
But wait. I have missed someone out haven’t I? What about superstar batsman and formerly short-lived England captain Kevin Pietersen?
Since his emergence in 2005, Pietersen has been a magnet for media attention and this has never changed. He was lauded for his contribution to England’s 2005 Ashes victory. He very quickly became a star. At the time, this was a snap judgement. That is not to say that Kevin Pietersen is not a quality player to this day. He is.
Pietersen’s reputation is characterised by big-hitting centuries. He has made seventeen of them and twenty-one fifties in seventy-one matches. Alastair Cook, by comparison, has the same number of centuries and three more fifties in five fewer matches. Both have averages of just over 48. So Cook has a slightly better record than Pietersen. So what?
What rankles though is that he never seems to have developed, on or off the pitch. He is still the flamboyant flair player he always was, and he is still an outspoken media source. This is no snap judgement. It is a feeling which has been growing throughout years of watching Pietersen start to build an innings before carelessly throwing his wicket away.
If Kevin Pietersen is the most gifted batsman of this generation, the statistics suggest that he is not the most hard-working. To use the Cook comparison again, the young opener is a model of technique, temperament and professionalism. He has continually improved the more experienced he has become.
In 2010, Pietersen averaged just over 41 in tests. Cook averaged 58. In 2011’s three Tests so far, Pietersen averages just 13, with Cook averaging a huge 139. For those without encyclopaedic memories, you might think that Cook must have a not out inflating that statistic. He does not.
In the winter Ashes series, Pietersen’s double hundred in Adelaide was crucial to England’s series win, but it also served to mask a below par year for the South African born player, pushing his average up over the 40 mark and in to the realms of respectability. Remove this one innings and he is left with a 2010 record with no centuries and an average of just 31. Removing Cook’s top score of 235 not out from the First Test of the same series leaves him with four remaining hundreds, and an average of 50 for 2010.  The statistics make it possible to say that Cook’s double hundred was evidence of a good year, while Pietersen’s was an exception in a bad year.

Cook: control, technique and temperament
Widening the perspective, it is possible to argue that his 2010 form is typical of Pietersen as an international cricketer: he has reached the highest of heights with his talent, but he has steadfastly refused to adapt his style or curb his attacking instincts. He has refused to learn control and to develop his temperament. He has bought in to his own talent myth and because of this he has failed to develop in to the dominant, world-class batsman the nation had hoped he might become. Control, technique and temperament, not flair, are the hallmarks of every great batsman – Ricky Ponting, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and perhaps now Alastair Cook. They are the characteristics which exclude Pietersen from this category. He can play strokes of the same quality as the illustrious players I have just listed, but he can’t quell his instincts – his burning desire for glory - to leave the next ball when he should.
The retirement of Paul Collingwood from Test cricket has left England with another problem, and new questions about the balance of the side. Collingwood was the nominal fifth bowler, and the team’s best fielder. These roles will be missed more acutely than his batting – the inclusion of Morgan may actually improve England’s middle order.
After the first day of the first test against Sri Lanka last week, as England’s bowlers toiled between rain breaks, former England batsman Geoff Boycott lamented the decision to play only four bowlers, suggesting that the inclusion of Monty Panesar as a second spinner might have helped England eke out wickets in difficult conditions. On day five, as England skittled the tourists out for just 82, with only three fit bowlers and James Anderson watching on, such a suggestion seemed silly  - further evidence of the folly of making snap judgements in cricket.
Nevertheless, circumstances will arise where the bowlers have to dig deeper than they did on Monday, if England are to achieve their aim of being the number one Test side in world cricket. England will have to beat stronger opponents than this Sri Lanka side so recently relieved of the services of Muralitharan and Chaminda Vaas, their two best bowlers.

In the battle to balance the bowling and batting strength of a side, a Collingwood-type fifth bowler is the happy compromise we now lack. Ian Bell and Jonathan Trott do not look as comfortable as Collingwood did bowling a few key overs. Pietersen himself has the ability to bowl useful off-spin but he has never developed the consistency required for him to be anything other than an occasionally used ‘partnership-breaker’ weapon.
There is a clear and probably wise reluctance to promote Stuart Broad up the order, though he has shown himself to be a more than competent batsman. Perhaps the cautionary tale of Andrew Flintoff is behind this. Ultimately, the workload as star bowler, batsman, slip-fielder and sometime captain was too much of a burden for someone of even Flintoff’s immense heart to take. His career batting averages are not as good as he would have wanted. His spells as captain were a mixed bag of small triumphs and spectacular failures. His bowling was blighted by injury. Broad should be left to concentrate on his bowling. Batting at number eight, any contribution he makes is a bonus rather than an expectation, a joy rather than a burden.
The best answer, perhaps, is Ravi Bopara. The Essex batsman could lay claim to being an all-rounder in the same way as Collingwood could – he is a batsmen who is a more-than-useful medium-pacer.  The concerns about Bopara would be whether his batting is good enough to justify inclusion on its own merit and, if so, who would be dropped? With Morgan in the mix, the top six look set for the foreseeable future. 
Bopara - an all-round option
Would the selectors consider dropping Pietersen? Perhaps his recent failures suggest that the team could bear to lose him, purely to gain Bopara’s all-round contribution. Whether Bopara could bat in Pietersen’s spot at number four is another question. Number five Bell or number six Morgan could step up the order instead, but perhaps with the solidity of Bell and Morgan behind him Bopara would have the freedom to flourish. Even if he failed in that order, the team would have Bell, Morgan and Prior to follow. Perhaps it is better to blood Bopara at four than it would be at six, where he would be more exposed to having to take the lead role when batting with a bowler at the other end.

But would the selectors consider dropping Pietersen? Perhaps, if they would, they might discover a new balance and propel England to their coveted position at the top of the Test tree. Perhaps Bopara could become the new Collingwood. And, here’s a radical idea: if he did fail, perhaps we could simply recall Pietersen, and perhaps with the kick-up-the-arse of being dropped, he might by then have put a bit more thought in to developing himself in to the great batsman he should have become. Perhaps, if he cannot do that, the team do not need him at all.
Perhaps England do not need their superstar. Perhaps dropping him would send the right message to the mere mortals beneath him, the likes of Ravi Bopara. Work hard. Concentrate. Practice. Don't think you can just get by on your God-given talent.

Fifa 'family' farce taints football

On Wednesday, Sepp Blatter won a fourth term as Fifa president after an election in which he stood opposed.

It has been an extraordinary week of controversy and in-fighting, with Blatter taking centre-stage. The Swiss has traded accusations with his own vice-president and head of Concacaf, Jack Warner, and the head of Asian football, Mohammed Bin Hammam, both of whom have subsequently found themselves suspended.

Blatter, who himself has been cleared of any wrongdoing by Fifa's ethics committee, has called for unity amongst the Fifa 'family'. Presumably, in this family unit, Warner and Bin Hammam are now the estranged relatives. So too, it seems, are the English and Scottish FAs, who both called for Wednesday's election to be postponed after the only opposing candidate (Bin Hammam) dropped out of the race. The reaction to this show of disobedience has been vitriolic.

Blatter has stated that the English FA should have set an example. The head of the Cypriot FA Costakis Koutsokoumnis has blamed the UK media, referring to the "beautifully English word: 'allegations'." Julio Grondona, Argentinian Football President, claimed that Fifa "always have attacks from England, mostly with lies and the support of journalism."

The Fifa family's anger towards England is a prime example of how detached from reality Football's hierarchy has become. The allegations of corruption are such that action has been taken. Warner and Bin Hammam have been suspended. Blatter himself has promised reform. None of this would have happened if the claims were foundationless paper-talk.

It is rare in itself for the FA's blazer brigade to find themselves in the righteous camp against allegations of organisational corruption and failure, but in this instance all the FA are guilty of is standing up for what is right: how can an election be democratic and fair with only one candidate?

Under the ever-increasing spot-light, Blatter and co have begun to appear rather more like mafiosos than diplomats, right down to their self-awarded title: the Fifa 'family'. Blatter claimed that a special committee had been set up to persuade the FA against opposing the election - perhaps with an offer they couldn't refuse. He has asserted that outside forces will not force Fifa to change - he insists that this power will be kept within the family. 
  

The Godfather

Fifa President Sepp Blatter
 






















The roots of Blatter's unchallenged rule burrow deep. To say he has been in charge for thirteen years, as President of Fifa, is to sell his role short. He has actually been in power at Fifa since 1975, with six years as Technical Director and seventeen as General Secretary, immediately before his ascension to the presidency. It could be argued that Blatter has single-handedly overseen the development (for good or bad) of the modern, commercially-driven game.

As for the FA, David Bernstein may not have woken up with a horse's head in his bed, yet, but it is clear that England is now on the outside of World Football's governing body. This does not bode well for England's chances in future World Cup bids. It does not, on the face of things, give us much hope for influencing the future of the world game.

On the other hand, the status and profitability of the Premier League does make England important. If the FA stick to their guns they may be able to force some change. If other major European leagues would unite with England -  the likes of Spain, Germany, France, Portugal and Holland - then Uefa could become a real problem for the Dons of Fifa.
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Wednesday 18 May 2011

What is equality anyway? And is it what we want?

We hear a lot about equality nowadays. Everyone must have it. But what is it?

Dictionary.com defines equality as "1. The state of being equal, 2. Uniformity of character, 3. Statement that two quantities are equal."

In other words: being the same. So yes, if you want men and women to look the same, act the same and blend so seamlessly in to oneness that we each become self-reproducing hermaphrodites then equality would be lovely. If you want however to live in a fully functioning, human world then equality might not be all it's cracked up to be.

Talcott 'Nemesis of the Feminist' Parsons (a nickname I have just coined, I believe) once wrote of the 'instrumental male' and 'expressive female' gender roles. A potted summary of this: men enjoy working, prefer to feel economically useful and are better suited to some jobs; women are more family-centric, relate better to children and often see raising a family as their primary role. Let me say here that feminists (generally) hate Parsons for this sweeping generalist theory. They have a point. Not all women want children. Some men want to be house-husbands. So Talcott is wrong, isn't he?

No. In the same way as examples of a theory being true do not prove it, examples of it being untrue do not disprove it. A hypothesis (according to basic falsification theory) can only be made more or less valid by this process of testing. Karl Popper's example was that all swans are white: his point being that if you sampled nine hundred and ninety-nine white swans (all white) you might say the theory was proven. If the next swan was black, the theory would be proven wrong. But it would still be valid in all but 0.1% of cases.

In my experience men do want to be 'instrumental' and women are naturally more 'expressive.' That might not be one-in-a-thousand true, but it is pretty valid, I think. Granted, Talcott Parsons might not have a firm handle on modern gender roles. He did die in 1979 though, so he can be forgiven for that.

The modern reality is that women can, if they so choose, do any job just as well as a man. That is equality. The modern reality is that, often, women choose not to. That is reality. Often women, feminist-at-heart or not, will decide that having a family trumps having a career.

If you are a career person, male or female, you can get to the top. I will not bore you with examples of female executives, and I would ask you to not bore me with examples of stats which say women are kept down in the workplace. I work in an office, for a mass employer, and there are women in high places. There are fewer women in high places than men. These facts are true. Does it mean women are subverted? You tell me.

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Thursday 12 May 2011

Our best ever player got us relegated: Boro and the Juninho factor

In 1995, my beloved Middlesbrough FC signed the diminutive Brazilian superstar Juninho. I was thirteen at the time and, like the rest of Teesside, I was beaming with delight at seeing 'The Little Fella' pull on the red and white of Boro.

The signing of Juninho signalled a new, glamorous era of transfer activity at the club. Manager Bryan Robson went on to sign Emerson and Fabrizio Ravanelli the following season, while England internationals Paul Merson and Paul Gascoigne followed the next. Previous 'big name' signings such as Jan-Aage Fjortoft and Nicky Barmby paled in comparison to these illustrious new faces, and football fans across the country remember these heady days on Teesside.

They often forget, however, that before Boro signed Juninho they were comfortably in the top half of the Premier League, with Christmas approaching. By the end of his inaugural season, they were flirting precariously with relegation. A year later, along with Emerson and Ravanelli, Juninho was relegated. The question I want to address here is simple: why?

The simple question can be approached from two distinct angles. Firstly, why was the team successful before Juninho joined? And secondly, why did its performances deteriorate afterwards?

In answer to the first, the promotion-winning team which Bryan Robson put together in his first-season as player-manager of Middlesbrough was built mainly on unglamorous, hard-working professionals. The squad had quality, and Robson spent sizable transfer funds to make it more so, but there were no massive 'big names.' On transfer deadline day that season, Robson made a record signing by splashing out £1.3m to prise Jan-Aage Fjortoft from Swindon Town. Prior to that, Neil Cox (£1m from Watford) and Nigel Pearson (£750k from Sheffield Wednesday) were about as big as it got. The team was well set up though, and with the addition of Barmby, it was ready for the step up to the Premier League.

In Alan Miller and Gary Walsh, Robson had two solid and reliable goalkeepers. Pearson, along with Steve Vickers and Derek Whyte formed a fairly formidable trio of centre-halves. Neil Cox and Curtis Fleming were defensively effective playing as wing-backs, while Robbie Mustoe and Jamie Pollock were industrious in central midfield. But the genius was upfront. Fjortoft played ostensibly as a lone striker, performing the modern version of the target-man role. Behind him were Barmby and the much under-rated Craig Hignett. It was the interchange of these two which bamboozled Premier League defenders in the early part of that season: each would play as a conventional forward one moment, a winger the next, before dropping in to what we now call 'the hole' behind the front two (comprising of Fjortoft and the other of Barmby and Hignett). Indeed Hignett and Barmby, both diminutive and fair-haired, became so interchangeable that they required a collective name: The midget gems were born.

The triangling of this front three gave the deeper players an almost permanent range of out balls - a short pass to the feet of Hignett / Barmby, a through-ball to the other, or a punt to Fjortoft's chest or head, where he was well-versed in feeding the ball off to The Midget Gems. This was uncommonly difficult to mark - permanently having to guard against three varieties of attack, never sure exactly where each of them might pop up next. It was also new: no one had quite played this curious 5-2-2-1 formation before.

There was no blistering pace in this side, and no magic flair. There was, however, craft, guile, hard work and enthusiasm. The defensive players were workmanlike and willing. The forwards were like-wise. There was also a sense of the underdog spirit: itself a powerful performance enhancer. This effect is often put down to camaraderie, and this is probably partly true. The other part of the truth here is that football is an 11-a-side sport, and any 11 can beat any other 11 on any given day.

The names of the players do not give them a divine right to win. Rather, is it invariably the teams who combine a high quality of players with the excellence of tactical and cultural organisation which succeed. Manchester United do not build their team around star players: they have built their club with a fabric of hard-working, highly effective and versatile squad players in to which star players can be inserted and, just as easily, removed. This is why, after the respective departures of Eric Cantona, David Beckham and Christiano Ronaldo, they have continued to win titles. The stars are dependant on the club's set up, not the other way around.

I think we have just hit on the reason why Middlesbrough's performances deteriorated after the signing of Juninho. Suddenly, Bryan Robson decided that the team must orbit its star.

With Hignett dropped to accommodate the Brazilian, the midget gems were shattered. Barmby and Fjortoft were adapted to a more orthodox front two - which didn't really suit either of them. Juninho became central to everything, dropping deep to collect the ball and going on exciting, lovely-to-watch mazy dribbles. Every fan willed the ball to be given to him, and every other player seemed to accept that this was now their role. The result: Boro became predictable, with only one channel of attack. Mark The Little Fella out of the game, and Boro were scuppered.

If the fruitful harmony of the old, well-tuned Middlesbrough side had been disrupted by reconfiguration to Juninho's sound, the acquisitions of Ravanelli and Emerson only served to amplify the interference. With three stars in the ascendancy, Boro's previous workmanlike consistency was replaced by soaring highs and crashing lows. Two great cup runs. Stuttering league form. Two cup finals, two defeats. Three points docked. Relegation. Team spirit and shared endeavour had been replaced by the occasional brilliance which can be sparked by individual talent. This is the Juninho factor and, despite the player's enduring (and deserved - it's not his fault he was misused) popularity, it got Middlesbrough relegated.

Strains of this Juninho factor have been evident in every facet of the club since, although it does seem that Tony Mowbray has set his heart on dragging the club back to its pre-Juninho roots. For the club of 1986-1994, the highest idea of ambition was to compete in the top-flight. The collective identity of the club, which Mowbray gladly embodies, is that of a working-class, industrial town. The club should probably never have tried to represent anything other than that. Under Mowbray, it seems, they won't.

The club will be rebuilt with a squad, an ethos and a playing style of which we Teessiders can be proud. Like Mowbray, our squad, our ethos and our playing style are one of our own. They are Teesside. If that means being a yo-yo club (which seems some way off now) then so be it. If it means that any future 'big-names' brought in must be carefully selected to fit in with these parameters then so be it. If that means relegations and promotions, and a dearth of European football, then so be it. At least any achievements gained, and any failures endured will, like our team, be our own.
 
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Friday 6 May 2011

Ignorance, lies, apathy and spin: a true victory for good old British politics

In the run up to the referendum on political reform, it has become increasingly apparent that the British public don't, generally, have too firm a grasp on their own democracy. Many of us simply do not understand what we are voting for, or against.

What has also become clear is that our senior politicians will stop at nothing to push their own success. David Blunkett has admitted that the 'NO to AV' campaign lied to sway voters: you might suggest that the result (almost certainly now a win for the NO camp) should be declared invalid?

Of course, as you would expect in our modern British democracy, many of us simply did not vote. Whether through conscientious objection, laziness, or the latter dressed up as the former, the turnout figures, no doubt, will be low again. Do we not care, or are we just too disengaged from politics these days? Do we feel that our vote is even worth the ballot paper we splodge our 'X' on? Would splodging '1,2,3,4' really open up politics to the untapped masses, or would even AV have left the fate of the relative many in the hands of the agenda-bound few?

Regardless of the relative worth of AV and FPTP (I tend to believe AV is better, by a few millimeters, but I could probably be persuaded the other way), the only certainty of a NO vote is that it is a victory for David Cameron and Tories, and one which they will inevitably spin to block any future suggestions of electoral or even broader political reform.

As for Nick Clegg, the hapless champion of reform cum Tory tea-boy, his status will be in ruins if the NO vote does indeed win. His whole Lib Dem party might follow suit. Commentators who predict the Lib Dems will split over the coalition devil's pact may well be vindicated, and soon.

Democracy in action? Perhaps. I fail to see though how any democracy where barely half the electorate vote and less than half of those who do are ultimately represented in government can be considered, in any way, fair.
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Monday 2 May 2011

Obama: WE GOT HIM!

Consider these two statements:
1) Barack Obama has announced the death of the world's most wanted man, Osama Bin Laden.
2) Barack Obama is preparing to embark on another election campaign, through which he will seek to gain a second term as President of the United States.

I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I have no qualms about pointing out two simple, concurrent and indisputably true statements, thus putting them each in the context of the other. The casual consumer of today's news stories may have ignored the juxtaposition of those two statements. They may have ignored the second statement entirely. Put together they might rather easily give rise to one startling question: could the death of Bin Laden, or at least its announcement, really be an Obama campaign stunt?

On further thought, there are circumstantial details which deepen the mutual context of the two, and support the suspicions.

Firstly, Obama's popularity has waned in recent times due, at least in part, to the faltering global economy. The initial euphoria which followed his historic election victory had been slowing against the traction of reality - and of the rising anti-Obama 'birther' movement.

Killing Bin Laden is a huge publicity boon which will undoubtedly bolster Obama's chances in the forthcoming polls.

The announcement and coverage of Bin Laden's death, in particular Obama's Presidential statement, has been highly stage-managed. Watch the footage of the Presidential address: this is no ordinary political press release. Stood in an open chamber with imperial-looking ornaments behind him, Obama is playing on a carefully arranged stage. His role? He is playing Caesar, grandiose in victory and basking in the adulation of his subjects.

His language too is that of the conquering hero: "At my request a team was despatched"; "on my orders Bin Laden was killed"; "none of my troops were killed"; "we will continue to protect and defend our country, our friends and our allies."

In the hyperbole, this is not just America's victory: it is the single greatest achievement for which Barack Obama will be written in to the great, on-going saga of the American Dream.

There is a word for both the language and the staging of the message, and it is a word seldom-used for but no less true of the 'good guys' of the west. The word is propaganda. If you strip away the 'evil' associations of the word (it is perhaps most commonly thought of as a feature of Nazism), it refers simply to shaping your communications to influence the thoughts, beliefs and values that make up 'public opinion' to your own ends. Every politician uses propaganda, whether by dropping leaflets through their constituent's doors, or through speeches delivered to a global audience.

Propaganda does not, as some might think, necessarily involve outright lies. It does usually, however, include an element of what is commonly referred to as 'spin.' Spin is what allows two separate bodies to produce statements which contradict each other and yet remain both technically true.

For example, David Cameron will state that the Alternative Vote system (AV) is not a proportional system. Nick Clegg will say instead that it is more proportional than our current system. Both statements are, in fact, true. By a careful use of omission, emphasis and inference the two leaders are able to use parts of the truth for their own purposes. The full truth of both of their statements is that AV is more proportional than our current system, but not by much, and there are more proportional systems available - but such a balanced view is of no political use to either Cameron or Clegg.

Of course, serving the electorate and keeping them fully informed is not a politician's first priority. Their first priority is to get elected or, in other words, to further their own political desires. Obama is no different to Clegg or Cameron in this respect.

The ideas of spin and propaganda can be used to support conspiracy theories. As much as he has emphasised his own coup, Obama has carefully omitted the details which do not serve his agenda. For example, why did the US wait until now if they had "a good idea" of his location in August, or, as some reports suggest, as long ago as 2008? How was the attack pulled off so quickly and so neatly once the order was given, and why was Bin Laden's body disposed of so soon afterwards? Why was he not taken alive - for interrogation, trial and execution - in the same way as Saddam Hussein? How will the Taleban, al-Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist community react? We can only speculate on these questions while Obama and the agents of pro-western media concentrate dogmatically on giving his one message: WE GOT HIM!

This is a powerful message delivered in the context of 9/11 and the global war in terror. It is important though to realise that this is not the full context, and it is not the war won. In the worst case scenario, Bin Laden's martyrdom may become more dangerous than his exiled and therefore partially neutered existence of the last decade.

The use of spin does not make a politician dishonest, but it requires the insightful observer to read that which has not been said as much as that which has.

Justice in the personal case of Osama Bin Laden has, probably, been served. If he was responsible for 9/11, as we believe him to have been, then this death is not punishment enough: if I were a religious man I would enjoy the thought of him burning deep down in the fires of Hell. I do not possess such faith. Those who might believe Bin Laden to be a martyr, however, do. They might tell you that, having been released from his mortal struggle, he is most likely to be enjoying his rewards in Paradise.

America and the western world can celebrate today, but this is not purely the great victory that you have been seeing on your television screens. It would be remiss to not cast at least a cursory glance towards what lies beneath the victory, and what this might mean for tomorrow. The international community has already placed its terror defences on red alert. They seem to share my ominous sense of foreboding: the joyous spoils of war could, all too easily, become the precursor to a whole new era of tragedy, loss and terror.


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Tuesday 26 April 2011

Yes, he is black. So what?

In the Snooker World Championships this week, Rory McLeod played John Higgins. He was quite comfortably beaten. He missed too many shots that, at that level, are considered gimmes. He tried hard and upset a few people with his slow, attritional style. None of this is particularly remarkable, but what is remarkable is that Rory McLeod is snooker's only black professional, and no-one seems to mentioning that fact.

Hold on..... this is not another pro-equality, minority empowering blog. This is The Alternative View. So why is this issue so remarkable?

I don't recall McLeod's colour being mentioned at all during the BBC match commentary, their coverage or the match reports on their website. The Guardian's match report is the same. Apart from, ironically, me, no-one seems to have mentioned it at all. And why should they?

I recall a blog post on the Pink Stinks website about a Matthew Syed article published in the Times. Syed had interviewed Fran Halsall, the swimmer, and written a massively favourable article about her. He did make one mistake though - he opened the piece by commenting on her appearance. That small flaw set the alarm bells ringing at Pink Stinks HQ, and prompted the following response:

http://pinkstinks.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/dressed-for-success-what/

You might notice my counter-arguments tacked on the end of their blog. If you think I have held a grudge over this for two years, I really haven't. I like the Pink Stinks blogs and I think their "campaign for real role-models" is a great initiative which the authors, Emma and Abi, are clearly very passionate about. In fact, I have to actually credit Emma for her suggestion that I set up my own blog, which is where, um, this all came from!

For me the counter-argument to most pro-equality causes has always been that they tend to put people in boxes, and putting people in boxes is actually more divisive than it is helpful. In the Halsall / Syed scenario, Halsall is in the oppressed box and Syed is the oppressor. But, actually, Fran Halsall has gotten to where she is through hard work and determination and she is a good-looking girl. No-one, including Matthew Syed, would argue otherwise. She probably didn't feel oppressed or objectified, and he probably didn't intend for her to.

Syed has also gotten to where he is through hard work and determination, and not just with his award-winning journalism. He was an olympic table-tennis player. He must understand the effort that Halsall has gone through, but does that mean he can't acknowledge that she is a woman? If you follow the link (in the Pink Stinks blog) and read his article, you will actually find that he only briefly comments on her looks at the start, in the context of the glamorous photo shoot she is attending, and then swiftly moves on to itemise and laud her achievements and her character. It is hardly straight out of Nuts magazine, is it?

It is not enough to say that women are objectified or marginalised in sport. It is not enough to say that black people are under-represented in snooker. Without context these arguments are unsubstantiated. There cannot be a quota system for sporting achievement or media coverage, and if there was one, it would not represent equality. When a sportsperson of any colour, gender, creed, age or class can perform at the highest level, win or lose, and have no-one qualify their judgement based on anything but the contest at hand, then that will truly constitute equal treatment.

The same should be said of journalists and any other professional. Do not judge what I am, judge what I do. Judge the articles he writes, the snooker he plays, the speed she swims. Judge it on merit and relate to it accordingly. If you are bad at what you do, you can always work harder at it. You can never change who you are.

Matthew Syed's article is fair, balanced, well-written and complimentary. If you forget that he is a man, what fault can you find with it? It doesn't matter that Syed is a man. It doesn't matter that he is half-Pakistani, and therefore eligible for minority perspective himself. As a writer, he should only be judged on what he writes, not on some presumed agenda which he may or may not have.

People are different. The human population is multi-faceted and diverse, but there are trends amongst groupings. For example, West Indian men tend to be more powerfully-built than white British men, which can make them more suited to sprinting, but less suited to distance running than those from certain parts of Africa. But nature - in so much as our understanding of genetic and geographical influences allows - doesn't have all the answers. Culture is important too. I'll use my favourite example here again - Brits of Asian descent are well represented in cricket, but not in football. Whether for natural or cultural reasons, or both, those of West Indian heritage, like McLeod, are certainly better represented in athletics than they are in snooker. There is nothing wrong with this, so long as it is organic. There is another factor too: individuality.Rory McLeod is unique. But then so are John Higgins, Fran Halsall and Matthew Syed, and so are you and I.

So, for anyone with no agenda, other than trying to understand and occasionally pass sensible comment on the world around us, let's hope that some day everyone can simply be treated how Rory McLeod has been treated this week - just like anyone else.
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Monday 11 April 2011

Yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, yes...

The pre-referendum pro- and anti- Alternative Vote campaigns are rapidly approaching full swing.

'Yes' is supported by Eddie Izzard and Stephen Fry, 'no' by Peter Stringfellow and Tony Hadley. Who gives a ****?

Stringfellow says that he understands the current system, and he believes it is "the right way", Izzard says AV will give "power to the people".

You have to wonder whether they even understand the proposals about which they are spewing out slogans. Their quotes suggest not.

If you are politically aware, this might not be the blog for you. But if, like many, you know little about this referendum, other than what Izzard and co think, read on. Compare their views to the facts and, I implore you, vote on the facts, not on the say-so of the celebrity backers:

1) Our existing 'First Past the Post' system and AV are BOTH majoritarion voting systems. In other words, they put power in the hands of the winners; the losers (and those who voted for them) take a backseat with no say in policy-making. This means more than 50% of the voters might not be represented at all by the elected member (under FPTP), or at all by their first choice (under AV).

2) Under either system each separate electorate (constituency) only has one member elected - anyone who didn't want that electee is unrepresented in government.

3) The Liberal Democrats, who now champion AV, did NOT want it before last year's election. They wanted the Single Transferable Vote.

4) STV is a version of Proportional Representation which elects multi-member constituencies via a quota system - in other words if you get a set portion of the vote you get a seat. The majority of voters actually get some representation in the resultant membership.

5) There are other versions of Proportional Representation, for example: The Regional Party List system, whereby you actually just vote for your preferred party, not candidate, and they get the proportion of seats for your area accordingly, given to party members in the order of the published order of preference.

6) The Proportional systems are not outlandish, far-fetched or extremist-friendly (the latter being a common prejudice held over, inaccurately, from inter-war German politics).

7) In fact, in European Parliament elections FPTP and AV are BOTH banned. Neither is deemed fair enough.

8) The UK use the Regional Party List system for European elections. Under this system, for example, the East of England has 7 MEPs (3 Tory, 2 UKIP, 1 Labour, 1 Lib Dem) as per the votes cast. These 7 members all represent the whole area, ie. No-one is specifically aligned to and area such as Norwich North - they all represent Norwich North, and all its local neighbours.

9) David Cameron and the Tories are shit-scared of AV, because it might slightly erode their political strength. A fully PR system could actually prevent them from ever getting majority rule again (bearing in mind it took Gordon Brown's limping Labour for them to even get a minority victory...)

10) Because the Tories infiltrated Lib Dem ideology, and warped it to their own ends, we now have a referendum on AV. No-one wanted this in the first place, but it's all we can have for now.

So, that's the facts. There are only two options, because abstaining suggests we don't care either way, rather than caring too much. So what's it to be people? You tell me: Yes or No?
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