Choosing the reality of less but real noise and wanting more from Turf Moor

Without the fans in the stadium no one will bother watching on the telly, because without the fans, no one is interested.

At least that's what I thought until recently. In these "unprecedented times" (yes we know, yawn!) even the BBC gets to have a share of the live football, the might of Covid finally bringing us a monster greater than Murdoch, enabling us peasants without the money or morals for TV subscriptions to watch Premier League games happening right in front of our eyes, and as they happen, rather than hours after the result is widely known (Terry and Bob wouldn't stand a chance avoiding the score these days, modern technology and social media would get them long before Brian Flint). Southampton versus Manchester City, a match up of one team who were safe from relegation and another who'd all but secured 2nd place, 100 points behind the champions, Liverpool, became the most watched Premier League game ever. Take that Murdo!

What was I thinking? Of course we will still watch; millions used to be glued to their sets watching Big Brother, getting an eyeful of some sales rep picking her nose and eating it to show she was being "true to herself"; millions in this country watch Mrs Brown's Boys, a middle aged man dressed as a woman in her senior years repeatedly bashing people over the head with a saucepan; and rumour has it, a couple of people even tuned in to Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps after the first series.

I watched Southampton-Man City, just as I'd followed Crystal Palace-Bournemouth a couple of weeks before it, which was BBC's first game back, 32 years after the last, Arsenal versus Spurs at Highbury (I watched that as well, obsv...yes that's right 2-1 to The Arse, Perry Groves scoring the winner.) Match-going fans who are used to being patronised in the comfort of their own expensive seats can now be  patronised in the comfort of their own loose-springed armchair or sofa, if they can still afford one. Manufactured crowd noise is played in to match the action, an 'ooh' and 'ahh' and even the odd boo thrown in, although never a "get out of my club you clueless twat!" or, my personal favourite chant, "It's not football anymore!" whenever VAR intervenes. In one of the first games after the restart, Newcastle United's Jonjo Shelvey blasted a free kick into the 3rd tier of St James' Park, to which the fake crowd went "oooh!" like he'd hit the post.

Today it still rankles that one of the Premier League bigwigs, just before the restart, said "we will miss our loyal fans". "Our?" So you're admitting that you think you own us then? And we certainly aren't fans of you! The fake crowd noise is symbolic of how the hobnobs see us; we are there just to pay and react. We know that under normal circumstances they try to drown us out with these stadium announcers e-numbered to the eyeballs, and need to belittle our presence with pyrotechnics and light shows. When Burnley played Wolves last week, I'd finally found the option to turn off the crowd noise, and it was much better. Admittedly, my eight and five year olds were making enough noise as it was. They didn't let up until half time, finally going upstairs to play with duplo, although making sure they were back just in time for the start of the second half.

I was surprised that Burnley didn't have a Black Lives Matter flag on show at Turf Moor. The clubs don't have to adorn the empty spaces with visuals of course, but they all are and, like most, Burnley had an NHS thank you banner, which was great, a rainbow coloured one which could have been LGBTQ+, also great if it was, and there were also actual Burnley FC messages too, but I couldn't see a Black Lives Matter one, which you see at every other stadium. I just thought this was an opportunity to respond to the sad White Lives Matter helicopter banner that flew over the Etihad stadium in Burnley's first game back. This was a banner orchestrated by a young man who insists he isn't racist because he knows black people, although has had his photo taken with Tommy Robinson of the English Defence League.

Yes, we shouldn't have to pander to ignoramuses, but the importance of calling out this behaviour is now more keenly felt than ever, and though Ben Mee, the captain, did so brilliantly after the City game, diverting the start of the interview from match-based detail to emphatically distance the football club from the air display, wouldn't a nice big banner have satisfyingly re-enforced his words?

I used to wonder about Burnley, and why in the Sean Dyche era there have never been any black players, or none that I can remember, in the first team, like at Everton even in the nineties ("Everton are white" some sang). There will be reasons why, and unconnected to race, but the lack of a Black Lives Matter flag led me towards thinking about this all-white union again, and also made me recall the allegations of racism towards Burnley strker Jay Rodrigues by Brighton defender Gaetano Bong last season. Rodriguez, Burnley born and now back at the club where he started, was at West Bromwich Albion when accused by Bong, but the following week, when Brighton played at Turf Moor, Bong was roundly booed. Looking after their own? Yes. Dismissing the possibility of a black man being racially abused? Yes.

Rodriguez wasn't found guilty, and as much as Dyche can irritate me, I have no evidence to suggest he is prejudiced, nor do I suspect that he is. I just thought Burnley could have done with a banner.                                

             

A tribute to Jack Charlton - a giant of the game

"Jack Charlton is like you'd expect him to be" said my dad at home one day, back in the time he covered Charlton's Republic of Ireland teams as a sports journalist for the Press Association.

The conversation came about after someone mentioned Charlton's disapproving response to an 'Ugly Footballer's 11' formed as a joke by Andy Townsend, who was Charlton's captain for the Irish then. 'Big Jack' found the imaginary team particularly displeasing to the eye as it contained his own brother, Bobby, who it seemed was sensitive about such things. The fallout, if you will, came during an international break - or rather a break for internationals - and Dad told us how he and the other writers had tried to reason with 'Big Jack' that Townsend was "just having a joke" but that the manager was unmoved, himself sensitive to the sensitivities of his younger sibling.

Many believed that Townsend himself played for an unattractive team whenever he turned up to represent his country - even when playing alongside such handsome devils as Roy Keane and Jason McAteer - Charlton's style as direct as he came across on telly. But it's nice sometimes not to have to be a purist and just celebrate a moment in time, like the decade of green we were given (but no, Lord Percy, not the purest green). 

Not that I was a fan at first. When Charlton was appointed manager of the Republic in 1986 to succeed Eoin Hand, I couldn't foresee that their fortunes on the pitch would be any better that what had come before, which widely was very little given they had never qualified for an international tournament. Even with Johnny Giles, Mark Lawrenson, David O' Leary and Liam Brady representing Eire in the 70's and 80's, they hadn't managed to reach the centre of world football like their counterparts of similar population, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. The Scots may have been derided for defeats by lesser minnows, but at least they'd made their big stage stories and, as well as the Northern Irish, created World Cup folklore. 

As far as my 10 year old eyes could see, Charlton was merely another World Cup winner from '66 who couldn't transfer his playing success to the managerial game, his spells at Sheffield Wednesday and his hometown club, Newcastle United, merely the best of a sorry return from the likes of Moore, Hurst, Ball and brother, Bobby. I was further disengaged by his banishment of O'Leary - my first favourite Arsenal player - over a country vs holiday argument and by an equal rejection of Brady over the playing system.

What I didn't appreciate was that Charlton's way was like George Graham's - if leaning more to the commitment side than style of play - and I wasn't so much minding that. What couldn't be ignored was that Charlton started out with a 1-0 friendly defeat to Wales in his opening game in 86 and then, two years later, his team were beating England 1-0 in the opening game of the European Championships in Frankfurt, Germany. Ray Houghton scored the goal, with a header, 'little Ray Houghton' travelling beyond himself like Big Jack. 

Listening to Houghton speak you hear an unmistakably Scottish voice, and the man - by a quirk of the camera operator - that you see first, wildly celebrating his club and country team mate's goal, John Aldridge, is as scouse as his memorable spells at Liverpool and Tranmere Rovers would suggest. Charlton, to some humour and much mockery, exploited loopholes and gaps in the market to add weight to his project. Sophisticated footballers had to adapt, while the fans just had to turn up - and they did, in great humour and noise everywhere, belying the size of their nation.  

With those fans, I was again initially sceptical; all these merry jesters draped in flags, invading places all over the world with their commitment to fun and beer - since when did they love football so much? Were they not more into their gaelic football, or the rugby? Was football just the pathway to bleary-eyed adventure?    

But O'Leary, born in Cork, and his very achievements in the game a testament to his love for it, was back in the squad for Italia 90, even scored the winning penalty in the second phase shoot-out against a Romania of Hagi and Raducioiu, and Brady had been in the commentary box cheering him on. Next up was Italy in the quarter final, the hosts no less, in the capital city of Rome. The Pope met the Irish contingent. I wasn't a fan of that Pope, but look what was happening under Big Jack's leadership. It was a whirlwind.

The Republic just missed out on a third successive tournament, narrowly coming second to England - pitted against them yet again in qualifiers for 92, following the battles of 88 and 90 - despite bombarding them at Lansdown Road and at Wembley, the draw under the Twin Towers spookily reminiscent in both the result and in their dominance of the 1-1  in Sardinia. Charlton's opposite number, Graham Taylor - perhaps envious that his own brand of aerial pressure had been overshadowed - blamed goalkeeper David Seaman for the dropped points, accusing him of not driving his players out of the box during the onslaught. Predecessor Bobby Robson had done no such thing with Peter Shilton, who'd faced the same barrage a year earlier and, in Arsenal's next home game against Aston Villa - the club Taylor had left to became England boss -  the North Bank greeted Seaman's arrival for the warm up with the chant "Graham Taylor is a wanker!" Seaman typically responded with a big grin. 

Seaman was regularly amused by the terrace japes, an example being at Loftus Road in September 92-93 where the fans in the away end behind him collectively observed the apparent lack of neck present on home defender, Andy Impey (who was similar to cricket player Gladstone Small in that respect.) Jogging to the ball that had gone out for a goal kick, Seaman in turn had the away end laughing by virtue of just how funny he found the chant. Ironically too - and as was habit with Seaman - it was the kind of tickled reaction that brought his head into his shoulders.

Suddenly we're back to poking fun at the human form again, and though I obviously found the whole Loftus Road episode hilarious, I would have been 18 at the time and just a few years into the monstrous nose job that had so generously been crafted on me at no expense by the world famous Puberty Surgeons Ltd. Skinny as a rake and with that thing bulging out of a gawky face that had yet to 'grow into itself', the admittedly suffocating attention I received from girls at 12 and 13 had now dwindled to nothing, and spilled over into repulsion just when it would have been useful. 

So I empathised with Big Jack over his protection of Bobby from Andy Townsend's darkplace humour.

Jack said England were "lucky" to qualify ahead of his team for Euro 92, something Gary Lineker light-heartedly mocked on television soon after, although considering how that tournament turned out for both him and Taylor's England, perhaps it would have been better had the Irish been there instead. Jack for one, was there in Sweden, working for ITV and, typically forthright, told Elton Welsby at a game the next night that Taylor was right to take Lineker off against Sweden, unwittingly ending his international career.         

"In fact, I wrote at the time - "right" - Jack said.

In 94, at the USA World Cup, Jack and the Irish were back - and England were not. It was the last tournament on this great expedition for the jolly green heroes and this management team, but there were still some stories to tell. They won 1-0 over eventual finalists, Italy, in the opening game in New York, Houghton again with a bolt from the blue, and then in the second game, a 2-1 defeat to Mexico, Charlton and Aldridge engaged in a touchline row with useless FIFA officials who wouldn't let the forward on to the pitch even though the player going the other way had left it.  As a result, Jack was forced to watch the next match, a 0-0 draw with Norway that was good enough to send them through to the last 16 again, from about 100 feet up inside a building overlooking the pitch. I remember my mum chuckling at the sight of him in there:

"He's been a naughty little boy!"   

Sometimes it takes someone normally removed from the game to highlight how absurd it can be. 

Back in the studio as a pundit for the 3rd/4th place play-off between Bulgaria and Sweden, Jack said he liked Hristo Stoichkov as a player but was annoyed by his "moaning and falling over" as he tried  in vain to become the leading scorer and win the Golden Boot. 

"Maradona ended up like that", he said.

Host Matt Lorenzo quipped "Jack Charlton - not a fan".

My Dad, himself back in the house after Ireland's exit, snapped back "He is - if you listen to him!"

Big Jack and the Irish narrowly missed out again on Euro qualification for the 96 "Greartest ever Euros" in England, in fact his team losing in a play off to the Dutch at Anfield. He was a pundit for the tournament, as honest and interesting as you'd expect. I found it funny after the England-Holland game ("dull" he'd predicted) that he said he often forgot that the 66' Final ended 4-2 and not 3-2. Those that knew him might say that was typical of his Bobby Robson-like mind for getting names and facts wrong, and though he did actually end up with dementia, as well as lymphoma at the end of his life, no one should ever forget this great man who was just like you'd expect him to be.      

    

                          

Potty-mouthed Keegan ignores double standards while re-opening potential 'cold case': Euro 96 re-told

The now even more popular act of reliving football matches has the ability to reassure or confuse the 're-liver' of many things: 'yes, that team was lucky to win'; 'geez, I didn't realise just how many teasing back passes Liverpool played in the eighties'; 'why did I think this was one of the best matches I've ever seen when actually it is one of the worst?' But something we now seem to know for sure is that ITV's football commentators were planting rude words live on air during Euro 96.

Watching again the first ever meeting of England v Germany at Wembley - a fitting host for a semi final - it appears that Brian Moore's cough-and-you missed it uttering of "twat" during the quarter final against Spain was no accident. Pre-ordained, off-the-cuff, panic-stricken whatever, the gentlemanly Mooro almost certainly lit the flame for this high-stakes thrill ride, presumably in the name of fun, whilst handing over the baton for the next man in the next game. ..         

Along with the return of Paul Ince to the line up against Germany, Kevin Keegan was back to take the strain off Big Ron, resting up after 120 minutes of incident-free observation watching the Spanish, but it was the then Newcastle boss himself, who not only followed up on Mooro's offering but knocked it out of the park with the plural use of another term for a "lady's part" (Alan Partridge, 1997.)   

Using available resources wisely, Keegan pronounced the surname of the German goalscorer Steffen Kuntz the way that most people being heard by 20 million others would surely have chosen to avoid. His intention to declare this bar-raiser seems clear, particularly as there is a clear get-out option. Indeed, anyone who wasn't under the ago of 20 or an ape in a refreshment zoo, would have said "Koontz" , confident that this was probably the correct way to say it anyway.

But it seems that Keegan wasn't playing by the normal rules -  no, he was abiding by ITV studio bantz, years before that word was even invented. He even repeated the word in normal time, again when it could so easily have been avoided. This time Kuntz wasn't anywhere near the ball, nor had done anything for ages, and it was the mere introduction of substitute Thomas Strunz that inspired King Kev to go the extra mile.

"That's all we need, Strunz and Kuntz on the field" he muttered 'clumsily', as if claiming that the similarity of their surnames was the trickiest part of the new player's arrival. It was estimated that 99% of the world's population understood Strunz to be pronounced "Stroonz", but Keegan knew that if he didn't apply this consistency then the game would be up. 

Limited research at this point allows us to only speculate whether a double entry - same rude word or not - awards extra points, or free drinks at the bar, though in making the most of a small opportunity, Keegan shows typical character of the man, a European Footballer of the Year built on squeezing the last drop out of himself. But there is no denying he is canny, too, and if the success of the planted rude word was a case of hiding in plain sight, then anyone who has read his recent autobiography would, in reflection, nod sagely. In his book, KK details how he used the art of disguise to sneak into St James' Park shortly after his ill-fated spell with Mike Ashley as chairman, using "a pair of glasses", "hat" and "upturned collar" (actually in the book he says "I turned the collar up on my overcoat", but I'm trying to be fluent here) to deceive unnamed interceptors. 

Keegan also cites another time in Disney World, when he attached a "grey ponytail" to his baseball cap, and again sported a pair of glasses (he doesn't say if these were the same glasses as worn on the St James' Park mission) in the hope that his family would be left untroubled (only for some ignoramus to request an autograph anyway.)   

For the next instalment of ITV's foul-mouthed enterprise, viewers must be committed to hang on to every word of Big Ron's musings on the Germany-Czech Rep Final, an uneasy yet compelling proposition, although as discussed in previous pages, it is a full nine years before things get messy, so maybe one shouldn't be too wary/disappointed.

Perhaps in a related note, one of the cleaner messages from the commentary team in this game, and nicely put, came from Mooro, who referenced the "xenophobia" in parts of the English media but added that regular match-goers in the tournament told him "It doesn't feel like that here". When Keegan suggested that "one man writing for five million people can be the most damaging of all" I wondered whether he was speaking in general terms or in response to a particular tabloid headline that had popped up that morning, which had blared out "Achtung!Surrender!" from the shelves (and petrol station stands.) 

The editor responsible has recently argued that it was "twenty four years ago" (when it was still a whopping 51 years since World War II). I won't go into naming and shaming, just that he is now an ITV presenter himself, and very active on Twitter.  I used to hate him - which is what he wants (not me per se, of course) - but now think better of him following his (many) comments on people who have performed poorly during the current pandemic. 

Anyway, I won't give you his life story.   

Euro 96 Rewind: 22nd June 1996 Spain v England, Wembley Quarter-Final: "Twat", the first step to one step beyond

With Paul Ince suspended, Big Ron was released for England's next Wembley appointment, back in alongside Mooro for the first ever international tournament match where a Golden Goal might decide it.

"I have to confess I don't like it", Big Ron mused over the new 'sudden death' element of tournament football, which now bowed to teenage kickabouts-over-the-park by taking it's "Next goal wins" feature.  Big Ron's confessions, though, were his own trademark, along with "spotter's badge" and others I might mention in a bit, and it was comforting to hear him getting in this staple of his ('on air') co-commentary diet. Big Ron made many confessions during his gantry life, so it might seem odd that there was no such prefix before his biggest sin, although "in fairness" he had thought the shutters were down that fateful April night of 2005 in Monte Carlo.

Yet on this June afternoon in North London, with trophy-bound Eng-er-land - after their swatting of the Dutch - taking on the Spanish in the last 16, it was the normally squeaky clean Mooro who appeared to blot the proverbial. During the latter stages of the second half after Big Ron had commented that he'd barely seen Ince's replacement, David Platt, in the oppositions's penalty box, Mooro clearly says "twat" when Paul Gascoigne receives possession of the ball. This may have been a gut-reaction stab at Platty, who to be fair to the lad had been asked to suppress his attacking instincts to fulfil his containment role, or was perhaps an accidental unveiling of his distaste for Gascoigne, though a third option presenting itself is an 'in-joke' contest the commentary team had set themselves, which involved saying an offensive word at some point during the match (a similar game to the one England's players devised at the World Cup in France two years later when naming pop songs during interviews).

If the microphone men were indeed up to jolly japes, then fair play to Mooro - back in 96 I'd watched the match at home with my mum and sister, and only 24 years later has one of us noticed - but potentially this is a bittersweet story. No doubt Big Ron was giggling away to himself while Mooro went for broke, but let's say this popular game carried on into the next decade, century no less and, with practically every naughty utterance already riskily planted by a succession of paid observers, who is not to say that a Champions League semi final involving, say, Marcel Desailly, came at a time when imagination was exhausted and, with so few options left, a ramping up of pressure and impulse led to a co-commentator knocking one out of the sky?       

"Phew, in reflection Clive, I'm bloody glad I didn't go through with that rick! I just thought I'd try it off-air, assess the risk, if you like, but there's no chance I'll go through with it for the Final...what's that, you say?"

Here in the safe confines of the national stadium, nine full years before that night, Big Ron's biggest gaffe was to wonder in the first half whether "David Pleat might step into the centre of midfield". As we all know, Pleat has never stepped into midfield, only galloped there like a loose racehorse in a suit, hailing the avoidance of relegation at Maine Road.

Whilst not everything I've said may be 100% true (though can you rule any of it out?), I rewatched this quarter final assured by my long-held belief that Spain were desperately unlucky to lose. Julio Salinas' shot past David Seaman was still onside, and Spain (with so much promise still to unfulfill) carved England open time and again only to shoot themselves in the foot rather than at goal. Big Ron and Mooro were also united in believing Gascoigne, not learning from Italia 90, had chopped down Alfonso for a clear penalty that wasn't given; indeed Alfonso was booked - ticked off by both a relieved Gascoigne and the ref. 

The penalty is a difficult one, as Gascoigne put his foot in the way of Alfonso who dived over it. Wayne Rooney and Jamie Vardy have won penalties out of Arsenal this way and - surprisingly I know - I yelled injustice both times, but while there is an element of doubt there, it is indisputable that Spain's centre half Fernandez Abelardo should actually have been sent off in the first ten minutes - before the incorrect offside call against Spain and their raft of opportunities. Having clattered Shearer from behind in the mould of (Steve) Bould within seconds of the kick off, Abelardo then manhandled Steve McManaman who'd just put the ball beyond him down the right flank. If Aberlardo had been sent off, the Salinas injustice may not have been so easy to create, nor the attacking dominance displayed by the visitors.

Maybe England would still have played so poorly after the dismissal, but what should have been clear to me watching this first time around was that England were never going to win this tournament on their own soil. The Holland game was, as Big Ron told Frank Skinner on his chat show those nine years later, "an aberration". Holland, it turned out, were nice to play against, and it wasn't so easy against a greater intensity. Or maybe England were just a bit tired, although people say highly paid professional footballers aren't allowed to be, so of course it couldn't have been that. 

I did hesitate over watching this match, and indeed any other Euro 96 match 'relived', after I'd read the tagline on the ITV Hub. "Watch all the games from the greatest ever Euros". Really? What I can only assume is the person who came up with that hasn't watched any of the games on the service he's promoting, or indeed any of Euro 84, 88, 2000 or 2012. I can't comment on anything before 84, but thinking of it, 2008 and 2016 were probably better than 96 too. The next 'available episode' after Spain v England is France v Netherlands, and I remember itching with anxiety over the dullness of that one back at the time. This match up was merely a succession of free kicks outside each box that nobody could take properly; what should have been the Final of the World Cup two years later was somehow so bad in Manchester.

Perhaps it is the 'greatest ever Euros' because it was over 'ere, with Frankie Skinner and little Dave Baddiel and the boy Broudie. 

Sugar Coated Lies.                          

Football Rewind: Euro 96 18th June 1996 England v Holland, Group Stage, Wembley. A big crowd but no "crowd scene".

Perhaps unusually for someone who doesn't support England, I spent last night watching their 4-1 Wembley win over Holland during Euro 96 on ITV, where all the games are being shown again, this time sponsored by Pukka Pies (other life-shortening crusts are available.)

I enjoyed this second full viewing of the Wembley rout a lot more than I did the first 24 years ago when squeezed in among a joyous mob of England shirts in the Top of The World looking on solemnly as my country scored a flurry of beautiful goals past the lovely Dutch. England's encouragingly staid displays in the opening draw against Switzerland, and in the first half against Scotland, had now annoyingly given way to a Terry Venables style of wide boy swagger just as I'd pinned all my hopes on my Orange heroes putting their schoolboy squabbles behind them to deny the host nation the draw they needed to qualify for the knockout rounds (which, like turning 40, is when it really begins).

My mate with me didn't want England to win either, and we secretly brought our worship of Cruyff, Rep, Neeskens, Gullit, Rikjaard, Koeman and Van Basten to the all-standing arena of our second choice brewery in town (our local, the Gade & Goose, had taken the extraordinary and disappointing decision to close for refurbishment on the eve of the tournament). Sadly, none of those players were playing for the Dutch anymore, even if there was a Cruyff in name, though watching the game back in my living room, they weren't as flat as I'd assumed - well yes, ok, Holland is actually flat, but their team wasn't such a shadow of their great teams, just lacking a bit of personality in midfield in this post Wouters, pre Frank De Boer era.

We watched on resentfully as one our "friends" from school, also a G&G regular, jumped up and down with one of his oafish Spurs pals in particular celebration of Teddy Sheringham's goals. The "friend" noted our sombre demeanour later and told us "you should be praahd!" in his made up Londoner accent. Our prahdest moment came when sub Patrick Kluivert rolled Dennis Bergkamp's beautiful pass beyond David Seaman to reduce the arrears to a mere three and, in the process by goal difference, save Holland from elimination at the expense of Scotland, who were beating Switzerland 1-0 thanks to a goal from future ITV pundit Ally McCoist.

I wasn't sure if it was this goal that we subtly, or maybe not, saluted or whether it was the four goals we didn't that led my mate to claim that we were being stared at aggressively by a nearby England fan. We might have had our stories straight: ‘Just a defence mechanism, mate, been here before and all that, got the broken hearts to keep us grounded, er grahnded. You heard the song, Guv? Thirty Years Of and all that’.

Might have said that.  

There's no denying the quality of Sheringham's performance,  or of a Gazza Gascoigne, free from carrying around Wouters' elbow in his ear, but watching the whole thing back it's clear that the thing England miss most is Brian Moore. Don't mean to hurt your feelings Clive, but he shits on you. That natural, warm-hearted, unrehearsed enthusiasm, that sudden growl at moments of high excitement or anxiety, the reliable outing of "six and one and half a dozen of the other". Mooro's voice gives way in surprise delight after Sheringham's second goal. "Four!" he faltered grandly. How would you do it, Clive? Try and be our friend would you? Try to be a bit...cool. "England have only gone and scored a fourth!" "Where were the Dutch?" Quite frankly, who cares?!"

I'd been expecting Mooro's sidekick to be Big Ron, and quite looking forward to a bit of much-missed observational pottery but, as if airbrushed for a fixture of notable multiculturalism, his ultimately fateful tones never came, and the voice of Kevin Keegan, fresh from telling Richard Keys to tell Alex Ferguson this and that, decorated the occasion instead with some welcome insights. "De Koch is a big lad but not very mobile and I think Shearer can cause more problems for their defence", he said at the very beginning of the second half with England winning 1-0. Also, at 4-0 , "Bergkamp will be happier with Kluivert on the field, he doesn't like being a striker".

A pundit telling it how it will be rather than after it has happened.

As for the guys in the studio, well Bob Wilson observed that John Barnes ("as a player who just missed out on the squad") was "delighted" with the result, and maybe he was, but these footballers are good actors. David Ginola looked nothing other than the model of a patriotic Frenchman throughout BBC's coverage of the '98 World Cup in France, only for it later to turn out that he'd rather have had his eyes bleed out than witness his chosen compatriots lift the prize. 

Co-summariser Jack Charlton, who'd predicted a cagey, dour affair, and showed flashes of a future pundit Shearer with searing interruptions of Barnes' flow that he wouldn't have been able to manage as a defender, was momentarily silenced when Wilson prompted him to remember the last time England had scored four in a tournament match. 

"Oh, Germany in the Final...I always remember it as three!"

Some unexpected crowd moments (if you can imagine such a thing now) included Dutch fans smoking, which was presumably allowed back in 1996 (then again we were all going to die that year, so why not?) and England fans mocking them with "You're not singing anymore!", always an interesting chant against a foreign country or club, but then in all fairness (getting back to Big Ron) the majority of Dutch fans would have understood. Though singing "You're even worse than Scotland!" was surely self-effacing right? I mean, to mock a Scotland team and a Holland team who'd both beaten a Switzerland team whose only point came against England?! Well done Bulldog Bobbys, always the self-deprecating champions.

Most surprising of all for me was that Baddiel and Skinner and Brodie's Three Lions didn't get an airing until the 58th minute, and rather underwhelmingly too, while Swing Low Sweet Chariot, a ruddy Rugby song, got two rounds of stadium-sweeping harmony. 

I was quite amused that the Dutch sub 'De Koch' replaced Richard/'Dick' Witschge, although it doesn't seem as funny now that I've written it. On the subject of not funny, I noted that there wasn't a trace of humour in the rather curt, obligatory responses to Gary Newbon in the post-match battlefield. El Tel himself couldn't wait to get away, using only a Drogba-esque number of words to an overworked microphone, while the seated Sheringham and Shearer hardly played the belles of the ball themselves. Shearer, seemingly having failed to deposit all his frustration out on the pitch, was brimming with anger, moaning that "people can write what they want". He seemed to basically be saying that all people in the media are arseholes.

That hasn't changed, Al.                               

We're on a break but will football come back a better person?

On January 31st 1998, my then Danish girlfriend (she's no longer my girlfriend but is, I believe, still Danish) left her six month working holiday at the hotel we both worked at and returned to her homeland. My mum asked if our farewell was sad, and it was, but she wondered how I would respond to the distance now between us. Would it be a case of ‘out of sight out of mind or ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder'.

A couple of months later it turned out, as it often does for men, that her absence was only properly felt when she decided to make it a permanent arrangement. Suddenly I was desperate to go out there and settle, get a job and meet her parents; only now I deeply regretted the apathetic vibe I had undoubtedly given off to doing all of these things just because I wanted to continue playing with my mates in the Hemel Hempstead Sunday League. I'd been acutely aware of my happiness when we became a couple, and she met my parents and started staying over, but only when she was gone did I really understand what I'd lost.

She was the first girl I cried over. I'd tried weeping over lost girls before, using alcohol as the generator of tears rather than real emotions, and had mooned gloomily for months/years  over even the most fleeting of relationships, but I'd understood what was coming when I saw the thinness of the fateful letter from Denmark, arriving as it did a few days after a phone call from her that had left me with an uneasy feeling.

The tears ran down my cheek effortlessly when my/our fate was confirmed, and I wrote back that day telling her that if she changed her mind I would be here, or there, or wherever she wanted. But of course it was too late, I'd blown it and I had some heartbreak to get through.

Inevitably I will now connect this sad story to football, though it's not quite so neat to compare my Danish girlfriend to my life-long affair with football that, albeit for the moment, has also packed it's bags. Football, it turns out, is no bigger than the world it inhabits, and has been swept aside by Covid 19 just like everything else, about to enter a third week of absence, it's scheduled return of April 2nd shrouded in doubt even on the Friday 13th shutdown, and it'll more likely be June or July when the European Championships - now moved to 2021 - would have been played.

But football still won't be as big as the world it inhabits then, and despite "eagerness" to get the season finished, a cancellation of the season cannot be ruled out. People's health will still be a more pressing issue and every day the sport seems less and less important.

Initially I was disappointed of course; Arsenal were 10 unbeaten in the league, an outside bet for the Champions League and drawn to play at Sheffield United in the FA Cup quarter final, which I fancied us to win. And Tottenham were out of all competitions again, another blank season trophy-wise and no prospect of another Champions League Final for me to have to fret over. And what of the Fantasy League? All that senseless, pointless toil for six months, making rubbish transfers, celebrating your mates' disastrous use of a triple captain. And I was top in my work league at the time of shutdown, a £30 prize within my grasp. And top in the FA Cup game with my new girlfriend's (of 21 years) mum's mates. Though 3rd bottom in that league. And bloody Kane and Rashford could both be fit for a Euro 2021, although they'll probably be just knackered instead.

I would feel for Liverpool of course, nearly 100 points last season, just one defeat this (thank you Watford) and possibly no title to show for their immense efforts. Two wins away from ending the 30 year wait, 25 points clear. They'll start to feel cursed. Then there's that Karren Brady, on the West Ham United board, calling for a null and void season with her team just outside of the bottom three. I can't say for sure she is striking out for her own interests but if she was she would fit in with most of the football makers, and it is because of this kind of self centred outlook and greed that, after those nearly three weeks, I am not mooning gloomily about the lack of football, or turning to drink to wallow in misery - and certainly not crying over it's absence.

The difference between football and my Danish girlfriend is that she didn't have me locked in an unhealthy relationship. She didn't indirectly hand me regular invitations, or compelling reasons to leave her. She didn't walk all over me, take me for granted. She listened to me and cared about how I felt. Football, generally, doesn't give a shit.

This period of no football is itself a trial period for me, an insight into how I could cope without it; it's an invitation or an opportunity to walk away from all the high maintenance. Every day without VAR is a better day. Every day without a fixture being rearranged for television to the detriment of the travelling fan is a relief. Every time a minimum of £64 isn't handed over for a category A match (just Emirates Stadium as an example) is a nicer existence. Every day that FIFA's expanded 24 team World Club Cup (to "promote the game in China") is under threat feels like a victory. The expansion of the Champions League, likewise. Every day that a football club owned by people guilty of human rights violations doesn't win is a triumph for good.

This can also be a trial period for football, though, and an opportunity. Admit that VAR doesn't belong in football and get rid of it. Think about your people like the government say they are thinking about their people right now. Reduce fixtures instead. Have one team from each country in the Champions' League (perhaps rename it the European Champions' Cup (could work, don't you think?!). Think of climate change while you are at it - even just to piss off bitter men over fifty who want Greta Thunberg dead. See through the punishments given to Manchester City. The evidence and qualified judgements are clear, don't let them wriggle their way back in.

Football in reflection and perspective could build a hopeful future. Could. Or it could be too easy for everyone to return to normal and wait for all this to pass. The government might still underfund the NHS, even after all the crawling and platitudes and big claps. Football may get a 32 team World Club Cup by 2036, VAR might get bigger and uglier, making us forget why we all began playing the game in the first place.

I must admit I would be in a state of meltdown had the pandemic happened between the ages of 5-30, particularly from 19 when I was playing in the mens' Sunday league. I recall writing at about 23 that I couldn't imagine being 40 and not playing football anymore. I was actually 36 when my knee gave way and ended my 11-a side adventure, but I'd had the best of it and I don't miss it now because I gave it everything in those 17 years.

Has my time come now to walk away from the game as a fan, turning instead to YouTube clips of days past? Or when it comes crawling back, will I lack the mental strength of a Gloria Gaynor and fall once more into the arms of the devil?                          

Jose and Dier's strikers' appeal wiped out by worthy crisis

The suspension of most of football (the exemption being the National League, who continue to babble on about the Nazis not being able to get their forefathers out so nor will 

this two bob excuse for a threat..."Is that all you got, is it?!") has left us with us with a couple of cliffhangers equal to Liverpool's '30 year wait'.

Close pals Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola are at the heart of both. 

Portuguese Spur Mourinho has long been an outspoken critic of big club underfunding, and has reliably brought it to the public's attention since 2004, particularly if the big club he is managing are losing because of him. He has exposed austerity-championing clubs such as Chelsea, Real Madrid and Manchester United for the pro-academy bums they are, and while his current tight squeeze Tottenham Hotspur has yet to feel the full force of Mourinho's lens-fixed wrath, this is because they are skint after paying him his salary demands and paying off a more popular manager.

So rather than engage in another feud with the board via the media for more money, Mourinho had, to the surprise of some, shown a measure of flexibility in trying to combat the injury problem with strikers that had plagued the club (do say plagued, Jose told the press.) With Champions League elimination just round the corner, Mourinho used the just finished FA Cup Fifth Round home defeat to bottom-of-the-table Norwich City on penalties to stage an impromptu benefit concert with all proceeds going to the injured Tottenham strikers charity, raising necessary funds to get new ones in for next season and stave off the threat of home grown players infecting the squad. But more importantly, raise awareness of the impossible problems facing Jose.

Almost as soon as the penalty shoot out was finished, Eric Dier was sent in to the stand, like an even less popular version of Bono wading through the crowd at Live Aid in '85 before belting out a 60's classic by The Hollies. Others liken Dier's moment to the show-stealing flamboyance of Freddie Mercury that day at Wembley 35 years ago, when he turned a previously underwhelming event into a memorable spectacle.

Mourinho neglected to hot-foot it to the BBC iplayer studio and demand the public hand over their  "fucking money" but forever the plotter, arranged for his players to follow in Bono's footsteps again the next day and shoot an advert bearing the message "Every time I click my fingers, a Tottenham striker gets injured".

We may now never get to hear the pop single phase of the crisis.

As for Pep Guardiola, the story is shorter. Just before the suspension of Premier League and European football, PG insisted that there was no point playing football behind closed doors, as was being suggested at the time. Now that this probably won't happen, he won't get to see just how much of a difference to the attendance at "Emptihad" it really would have made.