23/11/07 The End Of The Day

I wanted England to qualify or Euro 2008.
I've never felt comfortable aligning myself with the support-anybody-but-England Scottish mentality.
I wanted as many British teams as possible to qualify as I think we lend a random, interesting factor to the finals (even if our football is technically deficient), and often are involved in the most exciting, dramatic matches of the European and World finals .

However, they do make it hard for us to support the England team....
I've argued this till I'm blue in the face, but there is a major distinction between your attitude to "England" the nation, as opposed your attitude to the "England Football Team" and the idiotic media circus which accompanies it...

In the pre-match analysis on Wednesday, there was no single mention made of any particular Croatian player to watch out for, or any intelligent discussion on their strengths and weaknesses as a team.
It was just another manifestation of the outrageous arrogance and lack of respect for the opponents in their group.
In the aftermath of the match, the BBC led on the headline, "England are eliminated from Euro 2008, as they fail to qualify from a group which should have been a cakewalk".
I found that unbelievable....
Croatia and Russia are traditionally very strong footballing nations, and I fail to see how any group with them in it could be dismissed as "easy".
John Motson complimented the England fans on not booing the Croatian National Anthem when it was abundantly clear that a significant portion of the crowd were in fact booing the Croatian National Anthem.
This was also apparent from the expressions on the Croatian players' faces.

Having been the recipient of a large amount of texts from my dear English friends gloating after Saturday's elimination of Scotland, and England's lifeline presented to them by Russia...I
could not prevent myself dissolving into giggles at Croatia's first goal.
My other highlight's were Steve McClaren's ill-advised umbrella pose.
It was a study in helplessness, and ineffective management, which will haunt him for the rest of his days.
Then Terry Venables went through a range of expressions eerily reminiscent of Bob Hoskins in the closing scene of "The Long Good Friday" when he is driven away to his doom.
For Bob it was a bullet, for Terry it was a P45.
(Sounds like an implausible plotline for "The Likely Lads")
In the closing seconds, John Motson pleaded to Mark Lawrenson ("Lawro")...
"Mark....say something..!"
Lawro then replied simply "I can't..!"
It reminded me of Norville, when he replied through the medium of song to Keith Harris, that he doubted his ability to fly at a high altitude in the sky ; although it's fair to say Norville did sound a bit more macho.
I'd love to see Martin O'Neill being given a chance at the job, but I suspect he won't be interested any more.
I had a couple of lacklustre gigs at The Stand this week...
They went well enough, but after the highs of the weekend run it was a good exercise in eliminating any twattish over-confidence.
I have a gig at a new comedy night in Burntisland in Fife tonight.
It could be tricky...
I'm looking at it as a tricky away 3rd round FA Cup tie on a wet Monday night.
It needs a steady, confident performance to avoid any disasters.
More later...!