Subject: Re: Back to Blighty
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 09:54:31 +0100



> Apart from Seaman, who was a sorry excuse of a goalie, I found it
> convincingly enough. Apparently you got the same problem with Seaman as we
> got with Matthaeus - a person unable to realize that his days are past and
> gone. I mean, Matthaeus is about as agile as a goalpost. Our papers have
> come up with the comment that Ribbeck will send him to the field anyway,
> because Matthaeus was the only system he got.

Then we get Martyn in goal - a few good saves, but a dodgy punch out for the
second goal, then that plonker Neville giving away the penalty. We burned
his effigy last night. Anyway I was right about England - Germany being the
nadir of the competition. Third/Fourth place decider.


> > Rumours this morning that Arsene Wenger of  Arsenal has been approached.
> Rumours over here said that the head of German Football Ass, err I mean
> association, up to now has been fiercely opposed to having a non-German as
> a coach for the national team, but he is now said to have changed his
> mind.

Wenger has apparently denied it, but he is from Alsace[?] or at any rate
somewhere near the border and is a  German speaker from childhood I think.
He could be the transition candidate. We'll be stuck with Kevin Keegan, I
suppose, for continuity and because we won't appoint a non-Englishman. No
chance of Hamburg wanting him to return as manager?

But nothing is advanced beyond the stage of rumours as of yet. I
> don't think they'll appoint a really good coach, because these people tend
> to be able to speak their mind, and if there's anything the Football
> Association officials can do without, then it's this.

I never know why people think the Germans and the English are different. The
mentality is identical. In the 70s we didn't make Clough manager because he
was an abrasive old sod; we lost Jack Charlton to the Republic of  Ireland
and they got rid of Terry Venables because of some arcane dodgy business
deals which no-one outside the financial pages could understand. The  people
wouldn't have cared if El Tel had master/mistress-minded the whole thing
from behind bars - he got mediocre players to play.

>So what
> we may expect is another coach well liked by officials, and a complete
> loss football-wise. So I suppose Wenger doesn't qualify for the job...


>>I haven't got a clue why Blair won't restrict the
> > civil liberties of our supporters by stopping them going abroad, when
he's
> > happy to assault civil liberties at home.
> I suppose they didn't dare to, because our news have quoted British
> officials saying that one wouldn't have been in a position to stop this
> lot from crossing the channel, as most of them have never made it into any
> hooligan list, did not have any prior convictions for hooliganism, and
> that in fact most of them were doctors, lawyers and such.

I think the problem was the Belgians rounded up all the doctors,
stockbrokers and lawyers who were mainly innocent, when the real thugs
arrived late. On a phone-in radio show, there was a call from a Scottish oil
engineer, who'd been thrown out with his two companions - one Swiss and one
American - because the police heard them speaking English in a bar ! I think
the Belgian police need accent-awareness training.

Andy