How the gods smiled on hapless McClaren

When Steve McClaren was appointed England coach, the decision was about as popular as George W Bush’s decision to send more troops to Iraq. That there was no real outcry over McClaren was testament to how people cared so little about the national team. They were too busy worrying about who their club was bringing in and that sort of thing. The Football Association had dictated and the masses were to suffer another four years of agony.

‘Someone must have owed McClaren a favour – unless it is all just a prank and he still will be handed his P45’

McClaren came in with pomp and ceremony and, as in the case of the bloke who never even got to be class monitor at school, he didn't really know what to do with it –  hence the 0-0 at home to Macedonia, a country with a population of 23, all of whom turn out for the football, archery and curling teams. In McClaren's defence, Croatia conspired to lose against Alexander the Great's lot last weekend, giving oxygen to the myth that Macedonia might achieve world domination once again.

I won't mention the David Beckham incident. No, in fact I will! Macca looked in the dressing room and picked on the one person who was bigger than him in the England set-up, and decided to fire him, much as Orson Welles used to do at the beginning of every picture he directed. Now while the legendary Welles actually hired someone to fire to instill fear in the ranks, our Steve fired the one person who was bigger than our national game, Goldenballs himself.

A couple of games in – while the revered Becks was playing his socks off and winning things for Real Madrid and with England against the ropes and awaiting just one punch to knock them out –  McClaren had a climbdown.