Football can be a cruel game. A team plays its socks off and its heart out and still loses. If only that offside was onside, if only that linesman wasn't a Russian, if only Gerd Muller had one leg.

If only. Football is like life. The immortal Bill Shankly opined that it was more than life and death and having seen his team destroyed by Ajax. a team from a little country of no football stature, he knew what he was talking about.

Perhaps this is the attraction of football. Once a week we get to vent life's many feelings in 90 minutes of unbridled passion. We could all write to Santa and ask for the championship, while the poor kids among us could ask for the Cup as a second choice. We could all go home happy. Or we could all go home with a dream of what might have been and what will be next season.

'Brian 'Baldrick' Barwick has another cunning plan. It's hard to describe how he addressed the media, the faltering lifeless manner he employed, as he announced the new England manager'


The times they are a-changing. Many moons ago England had a manager who won the World Cup. That was Alf Ramsey. His team failed to retain the same trophy by a series of the same 'if onlys' ... Gordon Banks' food poisoning and some misjudged substitutions against West Germany in Leon. Interestingly, that 1970 team was arguably better than the side that won the World Cup four years earlier.

Ramsey was fired for his failure to qualify for the 1974 tournament. There was no shame in the matter, just a lack of preparation. England came up against a Polish team of awesome fitness and no little skill, plus the goalkeeping of Jan Tomaszewski.

Ramsey was replaced by one of football's nice guys, Ron Greenwood. Of course, Greenwood's tenure was temporary. He was minding the shop, so to speak, while the great and good at the FA. contemplated the infinite. The infinite in this case was how to win the World Cup with a mentality of born-again has-beens. Ramsey was no charm school graduate. He was known for his abrupt manner. He succeded Walter Winterbottom who was known for nothing. It could be said this was where and when the rot started. Somewhere in the dark corridors of Lancaster Gate, then the HQ of the FA, the penny dropped. Like vinyl addicts calling "Back to mono!"  the FA. decided on back to nothing.

The 'nothing' did not begin with the appointment of Don Revie as England manager. What was of more significance was the non-appointment of Brian Clough, an individual who neither courted nor declined attention. He never let his thwarted career as a player dim his ambitions as a manager. He won promotion to the then First Division with unfashionable Derby County. The League title followed. He went on to Notingham Forest and won two European Cups with a team of kids, has-beens and head-cases. From Division Two to the top of Europe in four seasons. Follow that. His maxim was simple: "I win things."

In the meantime, England spluttered and failed again and again. Now Brian 'Baldrick' Barwick has another cunning plan. It's hard to describe how he addressed the media, the faltering lifeless manner he employed, as he announced the new England manager. He must be taking lessons in charisma from Prince 'off-a-cue-card' William.

England have Frank Lampard and Wayne Rooney and more players of undoubted class, skill and passion. England now also have a manager who can't speak English. That old samurai Arsene Wenger insisted everyone spoke English in his team squads despite few being English. Xenophobia? Not at all.

English is the lingua franca of business, and football is business. Now we have Fabio Capello, England manager. He has won umpteen league titles in countries where two or three teams are worth a look or a laugh. This reminds me of Sven Boring Trousersdown, who managed in Portugal but forgot to tell his England players about pitch conditions.

Now we have Ab Fab, who wins titles with Real Madrid and then gets fired. Why? Ask Baldrick? Mind Blackadder. Try Fawlty Towers. Manuel as England manager.