England v Sweden

You know when you first had a bottled alcoholic drink and discovered that if you smashed your bottle on the neck of your mates bottle, it would erupt and he would have a very uncomfortable 10 seconds trying to contain the fizzy explosion in his mouth? Was a good game when I was 16 (and drinking illegally!)

Remember that game you played with your mates where the purpose was to stealthily punch them in the testicles? No, I struggle to recall that too.

Well, for the first half last night I was becoming very irritated by a group of lads in front of me in the pub doing the very two things I talk about above. Andy Carroll’s spectacular header (he used all his Deirdre muscles, according to my mate) relieving me of growing annoyance. It was a solid, but unspectacular 45 minutes. I could not see us scoring another, and predicted an attempt at shutting up shop, only for Zlatan Ibrahimovic to equalise.

I was furiously BBM’ing my brother and mate, first reaffirming my ‘It’s got 1-1 written all over it’ stance, and then blaming Joe Hart for the Swedish second goal (I felt he should have been able to come and claim the cross).

The half an hour that followed however was the most enjoyable - but at the same time, nervy - England performance I recall for quite some time. 5-1 v Germany was the game thrown at me, and I probably agree. The spirit the team showed to get back into the game, and the decision by Hodgson to bring on Walcott (a man heavily criticised by many, including me) was fantastic. I was unofficially part of Team Redknapp before the appointment, but I’m not sure Harry would have made the great tactical decisions that Hodgson did, and for that he deserves enormous credit.

The pub (Crib Bar, Ripley), filled with young men wearing boots suitable for mining in, went crazy for the equaliser; even more so for the winner. Songs were being sung about there being 10 German bombers in the air (why?!?!) and the lads in front of me had stopped annoying me. England produced something I no longer expected of them – excitement, passion (even from the coaching staff), and a victory over a bogey team.

Over 16 million people watched the game in their homes, and upwards of 30million in pubs. My Facebook and Twitter feeds were filled with folk (a lot of whom don’t even understand the offside rule – nothing wrong with that, it’s difficult. First phase, second phase, etc) expressing their delight and patriotism. It makes me wonder just how on earth we would cope if we won the sodding thing. A bank holiday, a week of national celebrations, Sir Roy Hodgson, etc…

I said to my mother: “How would this country cope if we actually won the thing?”, to which her reply came in two parts, a) “We wont” and b) “You seem to forget I was alive when we won in 1966”.

I can’t imagine the aftermath of 1966. I have told myself that football didn’t matter as much back then, simply because it’s hard to comprehend. I’m told I am as wrong as wrong can get, not for the first time.

We’ll get murdered by Spain in the quarters anyway, so enough of the enthusiasm and optimism. Come on England!

The Little Things...

Almost one week in and it’s so far so good with the Euro’s. If memory serves me correctly, it has already eclipsed the underwhelming 2010 World Cup. I’m not sure I have been overwhelmed by the greatness of it just yet, so we’ll just say that I am whelmed by it all.

The purpose of this blog is not to discuss the variations of the word ‘whelm’ but instead to look at the little things in football that have surfaced this past week that may go unnoticed to the untrained, unbothered eye.  My dad - a man with a soft spot for lining bookmakers pockets through constant betting on ‘number of first half corners’ and ‘player to be booked before the 28^th minute’ – has become so enraged by these little things that his greeting to me this morning was: “I’m going to write to the Telegraph and ask them what can be done about these incompetent officials”. What the Telegraph can do about it I’m not so sure, but the man had obviously had a torturous night mulling over things that do not really matter in the grand scheme of things.

So what are these little things?

1)      Throw-ins

“How many yards has he pinched there?” This phrase cropped up when the Dutch took a throw-in in line with their own penalty spot, instead of by the corner flag. What is the linesman doing allowing a 10 yard advantage in the least dangerous part of the pitch? I jest, but it is not hard for the linesman to just say “There’ll do mate”. Also, have you noticed the number of foul-throws there are, that linesman fail to pick up on? Unbelievable.

2)      Corners

Corners are a massive part of our household. We have a good night if there are more than 10 in a match, a bad one if anything else. When, however, the corner kick is awarded, you will often find my dad moaning that the ball is not in the quadrant. “It doesn’t have to be in the quadrant dad, as long as part of the ball overhangs the line” I take great pleasure in telling him that gem of a rule. Why is that the rule though, FIFA? It would be much more straightforward to amend the rule to: “The ball has to be fully on the line”. But then again, it would have been more straightforward to award the 2022 World Cup to anyone other than Qatar…

3)      Added time

1 minute at half time, 3 minutes at full time, unless someone dies. That is the rule for added time. It really is ridiculous. Aside from telling the managers to settle down, all the 4^th official needs to do is control a stop watch and tell the ref how much time is ACTUALLY required. It stinks of: “I can’t be arsed with this stopwatch, 1 minute for half time again ref”.  Should football adopt a rugby like approach, where the ref stops his watch every time there is a stoppage, and therefore blows when the clock hits 45 and 90 mins? As a wild suggestion I would say 70% of the time, the added time is totally wrong.

4)      Goalkeepers

When goalkeepers have the ball in their hands and take to the old school approach (kick it out of their hands), have you noticed that many of them actually leave the penalty area? Probably not, because it doesn’t really matter. Not my eagle eyed father though. “It’s a foul Jon, they have broken the rules, and what is the linesman doing? Head down and running up towards the halfway line. He’s not even looking!” I had only just awoken and absolutely gagging for Weetabix, yet I was embroiled in an argument about whether goalkeepers should be punished for being an inch out of their box when they kick a ball. Rules are rules though, I guess.

5)      Player celebrations

“Stupid idiots. What are they doing? They’ll break his neck! These footballers are absolutely brain dead”.  Portugal had just won the game late on and the whole playing squad jumped on poor Silvestre Varela. The pile-on was about 6 feet high and 20 people strong, and could not have been pleasant for the lad. Father then raised a valid point (the first one in a few weeks!). “It doesn’t take much for a footballer to get injured. These players go down injured all the time, do they not think that a pile-on is a bit of a silly thing to do?”.

So, there are 5 little things you may not have even given a second thought. But now you have, what do you think? Are linesmen neglecting their most simple job requirements, too bothered about offsides and off-the-ball incidents? And don’t even get me started on the two men that stand next to the goal. Nice company for the goalkeepers, but that’s about it.