“Soon after the kick-off,” he wrote in his autobiography, “[fog] began to thicken rapidly at the far end, travelling past Vic Woodley in the Chelsea goal and rolling steadily towards me. The referee stopped the game, and then, as visibility became clearer, restarted it. We were on top at this time, and I saw fewer and fewer figures as we attacked steadily.” The game went unusually silent but Sam remained at his post, peering into the thickening fog from the edge of the penalty area. And he wondered why the play was not coming his way. “After a long time,” he wrote, “a figure loomed out of the curtain of fog in front of me. It was a policeman, and he gaped at me incredulously. “What on earth are you doing here?” he gasped. “The game was stopped a quarter of an hour ago. The field’s completely empty”.’
(Bertram retired in 1956, before the Football Association permitted floodlighting, a technology that had first been tested in Sheffield in 1878..)
“We coaches cannot understand how England, with the players they have, could fail to qualify for the European Championships,” said Capello, who has long been proud of the psychological work he does with his players. “How could players of such a high level perform so differently with their national team to the way they perform with their clubs? It is clear that they suffer a mental block. How else can you explain England getting knocked out? Wearing the England shirt clearly weighs heavily on their shoulders, even though they are champions [with their clubs]. In situations like this, the coach has a fundamental role to play, one that is more psychological than technical or tactical.”
He’s not ruling out technical or tactical issues, but stressing where the heart of the problem lies. I agree. Sport psychology boils down to one principle: externalizing failure. You learn to accept that you are a good, even great, player, but will always make mistakes and fail. These mistakes and failures don’t add up on some internal receipt roll to produce a bottom line of internal, personal, failure. They are what they are, no more, and no reason to doubt yourself or to play without freedom.
I don’t think many of the England side understand that. They care too much. If I make a mistake, it’s not just my team that I’m letting down - it’s my country. I’ll have to wear the white feather.. So do we. Who, in Britain, doesn’t respond to Stuart Pearce here at gut level? “Look at this for character. Time to cleanse his soul..”
The problem is deeper than just that of geeing up the players, or somehow “giving them confidence.” What happens to Pearce there is too personal, too much about him, too self-conscious, to work on a consistent basis. Shearer’s cool, or Owen’s today, is what works. But we don’t love it as much, and don’t recognize its value. Until we do, our players will play with fear and tension. Booing will make it more and make it worse.
If Capello succeeds, he’ll have to convince British fans, not only that it isn’t necessary for players to feel they way they feel in order to succeed, but that players feeling the way they do is actively counterproductive. That’s not likely to happen. Shearer is a front runner purely because men at the FA believe that feeling and passion is key, not skill, tactics, intelligence, coolness under pressure and quick thinking - what Sir Clive Woodward called “TCUP” - “Thinking Correctly Under Pressure.”
Club football success is not the same thing as international success. There’s a language barrier, and the deeper cultural problems to overcome. And Capello is a defensive manager, which isn’t necessarily what we need right now. Perhaps he sees defence in a positive light, as a craft and skill, to be performed with its own aplomb, not as a shameful retreat. Should Capello take the job, there are reasons for optimism:
AC Milan, in the 1994 Champions League Final:
Roma’s first Scudetto in a decade:
A Juventus Scudetto:
Capello makes better of his Beckham mistake than McClaren:
If he does it with England, though, he’ll have done it with English players. He seems to rate them. Perhaps he can.
I guarantee one thing. If he isn’t appointed, we’ll always be wondering what might have been.
In three parts, the life of John Edward Thompson Milburn. Before he became a football journalist on the fringes of the young Brian Clough’s circle, he could play a bit:
Only in England can you be a prophet in your own country whilst still coming from abroad.
It’s been a bad eighteen months for the people I’d call prophets. Martin Amis is being dragged backwards from the broadsheet pickup truck because of one 2-year-old line which contradicts a dozen others of his before and since. Richard Dawkins is to be condemned for what Walt and Mearsheimer are not, nor countless other incompletely-politicized middle-class types. Ayan Hirsi Ali is disdained by sui-disant left-wing Brits who have had things considerably easier than she. I don’t agree with everything these people say - and I have no heroes as such. But the balance of talent is with the prophets and not with the critics. It always was, and that’s been the problem.
Then there’s Mourinho. “Moanrinho”, or whatever “funny” name you might repeat endlessly to your friends, laughing loudly each time. I find this following clip shatteringly sad. It’s all in the eyes:
Actually, it’s not all in the eyes - it’s in the shoulders as well, in the corners of the mouth, in the tone of voice and in his choice of outfit.
Arsene Wenger, Cristiano Ronaldo, Stephen Hunt, Andy Johnson and, most of all, the Berkshire Ambulance Service, deserved their apologies from him over the last three years.
But tell me you don’t appreciate a man who will allow himself to be smuggled into a changing room in a laundry basket under the noses of UEFA.
I think he’s better off out of England, and especially out of English football. From Portugal, it must look all Bobby Robson, all Paisley, Clough and Shanks. A place where large personalities who know the game get the time to build big sides from nothing. Where fans understand more than the fate of their own club and applaud opponents. That’s still part of it, as Wenger, Ferguson and perhaps Sam Allardyce can testify. But what an underbelly: passive aggressive, alcoholic, fickle, cowardly and stupid. There are still places in the world who think all Englishmen are David Niven, but we’re not. When Mourinho arrived in 2004, I truly believe he thought he’d arrived to do his career-defining work in the oldest, greatest league in the world. By the time he left, I wonder how his feelings towards us had changed.
Even England at its very best - and Cobham, where Chelsea trained, is England at its very best - is a long way from Portugal and Spain. Not a long way timewise, of course - you can be there in two hours nowadays. The gulf’s social, cultural; it’s hundreds of little assumptions and attitudes that you barely notice when they belong to you and you’re at home. Four years at Chelsea was Mourinho’s longest stay at a club. It’s also the longest by far that he’s been away from home. And away from the people amongst whom he built up that marvellous, witty confidence that we saw so much of in 2004-5 and have scarcely seen since.
That confidence was wittled away more at Stamford Bridge than anywhere else, of course. The last player Mourinho truly brought in to his side was Michael Essien in the summer of 2005. The tight group Mourinho gathered around him - not without difficulty, just without half the trouble that would follow - then had to cope with the addition of an unwanted outer lining. That lining was a mix of bargain basement stuff and Championship Manager picks like Ballack and Shevchenko. Then there was the slow and steady castration by degrees Mourinho was subjected to by his boss. Neither Frank Arnesen nor Avram Grant were brought in as support as such. Arnesen in particular is not the kind of man who thrives out of the sun or under the thumb. And there were others beside them. Latterly, both CEO Peter Kenyon and Frank Arnesen are reported jockeying for the credit for Chelsea’s recent run of success. If that’s true, it’s outrageous.
It’s a long time to stay within unhappy walls. I hope Mourinho finds the right place to do his real work. I don’t expect him to turn up at Sheffield Wednesday or Nottingham Forest, although I think he’d do superbly, history-changingly, at either. But now that the England job is back on the market, I say, run! and keep running!
Put together any list of the greatest British football managers: the same names always recur. Chapman, Matt Busby, Bill Shankly, Don Revie, Alf Ramsey, Jock Stein, Bob Paisley, Brian Clough, Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger.. and there’ll be one or two other names others would add to their own version of this list.
I’d add Jose Mourinho, who in four years has won every trophy available to him at least once, with two quite different clubs in quite different countries. Others wouldn’t, and one reason would be that “four years”: all of the names in my basic list went on for decades.
There’s a good reason Mourinho hasn’t, and in that might be a clue as to what he does next.
All but two of my basic list have one thing in common. They took over clubs that had either never been successful, or clubs that had been relatively moribund for years, and took them to unprecedented heights. Not Paisley, who took over at Liverpool and quite unexpectedly eclipsed his predecessor, and not Stein, who took over Celtic. And Wenger merely made erstwhile Arsenal look moribund.
Look at the others: Busby, taking over bombed-out Manchester United, for quarter of a century the second club of the city. Chapman, first coaching at Leeds City - Leeds then very much a Rugby League town - then at Huddersfield, another rugby place - then at Arsenal, when no club south of Birmingham had won a league title. Revie, taking over Leeds United, Leeds City’s undistinguished successor, a kind of Milton Keynes Dons of its day, soon to experience a Don of the real kind. Bill Shankly, rescuing Liverpool from Division Two when desperation had set in at Anfield. Alf Ramsey, winning Division Two and Division One in successive seasons with Ipswich, when everyone had told him he’d win nothing with veterans. Brian Clough (with Peter Taylor) at Derby, at Forest, clubs he’d present with a unique and irreplaceable part of their history. Alex Ferguson, reinstituting chuck-out time at the Old Trafford Arms. Who really remembers their long humiliation at the hands of Leeds, Forest and especially Liverpool - no one under 35, anyway.
For a manager to have time and space to produce what he is capable of (and, thus far, it’s always been “he” - that will change) he needs a club that feels they need him more than he needs them. (This doesn’t altogether describe Clough’s experience at Derby, but is just what he had at Forest). That’s to say, the club’s board must keep out of the way as much as humanly possible, or at the very least be amenable to psychological manipulation and tricks (Arsenal had wanted a cheapskate secretary-manager: Chapman hoodwinked them into spending on the grand scale).
Before he arrived at Chelsea, Jose Mourinho had long and bitter experience of clubs whose politics constantly impeded his career, his education in the game and his teambuilding. Persistence and patience (he set relations with board and club members at a high priority, lacking the class-based chippiness of a Clough or, at one time, a Ferguson) eventually led to his band of followers winning the Champions League with Porto. Chelsea came in with the offer of a free run and money to spend, and he arrived in England, telling the media that he thought he was “a” (not “the”) special one..
He imported his followers, won over the Chelsea regulars (Eidur Gudjohnsen is on tape declaring that he’d find it difficult to play under any other manager after Jose Mourinho), won the League Cup, the League title, and reached a Champions League semi-final, in which fair commentators would have to suggest that they were robbed of victory by the difficulty of refereeing close calls:
In theory, this should have been the moment when Mourinho was given his head to continue his work. A free hand, qua Clough, qua Busby, qua Ferguson. A dominant role for a man who values dominance. In practice, the opposite seems to have happened. But everything is rumour beyond this point.
One account sets out the next two seasons as ones in which quite a number of figures within Chelsea competed with Mourinho in taking credit for the rush of success. Peter Kenyon is alleged to have regarded his stewardship and his contacts book as primarily responsible. Similar things have been said about Frank Arnesen. All of that pales into insignificance when contrasted with the attitude of Roman Abramovich.
The story here is of a man who is wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice but not beyond those of Champions League glory. A man who regards his football club as a car tyre, which, performing well at the correct pressure, might perform spectacularly if one just keeps on pumping in the air. Or it might just burst. A proper manager versus Championship Manager, you might say, and in this instance the man with the computer game won. Gossip has Abramovich coaching Michael Essien in the Chelsea dressing room after what would turn out to be Mourinho’s last match in charge.
I don’t want to explore the circumstances of Mourinho’s departure more than that at this stage. Now that he’s gone, and Chelsea are embarked upon what is likely to be a slow and graceful spiral down to fourth and fifth place over the coming few seasons, what is Mourinho likely to do next?
All the talk is of either a national side - Portugal being the favourite, despite Mourinho’s own denials - or of another “top European side,” a Juve, an Inter, a Real or some other G14 member.
This might turn out to be true. But I don’t think the lesson of the last two seasons is lost on Mourinho. That lesson is, find himself an open playing field - the European equivalent of a Nottingham Forest. A club down to its uppers, desperate for competent help.
Perhaps even the real Nottingham Forest, if they can afford him. There are reasons why he might consider it.
First of all, Mourinho is a very considerable coach in pure coaching terms. He has a long track record of bringing great things out of mediocre players. He does not necessarily need a huge bankroll to bring at least some degree of success, and in any case, it’s likely that talent will always flock to him wherever he is from here on. He can draw good players to clubs that they would otherwise not consider.
Secondly, the band of brothers he has led through Porto and Chelsea are ageing together. Lampard, Ferreira, Carvalho, Drogba, all turn 30 in the next eighteen months. John Terry’s ambitions are ferociously attached to Chelsea, and consequently he has distanced himself. Wherever Mourinho travels next, he will have to find a new set of acolytes and leaders on the pitch.
The jobs he once might have been linked to have all faded away, one by one. Manchester United will be Ferguson’s for years to come, although Mourinho is the only man on the European stage big enough to fill his shoes. The England national side will be mismanaged by Englishmen for another decade, unless honorary Englishman Arsene Wenger has a serious and misguided change of heart. Mourinho’s already “done” Barcelona, under Robson, and Real are too fickle.
My advice to Mourinho, for what it’s worth! would be, go English, go small, go desperate. Martin O’Neill can build Aston Villa at his own pace, and one can already detect that beginning to happen. Choose a faded giant - from a proper football town or city. Crystal Palace or QPR are both potentially Premiership clubs, but are underneath a glass ceiling. Sheffield Wednesday, or Sheffield United, on the other hand - or one of the two Nottingham clubs - are one hands-off sugardaddy away from real revival (pace Colin Calderwood’s efforts at Forest, which are hampered by lack of real cash and by the personalities of some of his “best” players).
He probably won’t do it. Mourinho’s career, up to this point, has been carefully constructed, and the events at Chelsea may only deflect him from his planned and prepared goals. I doubt his thoughts are straddling the Trent or the Park Hill Estate. But give him either and ten years, and we’d really know if the Premiership’s top four was closed off by money.
I’ve known for some time that there’s film out there of football’s “first superstar” Billy Meredith, but only now have I found it, and here it is:
Hokum, obviously, but the tracking by the camera is interesting and one wonders at the skill with which Meredith’s opponents muff their tackles..
Like Herbert Chapman, Meredith was originally set on life as a mining engineer - and it’s noticeable that both men began playing professional football in response to uncertainty in the mining industry in the 1890s. Unlike Chapman, Meredith was unsatisfied with the pay and conditions of footballers at the time, and, following his two-year ban on charges (which he denied) of match-fixing and accepting illegal payments, the Welshman took a leading role in the formation of the Players’ Union. He had need to: in 1909, a fire destroyed his Manchester sports shop and left him bankrupt.
Like Chapman - and like many players of his day - Meredith was an educated, highly intelligent man. Ahead of his time, too: the ODNB states
in an era when jogging and physical jerks were considered sufficient preparation for a game, he wrote many articles placing great emphasis on developing ball control. Until his fiftieth year he continued to polish his skills, insisting that no professional player could ever cease learning his trade.
The above film, Ball of Fortune, dates from 1926, two years after his final professional game. In the same year, Meredith made a number of coaching films, and made personal appearances in cinemas showing his films in order to answer audience questions.
This, also from the ODNB, illustrates something of the social status of the Edwardian game and its essentially showbiz nature:
He was good friends with many music-hall stars of the pre-Second World War period, including George Robey (who designed Manchester United’s cup final shirts in 1909) and Harry Weldon (who played Stiffy the Goalkeeper in a Fred Karno sketch that also featured Charlie Chaplin). The catch-phrase ‘Meredith, we’re in!’ from another pre-First World War Karno sketch was said to have been inspired by Meredith.
Now all I have to do is find his 1947 Radio Wales interview. Meredith would live another eleven years, dying shortly after the Munich air disaster so devastated his old club. (One of his old clubs - his time at United was sandwiched in between long and relatively unsuccessful spells with Manchester City).
Care of 101 Great Goals, the Youtubing in six parts of a 1987 documentary about George Best. More Best clips than you ever knew survived.
A documentary on George Best from 1987, titled “Best intentions” and including some rare footage, has been uploaded onto YouTube. It can be seen in six parts here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Chris Sutton spent much of the last season suffering from that other modern footballer’s injury, blurred eyesight. Now he has announced his retirement from the game.
Some of his more important matches, starting of course with Norwich City’s away win in the UEFA Cup against Bayern Munich:
Winning the Premiership alongside Dalglish, Shearer and Blackburn Rovers:
This isn’t to do with sport or any of the usual things. I met von Bismarck a number of times when I was at Oxford, and liked the man I met. Warm, funny, generous, open-minded and extremely intelligent. That he had a reputation for parties I shan’t deny, but so did many others, some of whom are now horny-handed members of the working class.
The press response to his early death revolts me, frankly. I just wanted to put the other side. There’s nothing of his life that isn’t also true of e.g. hard rockers, or footballers. But he was “posh”, and that makes all the difference for some people who should know better.
