Monday 12 July 2021

Football coming home - #2

England's failure to qualify for the 1974 & 1978 World Cups helped to ease them to the back of the countries collective consciousness. Whilst we had a rubbish national team or club teams started to assert themselves on the European stage. With Liverpool, Nottingham Forest (I know) & Aston Villa (I know) all helped themselves to the European Cup, whilst England bumbled along until 1982 in Spain when for a brief while things looked to be heading in the right direction unlike Kevin Keegan's misplaced header, that saw us crash out in the over complicated second group stage. Mind you the progress to the finals themselves had been fairly harrowing... How can anyone forget Bjørge Lillelien? 

"We are the best in the world! We are the best in the world! We have beaten England 2-1 in football!! It is completely unbelievable! We have beaten England! England, birthplace of giants. Lord Nelson, Lord Beaverbrook, Sir Winston Churchill, Sir Anthony Eden, Clement Attlee, Henry Cooper, Lady Diana--we have beaten them all. We have beaten them all.
"Maggie Thatcher can you hear me? Maggie Thatcher, I have a message for you in the middle of the election campaign. I have a message for you: We have knocked England out of the football World Cup. Maggie Thatcher, as they say in your language in the boxing bars around Madison Square Garden in New York: Your boys took a hell of a beating! Your boys took a hell of a beating!" 
Bjørge Lillelien - Norway v England Oslo 9th September 1981 

The 82 World Cup was mostly memorable for the celebrations of the numerous Italian students who used to spend their summer holidays learning English on the snoozy Sussex coast. They went Tonto! 

Whilst Chelsea bounced around between the top two divisions barely threatening to win anything, England had plumped for mediocrity: Ron Greenwood replaced the despicable Revie and Brian Clough was left to rot in a bottle at the City Ground. Greenwood in turn was replaced by the affable Bobby Robson (who like Sir Alf Ramsey had had the misfortune to manage Ipswich Town prior to the England job). I on the other hand had missed the formative months of punk rock, embraced a Modernist lifestyle, swerved the New Romantic scene and settled on a Mod/Post-Punk/Funk/Jazz vision of the future!

Occasional trips to The Shed were accompanied by visits to Kensington Market & Carnaby Street. Fred Perry & a Chelsea pin badge - nice! 

Thankfully, England managed to qualify for Mexico 1986. We even had a decent couple of players, the mercurial John Barnes and the clinical Gary Lineker. We managed to escape the group stage in no part due to Lineker (Line-acre according to Mick Channon). "It's finally happened in Monterey..." courtesy of the magnificent Barry Davies. Next stop Argentina in the quarter-finals, what could possibly go wrong? 


Sunday 11 July 2021

Football coming home - #1

I have been a fully fledged football fan since 22nd February 1970 around about 2:30pm. The trigger for what became a lifelong affliction was the transmission on ITV of 'The Big Match' featuring QPR v Chelsea in the FA Cup quarter final. The specific incident that then changed my life was the decision of the referee Mr K.Howley to demand that a QPR penalty be retaken. The reason being that Chelsea keeper Peter Bonetti had supposedly moved before the kick was taken and smothered the shot by Rangers skipper Terry Venables. So incensed was I, by this blatant anti-Chelsea bias, I immediately and irrevocably threw my support behind The Mighty Blues. Although to be honest I didn't know they were blue at the time, not least because we were wearing our yellow away shirts but because our family only got a colour tv in 1975!

The reason I mention this is simply because, it was my choice, my decision alone and all these years later the fact that I am a season ticket holder (East Upper), despite living in Sydney, Australia is a direct result of that decision. The fact that I put on 'Three Lions' an hour ago and immediately dissolved into tears is something else all together. I did not choose my country of birth. I am English, despite myself. Therefore, I support the England team, I have to, not necessarily because I want to, just simply because.

I had been aware of the England team prior to my Loftuscene conversion in 1970. Any kid growing up in England knew of the holy trinity of Moore, Hurst & Peters - in fact I'd even flirted with becoming a West Ham fan but it didn't feel quite right. In a perfect storm of falling in love with Chelsea, them subsequently beating 'Dirty Leeds' in the FA Cup Final and the World Cup being played in Mexico that summer, I was being groomed for a lifetime of success and... failure. 

England crashed out against the dreaded West Germans and what's more, one of my Chelsea heroes Peter Bonetti (aka The Cat) was widely blamed (though not by me) for his part in the defeat - although Gerd Muller's shot from about 4 years out also had something to do with it. The heartbreak that particular defeat inflicted is still surprisingly raw. Surely, the reason to like football is because my team would always win. This losing malarkey was not what I signed up for. 

The tale of Chelsea's travails and subsequent redemption will no doubt be covered at another date (the joy of lockdown). This article however, is about my relationship with the England team. After Mexico, things got steadily worse for Sir Alf & his boys. Gunter Netzer demolished our Euro 1972 hopes and Poland had made qualification for the 1974 World Cup a little harder than anticipated. However, all we had to do was beat them at Wembley - easy!

Expectations both at school and home were ridiculously high. Special plans had been made and I could even watch the game: A) live and B) in colour - thanks to the next door neighbour. Anyway, history shows that England only managed to draw 1-1 and that Norman Hunter should have smashed the ball into row Z before Shilton had the chance to dive over Domarski's shot. We were out and not going to the World Cup. The upside was being able to revel in the joy of Holland's total football and that bloody Muller again. Perhaps England were not the team I'd been led to believe...

Surely the appointment of Don Revie from 'Dirty Leeds' would change our fortunes. In hindsight, it was as misguided as appointing Sam Allardyce decades later. Revie's Leeds team were a talented bunch of players, managed by a negative and dubious individual (to say the least). Brian Clough was right: 

"Well, I might as well tell you now. You lot may all be internationals and have won all the domestic honours there are to win under Don Revie. But as far as I'm concerned, the first thing you can do for me is to chuck all your medals and all your caps and all your pots and all your pans into the biggest f***ing dustbin you can find, because you've never won any of them fairly. You've done it all by bloody cheating." 
Brian Clough - To Leeds players on first day of training.

Revie failed to get any decent results (or even bribe any opponents) and he ended up bunking off to the UAE for a sackful of cash (always his ultimate motive). World Cup 1978 was off the cards and by now I was firmly of the opinion that we were bloody useless. I'd find myself going to Stamford Bridge every week and quietly tolerating the rubbish on the windswept and distant pitch from the confines of the hotbed of congeniality and ready wit that was The Shed End. However, the thought of watching England, despite their swanky new fancy pants Admiral kits (courtesy of Don Revie?), was not so appealing. I'd much rather spend my money on going to gigs or on the brand new 7" single 'In the city'from a little known trio from Woking who I subsequently realised were called The Jam.