Originally published @ 11:57 pm, Sat 4th Sep 2010
Following England’s 4-0 victory over Bulgaria, it appears we’re allowed to talk about football again.
And hopefully with some authority. My prediction was for the World Cup finals was “... for England qualifying through tense and nervy group games before going out in the knock-out section ...” Sharp, eh! And then I said “... after a ... provocation unspotted by the referee”. Sharp, again eh! Except I actually said “... after a sending off triggered by provocation unspotted by the referee”. http://www.labourblogs.com/public-blog/michaeledwards/27785/
I should have expressed my views about not playing Lampard and Gerrard together. It now turns out that Lampard holds the record for most efforts by any player on goal in world cup final matches without scoring (yep, forty). Now this is of course, a bit unfair, the ball was 5 feet over the line, but it probably helped that he didn't play on Friday.
Another part of the new strategy is for England to play in Finland’s colours. Could work. Why we couldn’t return to navy blue shorts, I don’t know.
The other part of the new strategy is to play former Salop goalkeeper Joe Hart.
Now that Joe Hart has played a full international, in competition, Manchester City have completed the £1 million to Shrewsbury Town they owed upon him becoming an international. It was nice to see him play at Salop, and nice to see him turning up as a fan, just after he’d been transferred (sitting with us in the away seats).
So finally the real reason for mentioning football again. Salop are top of the league (4th tier). Twice, now I’ve been caught out celebrating Salop winning 7-0 or something like in September blogs, only to end up mid-table or knocked out at Wembley, so perhaps I shouldn’t mention it.
No doubt, Salop’s success so far is down to them attracting the largest home attendances in the tier, the extra money from Manchester City and the return of Graham Turner as manager. Graham Turner is a legend at Salop when he was manager in 1979 and the early eighties. How often I have bewailed people who want to take us back to the Thatcherite era – but my cover this time is that the Con-Dem coalition are taking us back to the thirties, not the eighties. Nevertheless, I am concerned that Graham Turner is back on just one level – if it doesn’t go so well, I’d hate to see him jeered as any fans are wont to do when form is poor.
Finally, nice to see a bit of praise for Andy Burnham by Jamie Carragher in the Guardian today. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/sep/04/jamie-carragher-liverpool-testimonial