Sports Books Blog

Peter Crouch reignited the “pesky foreigners and their unmanly ways” debate the other day when, after felling Jon Obi Mikel with a two-footed jump, he suggested an Englishman would have got up and got on with it rather than rolling over and over as the Chelsea man did.
The beanpole Liverpool centre forward (if he’d shown such aggression a few years ago he might still be at Villa Park) is not alone in suggesting foreigners have brought diving and feigning injury to our noble game.
Look at Manchester United’s Ronaldo goes the cry. If only he could stay on his feet he’d be a truly great player. What tosh. If he was as good at diving as Franny Lee was in the 1970s he’d get a lot more penalties. The barrel-shaped Manchester City striker was known as “Lee One Pen” because of his habit of earning himself spot kicks.
And we published a book in 2006 – “Harry Potts – Margaret’s Story” – in which several old players remembered with affection how good the late Burnley manager was at winning penalties by diving over outstretched legs and that was in the 1940s.
I’ve always had a good deal of sympathy for those who go down when touched in the penalty area (if you know what I mean!). Many’s the time I’ve seen players lose their balance when attempting to stay on their feet after being tripped or nudged and get no sympathy from a referee.
Diving without being touched is another thing altogether of course. Arsenal’s Pires was very good at that and should have been sent off for it on more than one occasion. But if you see an outstretched leg, fall over it – that’s what I say. After all what’s it there for but to do mischief.
Feigning injury is another thing. Everton manager David Moyes wryly made the point last Saturday that Cesc Fabregas, that hugely talented youngster from Arsenal, must have had a broken jaw after falling as if he’d been shot when Arteta stiff-armed him in the face. Of course he hadn’t he was merely reacting in the way he had been brought up. Arteta, a fellow Spaniard, admitted had the tables been turned he would have done the same.
They should all play the game with stiff upper lips like nothern Europeans do. Except, of course, not all northern Europeans do. Look at Michael Ballack against Aston Villa. He’s a German. OK they dive but they don’t cheat do they? He does. Dived for a penalty, and that was a dive, which got Zat Knight sent off and then led the charge against the referee when Villa got a last minute penalty before raising his hands and pushing a Villa player in the ensuing melee. Disgraceful.
Except I was looking at the TV screen and coming over all nostalgic. There isn’t nearly enough pushing and shoving on the pitch these days. How I used to enjoy sitting in the press box and moralising after someone punched somebody, while secretly enjoying it.
There are no truly dirty players any more. Of course it’s a good thing but I do miss them. Jimmy Scoular, Tommy Smith, Ron Harris, Johnny Giles (angel and villain in one small package), the entire Birmingham City half back line.
I remember two stories both involving Birmingham City which always make me smile and tut at the same time. The first involves Ron Wylie playing for Villa against Birmingham when he was very young and the Blues were known as the Brummie Bashers with the formidable half back line of Boyd, Smith and Warhurst. Ron explained that as an inside forward he wandered over to the wrong side of the pitch and Boyd shouted to Ashurst: “hey my man’s over there, chip him back will you?”
The other was when Birmingham played Fulham and Bertie Auld was sent off for fouling Johnny Haynes. In those days you practically had to commit GBH to be sent off and as Bertie was trotting off (so the story goes, I wasn’t at the match more’s the pity) he thought he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb so he chinned Tosh Chamberlain. One man sent off, one carried off.
Incidentally Bertie Auld used up time once in a way I’d never seen before or since. In these days players take the ball to the corner flag and hold off defenders. In those days you wouldn’t dare to that, but Bertie tapped a corner kick into touch so the defending side had to take a throw in deep in their own corner. Brilliant.
I suppose, though, Bertie being Scottish was a foreigner.

I was disappointed to read recently that Steve Coppell was “sad” that the Football Association had appointed another foreigner to coach England. My disappointment was because Coppell was giving that opinion after ruling himself out of the running.
Only Brian Barwick, the FA’s chief executive, knows if Coppell would have been in the frame had he not disqualified himself but for those of us who would rather see a national team run by a member of the same nationality the appointment of Fabio Capello was a backward step; especially so when one of the best qualified of Englishmen does not want the job.
Coppell has the intelligence and a track record of making bricks without straw. Just as important, he has 42 England caps. I was at Wembley in 1982 when his career was virtually ended by a thuggish tackle from an Hungarian full back.
And it has long been a theory of mine that the thing that impresses most international players more than anything else is the number of caps a manager can put on the table.
Everybody says what a fabulous coach Capello is and winning nine championships with four different clubs is testament to that. But international teams don’t need coaches in the way club teams do. An international manager is basically a facilitator. He sees what players he has at his disposal and picks a team accordingly. And besides Capello’s record in knock-out competitions is not good. Nine championships, one European Cup. Not a good ratio.
Capello by all accounts is a disciplinarian but that is not what an international team, even England, needs. Basically they need a Sven Goran Eriksson with balls. I don’t know whether it was ego or lack of courage that meant the Swede kept picking Gerrard and Lampard in the same midfield when it was obvious that they don’t fit together.
Perhaps Ericksson thought he could solve the problem (he didn’t) or perhaps he didn’t want to upset one of the “stars” of his team by leaving them out. Likewise McLaren. Only when injuries kept out Lampard did England suddenly discover some form. Then, of course, McLaren spoiled it all by changing the system against Croatia!
To be fair to Eriksson and McLaren they are not the only prominent football people to suggest that Gerrard and Lampard can be fitted into the same team. I saw Ray Wilkins on Sky recently claiming “of course” they can play together without explaining why they haven’t so far.
Incidentally I saw Capello, a stiff-backed defensive midfielder, score the goal in Italy’s 1-0 win at Wembley in 1973 – a tap-in from the six yard box. If his defensive midfielder gets that far forward the Italian is likely to throw one of his famous touchline strops.