England All Stars

What the fuck is wrong with England fans? Correction! What is wrong with some low-level, scumbag England fans. Leave the boy Hargreaves alone! Don’t boo him! Don’t jeer him! What the fuck is that all about? The man has lifted more silverware than David Beckham has had nannies. Check out his record:

Intercontinental Cup Winners 2001; European Super Cup winner 2001; Bundesliga Champions 2000-01, 2002-03, 2004-05, 2005-06; UEFA Champions League Winner 2000-01; German League Cup Winner 2000-01; German Cup winners 2002-03, 2005-06.

Let’s compare this to Lampard’s:

Football League (Carling) Cup winners 2004-05; FA (Barclaycard) Premiership Champions 2004-05, 2005-06

And what about Gerrard?

Football League (Worthington’s) Cup winners 2000-01, 2002-03; FA Cup winners 2000-01, 2005-06; UEFA Cup winners 2000-01; European Super Cup winner 2001; Football League (Carling) Cup runner’s up 2004-05; UEFA Champions League winner 2004-05; FIFA World Club Championship runner up 2005.

Hargreaves deserves to be in the England squad and many would argue that he would be well placed in the first eleven. He certainly played a good game against Sweden, picking up the ball and distributing well so that Lampard could play his favourite attacking game.

So what if he speaks with a Canadian accent? So what if he lives in Germany? So what if he wears his jumper around his shoulders from time to time? And so what if he’s not a lad, a geezer, a chav, a fella, a bruv ?

To all you twats who booed him at the match and who booed him down my local, pick your fucking neanderthal knuckles from off the floor and get a fucking life. What’s wrong with a bit of culture, a bit of intelligence? Feeling threatened are you?

And just think: who else is going to be able to help Theo with his homework?

It’s been a funny old World Cup so far. England have kept a clean sheet despite fairly average performances, France have yet to turn up, and Brazil seem to have left their mojo in the changing room. Argentina and Portugal have provided us with master classes in World Cup football, while Ghana have left us gasping for more of the same.

But spare a thought for this man, the embattled Togo coach Otto Pfister who, until this morning, didn’t even know whether his team would turn out against the Swiss today. Not only was his skipper sent off in the opener against South Korea, but a long running pay dispute between the players and their national Football Association has made for a rocky couple of days. Refusing to board their flight to Dortmund it took an intervention by FIFA diplomats to persuade the debutants to put in a performance today. Clearly feeling more than a little fucked off by the whole thing he sparked up in front of millions during the first match. Take a deep breath, Otto. It’ll all come out in the wash!

All hail King John, a tower of strength and courage. With woad like fire in his veins and the strength of a thousand men, he stands like a wall between victory and defeat. King John holds us all, like Atlas, on his shoulders. A leader of people, his steely, determined eyes betray nothing but passion for team and country.

Stand proud, England! Cometh the man, cometh the hour!

I’ve got a great feeling about this match, despite reports that Trinidad and Tobago play with a twelfth man, a spirit player who guides them through the match. After their performance against Sweden they’re going to be well up for it, but so are the England lads despite the German fans celebrating outside their hotel all night. Who needs sleep in the World Cup when adrenalin alone can take them all the way.

Owen’s sounding more confident claiming he can get the Golden Boot this year. Perhaps that’s a bit optimistic, Michael, but I’d be made up if you did. And Rooney could be gracing us with his post-metatarsal presence, a massive lift to the team and fans alike.

But this match was always going to cause me some stress. The five o’clock kick off is going to mean some creative thinking across the country today in order to get out of work and to the pub on time. Do I go straight to the pub on my scooter ensuring I get there for kick off? That would mean being the only sober person in a pub full of revellers. Do I drop the scooter home and rely on London buses to get me there? Risky. Do I leave the scooter at home altogether and rely on public transport all the way? Riskier still.

Either way, get me to the pub on time. It’s going to be a blinder

I write this with a sore head and not a little trepidation in my heart. Yesterday’s match was a weird one. On the one hand we should be ecstatic that we won and that T&T drew with Sweden leaving us in a strong position going forward. On the other hand we didn’t exactly strike the fear of God into the hearts of any future opposition. No one anywhere right now in the whole world is saying anything like “oh fuck, we’re playing England soon”.
And the referee was dodgy as fuck, too. Quite apart from resembling one of those little wooden men out of a subuteo set, he was also quite clearly a tosser of the highest calibre, a fact made abundantly clear merely by looking at his hair. Somewhere in the world there is a brill cream shortage… and it certainly isn’t in Germany.

As I was watching the match, probably shortly after Sven had substituted Downing for Owen, and Hargreaves for Cole, our most creative player on the day, a familiar feeling settled about me. It’s a difficult one to describe, a cocktail of hope and excitement laced with miserable foreboding and a twist of defeatism. Oh, and lets add a dash of hopelessness for good measure.

I shared this feeling with my mates who were biting their fingernails all about me.

“That’s what it feels like to be a Man City fan,” said one of them. “That’s how I feel week in week out.”

And Christ, guys, that’s got to be one hell of a miserable existence!