SOCCER ANGLES: It has been another week of fault-finding in football and you begin to wonder if these weeks are coming around a bit too frequently
FROM SHANE Supple, the former Ipswich Town goalkeeper who has gladly walked away from professional football, to Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England. From Monday morning in a Dublin hotel, to Thursday night and a BBC documentary on the implosion of global finance. It has been another of those weeks of fault-finding in football and you begin to wonder if these weeks are coming around a bit too frequently.
Supple was a refreshing presence, a mature 22-year-old who went to England at the too-early age of 15 and who has seen enough in those seven years to have an itch to come home.
King is 61 and has been doing the job in Threadneedle Street for the past six years. He, like some others in high finance, felt a bit of an itch regarding the seemingly never-ending flow of cash slushing through London, New York and around the globe. Unlike Supple, King resisted the urge to scratch it.
King, an Aston Villa fan, explained his reasoning in the phrase: “It’s not easy to criticise success.”
King said other things, but when it came down to it, that was his judgment. Considering economics is meant to be about mathematics and specifics, this sounded too existential for comfort. What King was meant to know was how the money was being generated, and that this was a pyramid built on a myth, not stare at the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf and marvel.
Because, presumably, material wealth is King’s definition of success. One would hope that a 61-year-old might have moved beyond this, and perhaps in private moments King has. But, if not, he should speak to Supple.
Supple left his family and Home Farm for Ipswich with stars in his eyes. He was not the first and he will not be the last. At first he loved it all, and even when he began to have doubts about his suitability for the profession, he still enjoyed the banter of the dressing-room and formed good friendships.
But as he explained, Supple started to notice the materialism of young footballers. He did not resent this – we all like and need money – but simultaneously we can know that it is not all there is. But gradually Supple came to see that for some that’s almost all there was. Most disturbingly, for some young, and older, players at Ipswich, money and the consequent lifestyle seemed to Supple to trump the game itself. That’s when he decided he’d had enough. It was a brave move and we wish him well.
What Supple has done is physically contradict King’s words by saying in deed that the pursuit of money is in itself not enough.
But then King has a point too, as do Supple’s young colleagues at Ipswich. Somewhere along the line Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher changed the parameters and made everyone dash for cash. That was how you judged success. Those two changed everything, even the way teenagers at Ipswich Town assess themselves 25 years later.
And criticising success in whatever form it comes is not always the most comfortable task. At Hillsborough on Tuesday night, seeing Middlesbrough overcome Sheffield Wednesday with a mixture of skill, power and nous, it felt awkward not to join in Gareth Southgate’s celebration.
Yes, Southgate has a good young team on his hands in which Adam Johnson is outstanding, and yes, Boro look top-six certainties and probable automatic promotion material. But when Southgate was saluting his players’ “grit” and their comeback from Wednesday’s early opener – and how this had not happened last season – he was missing one salient point. That Middlesbrough are now in a lower league.
On Tuesday, had Middlesbrough gone one down at Bolton, for example, as they did in April, would they have shown enough grit to come back? They didn’t last season, they lost 4-1.
The principal reason why Boro are doing well this season – unmentioned by Southgate – is because they are in a Championship which he and every other manager says is tough and strong but which is, in fact, not. Even Mervyn King could see that.
King could see that Premier League clubs carrying massive squads denies the Championship quality it needs badly.
Last season Liverpool were reported to have 62 players under contract, and, while many of them will be youth and reserve team members, it is still too many to be accommodated at one club.
Champions League demands mean that the big four in Britain, and others across Europe, hoard players. Uefa says 25 is the maximum permitted, as if that’s a shallow squad. The Premier League has followed suit this week. What if, at least in Europe, they made it 20?
Over a period of time we would see some dispersal of talent and we would not be in a situation where Chelsea’s reserves would wallop a grand old club like Sheffield Wednesday’s first team.
But this is where we are, 25 years on from trickle-down economics. Only the odd one ever mentioned that the key word in that phrase was trickle, with its patronising unpleasantness.
And it wasn’t Mervyn King. It would take someone like Shane Supple.
City still worth price of a draw
IT IS tin helmet time in Manchester. Alex Ferguson said yesterday that he still regards Liverpool as United's true derby opponents, but you get the feeling that the remark might be designed to wind up City even more than calling them "cocky", which Ferguson has also said.
From United's camp there has also been the statement that Emmanuel Adebayor deserves any ban he receives, and you have to think that Robin van Persie's cheekbone was not the uppermost consideration in this opinion. City without Adebayor will be a reduced force and all United know it.
Had City Adebayor leading their line, the afternoon might be even more explosive than it seems destined to be, but you would think a draw tomorrow at Old Trafford was within City's capabilities.
It should be still – and the price for that with bookmakers is an eye-catching 3 to 1.
Tempting odds on a lower level
CITY GETTING a draw at United might not tickle your fancy as the bet of the weekend. If not, then look downwards to League Two and Darlington versus Bournemouth.
Darlington are bottom with one point from seven games, Bournemouth are top with 18 from seven games. Ladbrokes have Bournemouth at evens to win.
To repeat, even Mervyn King might be able to see the logic of a small investment in this outcome.
