Tag: The FA
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Tuched Up
So, England’s first German manager has entered the fickle foray of footie, kicking off with a hefty slice of withering criticism for his predecessor and a 2-0 win over Albania. Guys, you’d only lose to Albania at pickpocketing, trafficking, or blood feuds. It’s probably true that Southgate’s weightiest clanger in the last tournament was his…
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Alan She/her
Last month, a 17-year-old female footballer was sidelined for discrimination after she was found to have repeatedly asked a transgender opponent questions about his gender. The hirsute chickadee in question had a full beard and was built like a brick outhouse. Aside from the obvious query on eligibility, there must have been a tangible concern…
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Too Juan
Another day, another failure. In fairness, the match against Spain was pretty evenly matched for the first 85 minutes. Of course, Spain had looked more dangerous and had played the better football, but the score still reflected bottom-lime parity. Then, in the blink of an eye, there was a precision pass, a lightning burst of…
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Safegate
‘We don’t have a replacement for Kalvin Phillips’. Let that sink in for a moment. Gareth Southgate has a team that should be bubbling with the Bundesliga top scorer, the season’s outstanding player in La Liga, and a fresh dollop of Premiership cream. And yet, he is bamboozled by the challenge of replacing a player…
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Tap-In
Another day, another Team England loss, and two hours of my life was gone forever. Sometimes I think I’ll never learn. Cue the rearguard. The shambolic shitshow shoo-in was predictably re-imagined by the client press as an inevitable defeat in the wake of the new Brazilian wonderkid. The ‘new Romario’, no less. Nothing Gareth could…
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Replica Shirks
Shell-shocked, I’ve been eating gargantuan wedges of humble pie after Gareth Southgate steered the Three Lions to their first major final in 55 years. Whatever the ultimate outcome, the team has, after a sluggish start, performed magnificently. Forget the tactical analysis, and that’s not just because, like most punters, I don’t really understand the technicalities.…
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Southgategate
When I was a lad, parents would buy their kids pet hamsters in order to introduce them to the crushing reality of bereavement. Nowadays, parents whip up excitement around England’s football tournament campaigns to the same end. Yes, it’s that time again when for a few weeks we can deceive ourselves that incompetence and cluelessness…
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Colour Me Bad
Greg Clarke, the FA Chairman, has fallen on his sword for, among a selection of meek faux pas, describing black people as ‘coloured’. From that point, everything was going to get stuffed into the fact-mincer. ‘Coloured’ is a problematic term because while it is deemed by many to be offensive, ‘of colour’ is not. ‘Of…
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