The more you see of Jack Wilshere, the more admirable he becomes. He seems to have taken wholeheartedly to fatherhood, a path he embarked on when he was barely out of short trousers. And then there’s the agreeably relaxed way he was toking on a Marlboro Light outside a London nightclub the other day. It bought a nuclear storm on the poor lad’s head, of course — quite why is beyond me. There’s no suggestion he’s a chain-smoker, unlike the great Brazilian Socrates, who did about 40 a day and won the World Cup. He, of course, was a doctor. Young Jack did the smoking community no favours by initially claiming he was holding the fag for someone else, though he later came clean. It turned out that Arsène Wenger, who was particularly pompous about Marlborogate, had offered Jack ‘support’. Good grief — it was just a fag, not a needle full of smack.
But then Jack, bless him, waded in to the fetid undergrowth of the nationality debate, with remarks of great common sense which, predictably, brought howls of outrage. Following a couple of brilliant goals from a teenager called Adnan Januzaj for Manchester United, it emerged that the FA thought it might be a good idea for young Adnan to pull on the Three Lions of England. Januzaj was born in Belgium and is available to play for that country, as well as Albania, Kosovo, Serbia and Turkey. One thing he’s definitely not is English, and Wilshere had the guts to point it out. ‘The only people who should play for England are English people. If you live in England for five years, it doesn’t make you English,’ he said. ‘If I went to Spain and lived there for five years I am not going to play for Spain.’
Adnan Januzaj of Manchester United Photo: Getty
Roger Alton is an executive editor at the Times.
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