Any day now, soccer’s World Cup will obliteratingly dominate every back page
Any day now, soccer’s World Cup will obliteratingly dominate every back page (although this one, it goes without saying, shall be soberly discriminating). On Monday week (7 May) Sven, Sweden’s sexpot sphinx who coaches England, nominates his first batch of players, to be whittled down further before the tournament begins on 9 June. Might it be the last England side ever to consider it has a half decent chance of actually winning a World Cup? Foreign players totally dominate the Premiership, and the ongoing brouhaha generating most hot air is over Arsenal’s progress this season in the European Champions’ league being achieved with not a single Englishman contributing; their homegrown brace, Cole and Campbell, sitting out most of the winter, crocked either in limb or spirit.
Bothered not a jot is Arsenal devotee and professional ‘brand consultant’ John Simmons, who has published an interesting book, Winning Together (Cyan Books, £8.99). He reckons the fuss about foreigners is phoney; he simply wants the best players for his team. ‘Arsenal operate in a changed world that understands brands and global competition. We can’t turn the clock back to when our dads and grandads stood on wet terraces to cheer the England boys on the pitch. Arsenal is a brand and as such it draws identity from its location — London, the most cosmopolitan community in the world.’ Fair point. But would Simmons feel more than faintly deprived, not to say ruddy well miffed, should England (full of Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool players and with no Arsenal contribution) lift the World Cup the night of the final in Berlin on 9 July?
Come to think of it, England’s three finest World Cup teams in history were those of 1966 (obviously, they won it), 1970 in Mexico, and 1990 in Italy. For all their supporters’ strut and swank (even then), the fact is that any part played in those three tournaments by Arsenal players was — sorry to tell them — absolutely zilch, nowt, nothing, nul. In 1966, Arsenal’s sole rep in Alf Ramsey’s squad of 22 was clever inside-forward George Eastham, but throughout the tournament he never once got on the pitch; four years later in Mexico full-back Bob McNab was ditched by (by then) Sir Alf in his final cut from 28 to 22 — to be flown home pronto by ITV to play ‘insider straight man’ on its pioneering studio fun-and-flannel ‘panel’ (with Derek Dougan, Malcolm Allison, and Paddy Crerand) which, for better or worse, set the benchmark for broadcasting’s de rigueur half-time tripe and claptrap.
Anyway, apt it is that Arsenal are finishing the debate; after all, they started it. You reap what you sow. Aeons ago, in the summer of 1930 (nicely, as the first World Cup was being played, sans snooty Brits, in Uruguay), legendary Highbury manager Herbert Chapman suddenly announced he’d signed — shock-horror headlines, a foreigner! — a Dutchman and new wonder goalkeeper, an Amsterdam fruit’n’veg merchant who’d played for Holland, one Gerrie Keyzer. He wore the gloves and green polo neck for the champions’ first dozen games that autumn. The Gunners lost just one of the 12 matches; but Gerrie nevertheless let in 19 goals. Colleague Cliff Bastin thought him ‘a crazy show-off, completely reckless, whether between the posts or behind the wheel of one of his new, huge American cars which were his heart’s delight’. Chapman smartly moved Keyzer on to Charlton Athletic; by Easter he was back in Amsterdam with his apples, pears and, of course, his oranges.
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