There’s a chant they sing at Anfield to the tune of Yellow Submarine — ‘We all dream of a team of Carraghers…’. And so they should. The doughty old Scouser has emerged as something of a hero. There was his gift of £10,000 to Andy Burnham’s Labour leadership campaign, one of the most startling acts of political activism since Robbie Fowler showed his ‘I support the Dockers’ T-shirt. Carragher ended his international ‘retirement’ to turn out for England and Fabio Capello in the World Cup, so his gift shows that his appetite for lost causes is undiminished.
Even more surprising, and engaging, was his warmth towards the England manager. Everyone has been lining up to give the Italian a bashing, but not Jamie Carragher. ‘I loved him,’ he said at the weekend. ‘I used to watch the World Cup games with him everyday, myself and Stevie (Gerrard) and some of the other players would join us. We’d have a chat and he was fine. He was very straight, very strong. I like that from a manager.’
Well said, Jamie. You can’t beat loyalty in my view, and what a pity you have had to re-retire, though inevitable I guess. But what is it about playing for England that makes footballers want to quit?
Is it age? Do me a favour. Stanley Matthews was 41 when in 1956 at Wembley he upstaged the great Nilton Santos of Brazil in having a foot in all of England’s goals in an amazing 4-2 victory. Geoffrey Green wrote in the Times: ‘Marshals and scarlet Caesars have won their victories on land, but few could have equalled in colour and dramatic contexts this triumph of the Apollonic English game over the Dionysiac dance of Brazil… (and) in the end it was the particular artistry of Stanley Matthews, backed by the iron spirit and direct skill of his colleagues, who saw England home.’ So maybe it wasn’t Capello’s finest hour to use a TV interview to fire Beckham, who has always said he’s happy to go on playing for England till he’s 106. Unlike Paul Scholes, who also ‘retired’, though he did say he might have played in South Africa if he’d been asked nicely. What a wuss.
Meanwhile Englishness is all around. Someone from the absurdly named Team England has said that the next manager of the national team will be English. That must make Capello feel as welcome as something unidentified in the bagging area. Poor guy. Mark you, you can’t really blame the FA: it is impossible to imagine Spain, or Germany or Italy being coached by a foreigner.
The American writer Budd Schulberg, who knew a thing or two about sport as well as winning Oscars, once said that the closest competition to boxing outside the ring was tennis. You might not punch with your left and right, but you have forehands and backhands; you might not land actual blows, but you used exactly the same tactical sense, driving your opponent all round the court, through strength and cunning, before making the knockout shot or forcing the mistake.
Andy Murray, himself a keen boxing fan, is looking more and more the heavyweight champion he soon should be. He dominated Nadal and Federer in Canada last week (and there’s not many people who do that in one tournament), and is playing with great aggression and freedom now he’s decided to do without a coach. The terrifying presence of his mother Judy, now full-time in the players’ box, would concentrate anyone’s mind, Murray’s as much as his opponent’s. But the long awaited Grand Slam could well come his way in the US Open at Flushing Meadow later this month. There might not be a better time, though at a best price of 3-1 or so, it’s not going to make anyone — apart from Murray himself — a fortune.
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