When Is A Goal Not A Goal?

Well, I have never seen anything like it in my life. Manchester United v Spurs, 0-0, closing minutes of the game and Pedro Mendes decides he will "have a pop" from about forty yards. Carrol, the United 'keeper sees it coming from a long way off and catches it. Then drops it. It drops over the line, easily, by a metre, even more if you are a Spurs fan. Carrol clumsily scoops the ball out of the back of the net in an attempt to make some amend for the absolute howler he has just committed and play goes on. No goal. Cheering Spurs fans silenced when they realise that instead of celebrating being three minutes away from three points at Old Trafford they are sweating over a free kick towards their goal. Carrol looks embarrassed, something akin to a teenager being caught having a swift one off the wrist by his grandma. And so ensued the "video evidence uproar". In nearly thirty years of watching football I don't think I have ever seen a goal not given that was as blatant as that. I suspect many would agree that in terms of a refereeing error this was gargantuan Guinness Records stuff. When Mendes hit the ball the linesman, who was level with Mendes, checking for offside, started sprinting towards the goaline. He never made it. If he would have been able to make it then he should be included in the Olympic sprinting squad. If he can't see it then he can't give it. End of story but still the uproar. Would we have had the same uproar of an identical incident in a Barnet v Stevenage game. I doubt it. It seems to me that Sky analyse every single detail of every one of these dubious decisions for their own interests. There are shown every half hour on Sky Sports News. I could be wrong but I believe it is in Sky's interest to make more of these anomalies when they happen and try to influence public opinion in the "video referee" debate. It is in their interest for tv to become intrinsically linked with football because, as the biggest player in tv football, they will surely be in on the technological wave as it crashes across goal lines in the Premiership. I don't know where it will start or where it will all end but I believe it is coming.

Crime Of The Century

Racism has reared it's ugly head in football again and recently, during a game between Blackburn Rovers and Birmingham City, a former Blackburn player was racially abused on his return to Ewood Park. Dwight Yorke had left Ewood in the summer following a season of very disappointing performances in a Blackburn shirt. Most Blackburn fans would probably say a lot worse. So he returns to Ewood and is warming up on the sidelines and is racialy abused by some moron. Next day it is all over the papers. Birmingham City owner David Sullivan, whilst agreeing that there was no place for this sort of behaviour in football, said "It is hardly crime of the century". He was lambasted by the press and, I feel, rather harshly treated. In a crowd of 22,000 people at the game that night one has decided to make monkey chants in Dwight Yorke's direction. 1 in 22,000. If we look at that as a percentage then 1 in 22,000 people in this country are racists than we are doing very well indeed. If 1 in 22,000 people in the Army or the Police is a racist then we are doing brilliantly.

Knight Of 1000 Games Pt 2

So it has been some weeks since the "Battle Of The Buffet" at Old Trafford between Man Utd and Arsenal and the teams were re-united this week for the Carling Cup. The next day our favourite Knight is still going on about that game even though his team won the cup fixture. He was quoted as saying "At least we know how to lose. I will never forget our supporters staying to applaud Arsenal when they won they Championship at Old Trafford". Well, if that is true, Man utd supporters are all identical, made of red plastic and don't have any hands to applaud. All I saw on the television coverage was Arsenal celebrating in front of their supporters whilst virtually every other seat in the stadium was empty. I remember it well because I was thinking to myself Our supporters (Liverpool) would not have left without applauding the Champions. Go back to the famous night at Anfield when "it was up for grabs" and Michael Thomas poked the ball home in the last minute. I was at the game and stayed to applaud the new Champions despite the fact we had lost the league on "goals scored". What is worse about Ferguson's comments are that he is allowed these quotes to re-write history according to him and is allowed to get away with it. Roll on his retirement.

Knight Of 1000 Games

This week "Sir" Alex Ferguson will lead his Red charges into a Champions League game against Lyon for his 1000th time in charge. A mammoth achievement in a job where 200 games is considered as a "good knock". What do I remember about any of those 1000 games? I remember watching Sparky Hughes smash one in from a tight angle to win the Cup Winners Cup. Fantastic. I remember Cantona popping one through a crowd of Liverpool players to secure an FA Cup Final win. As a Liverpool fan I have been able to blame the entire FA Cup debacle on the dodgy cream suits the Spice Boys wore on the day. I remember Cantona flying through the air into the front row at Selhurst Park. I remember the dramatic European Cup victory at the Camp Nou, secured in the dying minutes of a game where he had witnessed his team being totally outplayed by Bayern Munich. Who could forget the Beckham goal, also at Selhurst, surely the moment that captured the birth of "the kids" of whom Alan Hansen famously claimed "would win nothing". These are significant landmarks of the Ferguson era at Manchester United.
Ferguson is named alongside the mangerial greats of the game: Ramsey, Shankley, Paisley, Clough, Stein, Busby et al. In my opinion his name should never be uttered in the same sentence as any of the aforementioned legends. On his success and trophy haul with United, not to mention Aberdeen, he deserves credit but all of the credit bestowed is besmirched by the cantankerous, bad sport, who's team, according to him, have never lost a match to a better side. A decade littered with "we didn't play well today", "the referee has had a bad game", "we allowed them to play", I don't need to list more, we have heard them all.
The "Sour Grapes War" he has waged with Arsene Wenger in recent seasons has grown into a tabloid monster. Even when the last encounter was won by his team he could not leave it alone. Taking the war to new levels by complaining that Arsenal's Ashley Cole had "stolen nearly ten yards" when taking a throw in. Outside Anfield there is a statue of Bill Shankley with his arms held out in a salute to the people approaching the ground, copied from a famous photograph of him in front of The Kop. If they ever erect a statue to Ferguson outside Old trafford then he will surely have veins bursting out of his neck with his face contorted in rage and his right hand pointing at his left wrist. The game ain't over until Alex says so.
What I find staggering is that a man whom he mentored into management, Steve McLaren, is one of the most gracious, reasonable, uncomplaining managers I have ever seen on telly. How could this paragon of good sportsmanship have grown in the shadow of the poisonous Ferguson. Bad refereeing decisions are greeted with "Well, sometimes they go for you and sometimes they don't". Poor team performances are delivered with "We didn't play well today but we will be working to improve on today's performance". Never 0ver-the-top in his praise of his own side or the opposition. Basically, a man who calls it how he sees it and doesn't get carried away with himself.
For all his glorious triumphs and achievements at "The Biggest Club In The World", I will remember "Sir" Alex for the day he kept his mouth shut and said nothing. I can still see it now, a packed St James' Park, the Great Dane is a bit too far away from his line, the majestic Belgian casually approaches the edge of the D, and dinks a little looping shot clean over his head. Phillipe Albert!!! Newcastle 5 Manchester United 0.

Mutu

So another over-paid professional falls victim to the lure of cocaine. He doesn't get caught in Stringfellows chopping one out on the cistern, no, much better to ingest your drug from the flat stomach of your porno star girlfriend and get caught by a cameraman in a flat over the road with a long lens. If you are going to go down (pun intended) then best to go down in flames. He gets sacked by his football club who terminate his contract and kiss goodbye to a £16,000,000 asset (not to worry though, the owner of the club drops that down the back of his sofa). They think that he will not see the green of a football pitch for a good year or so and visualise a very large, very hefty book being thrown at their former charge by the FA. He gets seven months and his former club issue a statement saying the punishment is to lenient. Maybe they were ruing the decision to tear up his contract so quickly. The swiftness with which the club claimed the moral high ground made me a little suspicious. They had called for Mutu to be target-tested by the FA because they thought he was using recreational drugs. I would like to know how long they sat on their suspicions before grassing him up to the authorities and the dope-testers? Does this make them guilty also. He must have played some games, even for the reserves, whilst under suspicion? Should they have not acted immediately on the suspicions they had and got him tested pronto?
So we have the radio phone-ins and there is always one who will ring up and trot out the old "role-model" chesnut. I find this staggering. If footballers are role-models to the youth of today then we will be in a sorry state in about twenty years. Even the most literate of footballers, for example Michael Owen, cannot string a sentence together without every sentence being littered with "you know...eeer...you know" and the England captain is a mumbling, semi-illiterate who throws the usual cliches out of the side of his mouth. I think that the players are role-models whilst they are on the pitch. As soon as they are off it I don't think kids are interested. They can aspire to do a few Joe Cole tricks or a Thierry Henry back heel and even a Robert Pires tumble in the box. The more impressionable kids may even aspire to the flash car, Prada suit and stupid haircut but developing an interest in drugs because one or two footballers have been caught at it?? Don't make me laugh. I reckon you could interview every under-12 going to a game at Stamford Bridge and ask them what they think of Mr Mutu's nocturnal habits and I reckon 99% will tell you that taking drugs is a bad thing if you want to be a footballer. I believe the other 1% will be future candidates for the England captaincy.