BfB

Matthew Kilgallon joined Bradford City on a one year deal from Blackburn Rovers bringing a level of excitement to some supporters at the end of a summer where things at Bradford City fell apart and were put back together again.

The usefulness of Kilgallon’s recruitment will be seen in time. He and Nathaniel Knight-Percival joi in the central defensive position and Nathan Clarke and Rory McArdle remain. This gives Stuart McCall’s Bradford City three or four – depending on your view on Clarke – strong choices to start in the middle of the defence.

At the other end of the pitch things are different and attacking options are thin on the ground. McCall arrived in June to find James Hanson still at the club he had left five years ago but one could argue that Hanson and his colleagues players in attacking positions: Mark Marshall, Paul Anderson, Billy Clarke; need improvements on last season’s performances to be significant.

Teams score goals, not players and while four of those mentioned above could be more creative than converting – the flick down from McArdle’s diagonal ball is an act of creation – none could be said to have created enough.

Tony McMahon’s withdrawal to right back form the right wing – where he spent a season under Phil Parkinson – is a curious move from McCall exactly because it removes the one player in the Bradford City team who excelled in creation last season.

Drop

His name dropped into the preview it is worth acknowledging that Phil Parkinson is going to have more of of an impact on Bradford City 2016/2017 than Stuart McCall will. Parkinson – who of course exited for Bolton Wanderers in June – built as much of a monolith as football allows a manager to create in the modern game at Valley Parade.

Parkinson took his backroom team with him to Bolton and his backroom team – it is reported – took everything they had worked on with them. Once again – just as with the situation a few months prior to Parkinson’s arrival at Valley Parade – the file cabinets that contained scout reports were empty and the structures around a football club were scant.

And it is this way because Parkinson wanted it this way. The former Bradford City manager had had experiences sharing out the power at a football club previously – most notability at Hull City – and found it wanting. Parkinson fought a hard fight against unspecified directors with unspecified roles to make sure that he had some control in every aspect of the footballing side of Valley Parade and he won those fights.

There was no pressure on Parkinson to develop young players and so Stuart McCall arrived to find no young players with first team experience. There was no pressure on Parkinson to create a squad which was sustainable from one season to the next. There was no pressure on Parkinson to develop a squad with resale value until new owners Edin Rahic and Stefan Rupp arrived at the club and – within a few weeks – Parkinson was gone.

Rahic and Rupp arrived to replace Mark Lawn and Julian Rhodes as Bradford City owners and began to talk about a future in which the squad was shaped around recycling the waste product of Premier League academies.

That last statement sounds needlessly dismissive and should not. If one looks at the example of The Chelsea Academy of the last fifteen years one can only think of a single player – John Terry – who was not waste. Millions are spent on players who are discarded for not reaching and elite standard but are able to be turned around and made into useful footballers.

A production line of turnaround players is as close to a business model as the game at lower levels has ever had and one which Rahic and Rupp believe they can benefit from. Clearly the club they bought was an ill fit to achieve that.

Mark Lawn and Julian Rhodes freely admitted that they could see no other way of the club going forward than someone arriving and injecting more money and, as the ultimate result of that paucity of thinking, they were prepared to give Parkinson total control of all football matters.

Which is not to say that Parkinson should not have enjoyed carte blanche to do any or all these things as he sees fit. Parkinson’s methods showed constant year-on-year improvement and perhaps would have continued to do so but without the manager ceding some control they would not have aligned with the owners.

Parkinson used many short term contracts, and Parkinson used many loan signings, and Parkinson was not entirely interested in developing young players, and if the club are now interested in long term permanent signings of young players then it starts from a negative position.

Which is a long way of saying that the 2016/17 season – the first post-Parkinson season – is defined by the decision taken by Rhodes and Lawn to allow Parkinson to be the entire centre of the footballing side of Bradford City. There was no institutional retention of knowledge – the scouting cupboard was bare – and that is the result of choices made before June 2016, not after.

Five

Phil Parkinson’s final finish for Bradford City was fifth in League One and it is that which – rightly or wrongly – Stuart McCall will be measured against in the next twelve months as will Parkinson at Bolton Wanderers.

Both measurements could be unfair. For Parkinson his record of first season success is thin and the Trotters would be better to be prepared to wait.

For McCall he is a manager who started late and without structures which are necessary. McCall has not walked into a Southampton where the manager is an appendage to a well run system. He is at a club which – both rightly and wrongly – allowed itself to be defined by its manager and who has now gone.

There is much work to do to replace Parkinson and while Rahic has an idea of the shape that he would like the club to take in the long term there is no reason at all to believe that any of the work ahead of McCall, Chief Scout Greg Abbott, James Mason or Edin Rahic can be achieved without any negative effect on performance.

That Bradford City that finished fifth last season is gone and progress must now be judged anew.

These are unfamiliar times.

With all due respect to Millwall FC

Dear Mister Mourinho,

Allow me to start, Mister Mourinho, by saying let us be thankful that any fourth round tie between Bradford City and Chelsea will be played at Stamford Bridge.

I arrived in this part of West Yorkshire in biting cold, and watched a game on a wet pitch which cut badly under foot. Mister Mourinho, if you want to avoid the same, you will try beat this Bradford City within one game.

The weather aside I do not envy the man who was sent to watch Blackpool beat Millwall 1-0 for I have much to tell you Mister Mourinho and tell you it I shall.

There is much about this Bradford City which you should know

This Bradford City are a which will not be defeated, even in defeat.

Today Mister Mourinho I saw a football injustice when Bradford City were beaten in the last moment of the game by Rochdale Football Club having performed far better than Rochdale Football Club during the course of the game.

That this Bradford City played the game with only ten players was hardly noticeable Mister Mourinho. Indeed often in the game it seemed that Bradford City had played the game with eleven players and Rochdale Football Club had played it with ten, but that was not the case Mister Mourinho.

A player on loan from Sunderland (prob. not play. Gus is like that) in goal for Bradford City was sent off after ten minutes.

What shall we say about the sending off Mister Mourinho? Shall we just say that you would not have found it acceptable were it Thibaut Courtois dismissed for denying a goalscoring opportunity when the striker had run so wide and did not have control of the ball.

You would say Mister Mourinho that it was not denial of a goalscoring opportunity because the striker had run so with and did not have control of the ball. And you would be right Mister Mourinho, although I suspect you would not continence the possibility of being wrong.

And for the striker who were fouled Mister Mourinho I found myself wishing that he, A player called Matthew Done, was to be playing against John in two weeks time. I found myself wishing as he constantly tackled late on defenders who were clearing the ball on Mister Mourinho that he were to try that on John and found myself imagining what John would do in reply.

A note Mister Mourinho. We should be careful if Gavin Ward referees one of our games. Today he allowed a penalty to be scored from a rebound when the taker was in an offside position as the ball was struck. He made mistakes that compounded mistakes. He is a weak and poor Referee and obviously easily influenced and carried away Mister Mourinho. The beautiful game deserves better Mister Mourinho even at this level.

Character

But when reduced to ten players this Bradford City showed character Mister Mourinho which suggested that they were not a team to be taken lightly even with the obvious gap in quality between our side and theirs because that gap in quality would be seen by this Bradford City as another challenge which they would attempt to overcome.

With ten men this Bradford City played cleverly Mister Mourinho keeping the ball well and using their strength at set plays. James Hanson and Jonathan Stead are bustling centreforwards who upset defenders. Hanson wins most balls played into him and that was the case when a free kick was played too deep. Hanson headed it back and Stead headed in an equaliser. Perhaps Mister Mourinho I might suggest that Gary Cahill and John are a suitable pair to play like on like and I do not want to tell you how to do your job Mister Mourinho but I do worry that they may eat Nathan Ake for breakfast.

The supply to Hanson and Stead comes from Billy Knott and Fillipe Morais. Both have previously played for us in their youth.

Knott is a player of constant motion Mister Mourinho and the energy of Bradford City dissipated as he left the field after being the most influential player on the field for long periods of the game. He will make wrong decisions and expend energy needlessly on occasion but between errors he is the agent provocateur.

We must force Billy Knott into mistakes to cloud his judgement Mister Mourinho, rather than allow his head to be clear. Ignoring him is not an option. He is Bradford City’s finest irritant.

Your friend Fillipe

Fillipe Morais I believe you know. He is not the svelt wide player he was but he has a muscle about him and the ability to play intelligent football that shows your own influence Mister Mourinho. He is a player of discipline and has some strength in the tackle. He has expended his game since first you met and seems comfortable in a number of positions. That a local dubbed him The Man-o-War may please you Mister Mourinho, or it may not.

These players are anchored by Garry Liddle who is serviceable in the pass but not as strong in the tackle as a holding midfielder could be. Today his role was to break any play coming through the middle for Rochdale Football Club and he did break any play coming through the middle for Rochdale Football Club.

The defence is strong although Alan Sheehan, who plays at left back ideally but is covering central defence, is a weak point. All four can play the ball effectively long. Mister Mourinho if we stand away and let them play the ball long then they will pick out forwards with accuracy and while we can call this the dark ages of football we must not mistake it as such.

There is a measured control to this Bradford City Mister Mourinho which I cannot stress enough.

A measured control

With ten players remaining on the field for Bradford City Mister Mourinho Liddle was forced to put in the work rate of two players rather than one player and he did put in that level of work as did the other players of Bradford City. If I could underline one thing Mister Mourinho it would be the level of effort which Bradford City perform with and the character they have in their team.

Mister Mourinho we would beat them if we matched that character, and as with today we could expect to beat them as they will be at a disadvantage (numerical today, perhaps more obvious against Chelsea) but we must match that character.

Because, Mister Mourinho, that is the single most impressive thing about this Bradford City. The character which saw them outplay Rochdale Football Club with ten against eleven will see them come back from defeat today to carry on an unlikely promotion push which seems to have little chance of succeeding just as the team have little chance of beating Chelsea if they beat Millwall.

But if something is made of little chances Mister Mourinho it is made by character.

Yours,
The Scout

Stand at the base of the Roman Colosseum and look up and it is hard to imagine the position of the Gladiator and how he was so loathed by the populous.

The Romans considered Gladiators to be the lowest of the low – beneath contempt – and shunned them from society but as they did they venerated them. The digs of Roman sites in England or in Germany and so on and one will find evidence of the fame and adoration associated with those who were successful combatants.

That was life as a Gladiator. They would make a pot for you, the Romans, but they would never invite you for dinner nor afford you anything like the hand of friendship. Perhaps – with some reason – they thought it not worth the effort expected you to be dead tomorrow.

Perhaps in two thousand years there will be a dig that unearths evidence of Lewis Hunt’s time at Bradford City etched onto an urn but one doubts it. It seems that Hunt – who has played nineteen times for City this season – will not play for the club unless he agrees to drop the mechanism in his contract that awards him a new deal should he play twenty games. Peter Jackson has asked him if he does not mind signing a new deal on less money, and his refusal to do so and subsequent ostracisation from the first team squad, was gathered under the term “personal reasons” when that omission was talked about at the weekend.

Hunt moved to City last summer following Peter Taylor from Wycombe Wanderers seemingly set for a season of being the reserve to Simon Ramsden at right back and spending a good few months injured himself. He is 28 and City offered him a year with a year extension should he prove his worth which he obviously has. Having been given that offer, and fulfilled his side of the bargain, there seems to be very little reason why Hunt should agree that he should take less money from the club.

I recognise that Hunt is not everyone’s cup of tea and – like Luke Oliver – his honest endeavours are forever tainted by his association with the previous manager but while the right back is no Cafu he is a League Two player who has done what is asked of him and now has the club wanting to get out of the deal they made with him.

Why should Hunt be treated like this? The answer, seemingly, is because he is a professional footballer and as with his counterpart of ancient Rome is in a position where he is both lionised and loathed. He will be cheered and held to a standard in the arena but outside it he will not be extended the considerations offered to other men.

Football is full of examples of this duality. Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney is talked of as having a responsibly to be a role model (which is most often mentioned when he fails to live up to the standards other set for him, although is an example of how he is lionised) but when he does something that anyone else would take as a right and negotiates the best financial deal for himself he is greeted with a public reaction which says he has not the right to do so, or that if he does he should not avail himself of it.

John Terry is similarly lionised but is not afforded the right to a private life which those who do laud him take for granted. Sol Campbell expected to take any abuse given to him because of his “interactions” with this lionisation culture. That we have got to this situation where we will have a poster of a footballer up on the wall but would not invite one into the house is a comment on society rather than the game itself but in that situation we are and the results of it are manifest at clubs around the country.

Players are treated as disposable by clubs. They are to do what they are to excel when they are wanted and quietly disappear when they are not. When they are being courted by a club then they are made promises which – when they are not – they are expected to accept will be broken.

I believe that there is a competitive advantage to be gained by bringing together a stable squad on contracts of a good length rather than replacing them on a yearly basis. That when Lewis Hunt leaves he will be replaced with a player of similar abilities who is less settled, and that will effect his ability to put in a performance, and so underperformance continues. That is a side issue, but the last half a dozen years have shown how single season contract perform on the whole.

Lewis Hunt made a deal with the club and fulfilled his end of it. The club do not want to fulfil their side of it and by withdrawing him from the match day squad do not have to but it makes me uncomfortable to see by club putting pressure on a player to let them break the deal.

Outside of the game this would be condemned as highly questionable behaviour by any business but the footballer – as with the Gladiator – suffers from being loathed as much as he is lionised.

There was a public clamour to discover the detail of the crime that saw Jake Speight convicted of assault and so the lower end of the tabloid press responded and laid out in grisliness the other side of the story.

Dig out the story if you want. I think – with some personal experience – that stories of domestic assault are are horrible enough without the needless tone of an article like this but obviously The Daily Star’s editors feel that there is a need to egg the pudding describing the victim as “Stunning”.

If the article changes your level of sympathy or empathy for the victim, if it makes you think more about the need to take action against Speight, then you need to take a long, hard look at yourself.

And the question asks: Does it matter?

The reaction to the article has been a return of the debate between fans as to whether Speight should be sacked with people believing that there should be no place at the club for someone who behaves as the new signing has done and others attesting to the idea that player’s personal lives are away from the game and that in effect aside from missing a week of training his assault simply does not matter.

Does not matter that is as much as his capacity to score goals and be a part of a winning Bradford City side. It is hard not to have some agreement with this point of view when considering the recent history of this football club. If what matters about Bradford City is not the merciless pursuit of wins then why are we four months down the line from firing Stuart McCall as manager? The club was much nicer with our favourite player in charge.

If the aim of Bradford City is to be a collective of people who you are proud to applaud onto the field and think would probably like to share a beer with you then what was the purpose for anyone of removing the most beloved figure in the club’s history? If we want a Bradford City full of nice guys then why is Wayne Jacobs criticised for being “too nice.”

The past six months have seen a definitive statement made by a section of the supporters and by the club itself that winning football matches is more important than almost any other concern. Should Speight start to score goals then – one is forced to assume – he will win around the people who pushed so hard to see McCall ousted from the club because nothing matters more than winning games.

Indeed some would point to Speight – who has been tried and convicted – having a right to carry on his life and career on the basis of his application and ability rather than his past. You can, dear reader, take a view on that but we need not debate it again on these pages.

Why do we think we know footballers?

The counter opinion is that that Speight should not be allowed to wear a Bradford City shirt because he is to be considered unworthy of such distinction brings us to a more uncomfortable truth and one which sits at the heart of football supporting.

As football supporters the common ideal is that – with the odd exception – were we to meet the footballers we cheer on the field we would probably enjoy their company off it, what is more they would enjoy ours.

In the back of his mind the football supporter has a belief that were he to be in a pub on the Saturday night next to the player he watches on a Saturday afternoon then he could share a thought and talk over the game. Confuse this not with sycophancy – this is not about hero worship – but rather the idea that there would be an automatic magnetism between player and supporters because they were concerned with the same passions: Football, and the club.

Not only that but without evidence to the contrary we assume that the footballer is probably a good bloke. We think he will be someone we find likeable because – after all – we like him. We look at how the game is played by the footballers we like and from that infer a set of characteristics which find admirable.

We decide that James Hanson is a solid, hard working lad with Roy of the Rovers dreams in his head and stars in his eyes now he has been given a chance to play in the big leagues. I’ve never met him but he might be an utterly insufferable man bloated with egotism at his own achievements however I’ve seen his play from that feel I have some connection to him. That I somehow know him.

So when it emerges that the footballer is not what we would have thought he would be we are robbed of our disillusion – even if we have rarely given them serious thought or fantasy – and for some people that perceived betrayal is unforgivable. I’ve never met John Terry and I’m not the sort given to indulging the kind of inference of character I talk about above but some people are and those people found the revelations about him to be almost a personal slight.

How well do you know John Terry?

To some people it was as if Terry had put up a front to them, pretending to be an all round nice guy and good bloke, and that because they knew him through his game when he turned out to be a bit of a shit they we outraged by the duplicity of the man. How dare he pretend to be the thing I want him to be only to prove he is not?

All along John Terry has always been John Terry and while he might not want the world to know about it because of the effect on his lucrative sponsorship deals and his personal privacy it is our inference as football supporters watching him play that has afforded him that status. All along he has been a bit of a git but the fact that he kicked a ball around well created – in the mind of fans – the persona of “JT The Great Guy.”

Confuse this not too with the idea of idols and Gods with feet of clay. This is not a situation where we find a hidden truth where previously we had some knowledge but rather one where we find only a truth where before we had assumption.

Smarter footballers are able to manage their public persona in a way that hides any negative traits in the same way that actors such as Leonardo DiCaprio are able to spend years ensuring that they do as little as possible which anyone might find objectionable in order to allow the public to project onto them some positive characteristics. Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise saw their stars dim when the public started to see too much of their own shapes, taking away the forms they were ale to afford them themselves.

The uncomfortable truth at the heart of football supporting is that the chances are that were we to be given the chance to have that drink with a player then we would probably not like them. We would try talk about the club, about the game and they would have different passions, different interests. They might even find us odd. For various reasons few players are as interested in football as supporters are and – like Benoît Assou-Ekotto who plays for Spurs and represented Cameroon in the World Cup – sees the game just as his day job.

When we are presented with a story like Jake Speight’s assault then it becomes clear that some footballers might be down right objectionable (or they may not be, again I’ve never met Speight so have only mediated and assumed lore to make a judgement on) then this distance between what we would want a player to be and what they actually are is brought into sharp focus.

And so, to personal matters

Some years ago I was out in Leeds in the aftermath of City’s 3-1 win over Portsmouth in which Lee Sharpe had had a rare great game and bumped into the player in The Courthouse. Without going into details let it be known that Sharpe was not enthusing about football or his performance – not that he should be, it was his night out too – and following that night the BfB policy of trying to avoid matters off the pitch fermented.

In the eight years since I have lost track of the number of emails which I’ve received which detail the transgressions of various players as detailed by City fans the majority of whom were some how disgruntled by an encounter with a player.

Recently and most benignly Barry Conlon was “outed” as liking a drink and not really being that bothered about the club as if the man who had at that point had twelve clubs in ten years should be a teetotal dyed in the wool Bantam. Every year one sees a dozen or so players come or go from Valley Parade and to expect them all to care about the club as deeply as a support does is unrealistic to the point of madness. Opinion was divided on Conlon but – from this corner of the web – it was given on the basis of what he did on the field and not an expectation that he should be as interested in Bradford City as a supporter.

Nicky Summerbee was vilified following an exchange with City fans who thought he should care more – or like Omar Daley appear to care more – but to demand the commitment of fans such from hired hands is setting oneself up for a fall. On Summerbee and Daley and all others who seem to not – and indeed probably don’t – care as much as fans then again one looks at the performance on the field rather than judging them against some perceived idea of the player who cares as much as the fan. This is not the fifties, and there is only one Wor Jackie.

When City signed Gavin Grant mails came in talking about the player and repeating things which have since turned up in court and BfB was once again left with questions as to how to talk about a player who was scary in his deviation from what supporters would want him to be. What can one do in that position when talking about football other than just talk about football?

Supporters have expectations of players and it is not for me to say if the expectation that Jake Speight be an model citizen is appropriate enough on a personal basis is a healthy thing or not but I will say that anyone anyone who expects footballers to be in life what they are in the mental fiction we build around them is going to be disappointed. As my brother is so fond of saying “(I) hate everything about football apart from the football.”

At BfB we try to talks about the club on the basis of what happens on the pitch and – even in a case as trying as Jake Speight – we will continue to try to do so.

One which beats Germany, obviously, but in the last two weeks the England team has been questioned and answered those questions on the field with a good performance that deserved more than the 1-0.

The adjectives directed at England after the win over Slovenia were muted in comparison to those tagged to the team when playing poorly. Most of these can be crossed off against each other with every “Worst. Team. Ever” being the opposite of “World Beaters” and cancelling each other out.

What we are left with though are comments like “overpaid” and “arrogant” of which there is are no counter-balances. After beating Slovenia no one said that the players earned their wages, that they seemed humble, that they were good value for money.

Which paints the picture of the England side we have. It is considered arrogant and over paid but as long as it does not under perform then we tend to be happy enough. Outside of World Cup years – and in the cases of clubs like Manchester United inside them too – no one much cares about the England side on a day to say basis. As long it can harbour optimism while the club sides wend their way on then everyone seems content.

Content but not happy. John Terry’s life over the last year has not be plain sailing either in or away from football. His tabloid exposure earlier cast him low and he had the England captaincy taken from him but he won the league and cup double with Chelsea and his rehabilitation was enhanced as he dove headlong for a face-tackle to put England into the second round.

While John Terry was putting his head in the way of the ball Wayne Bridge was at home counting his money. Not hard to see why Terry is coming back to the national heart, if not being held close.

Alas though the nation seems set to keep England away from its heart – the place where Cheryl and not Ashley Cole is, the place where Gary Lineker was and Wayne Rooney might hope to be – and continue with the adjectives.

Arrogant, over-paid, under-performing. The England side hold the same position in our culture that Gladiators held in Ancient Rome. They were cheered and lauded whilst being loathed and looked down upon. We are invited to look at laugh at Mr and Mrs Rooney and the gaucheness of their lifestyle but he is expected to perform for our delight and be a target for our anger.

Perhaps then – as Fabio Capello takes his team to play the Germans and hyperbole awaits regardless of the result – it is worth considering what kind of England team the national heart would want to see.

Firstly there is the count of being arrogant which would be easily solved by the FA adopting a behavioural code which would cover anything considered to be “unbecoming of an England player”. This code would be as changeable as the charge of “bringing the game into disrepute” but in essence a group of men in a room at the FA would pass judgement on the play and lives of the England squad.

So John Terry would be out – conduct unbecoming of an England player – and most probably Rooney would be too as a result of his fiery temper in Manchester United games. Frank Lampard left his wife for a younger woman and would no doubt also be guilty of conduct unbecoming of an England player should there be a sense of moral outrage and perhaps too so would Ashley Cole for his reported womanising.

A moral stand to render the squad of humble – or at least strike of those who are not – and as a result the quality of the side would suffer but the national heart would have a team it could invite round to tea.

Ridding England of the idea that the players are overpaid is tougher but not impossible. If we take the idea that £30,000 is a reasonable wage for a man on the street who is doing well and multiple that figure by four for the lifespan of a footballer then the FA simply make a decision that no player who earns more than £120,000 a year – £2,300 a week – can be picked for the England squad.

Pretty much all of the senior Premiership and the Championship players would be ruled out of representing for the Three Lions and to be honest a few of the clubs at the top of League One would probably pay more than that but probably half the way down the third tier of English football one would find no shortage of people who fancied paying for England – provided they behaved – and would be immune to the idea that they are over-paid.

One could add to that a good few young players from the top two divisions too and one would have an England side which – along with the behaviour rules – would be well behaved and paid what would be considered a fair wage and thus be immune to those criticisms. They would probably also be immune to World Cup qualification too with the majority of sides in Europe taking their players from the leagues we would ignore.

Nevertheless there would be a kind of glory in watching the honourable side battling to finish above Wales or Northern Ireland – who would provide good examples of the quality of squad we would have – and as a bonus the FA could offer centralised contracts which would allow them to loan these players to clubs and take them back for lengthier England meet ups.

The team would be unrecognisable but it would be free from the criticism of being paid too much, being too arrogant or under-performing although that would be largely because it would not be expected to perform nor would it have the capabilities to. Most games would have the feel of the third round of the FA Cup and any point would be hard won. Performances could be good, better than the sum of the parts, but it is highly unlikely the side would even get to a play-off for the World Cup.

Victory is the key – victory in qualifying, in friendlies, in the World Cup – and the accusation of under-performing will continue should these victories not be frequent. The English play Germany on Sunday and punditry has it that after that we will play Argentina and then Brazil which represent the only three teams in the World the English side are allowed to lose to, and only in the case of penalties with the Germans.

Everyone else England must beat or be under-performing so high are expectations although meeting those expectations. The glorious exit or – perhaps – the victory and we answer the question “What type of England team do we want?” saying “This one, for all the faults.”

Before the days of frustration seemed to overwhelm English football in the mid-1990s when the clichés of losing to the Germans and overpaid players under performing started to loom large in the popular mindset there were two World Cups in which are said to have excelled.

I recall them as halcyon days myself. Whatever I will say about my parents I will never criticise the slap dash attitude to bedtime that meant that unlike many of my schoolmates I was allowed to stay up until two or three in the morning watching as much of the Mexican World Cup of 1986 as I liked and saw everything up to and beyond The Hand Of God.

When the Italian World Cup of 1990 came around I’d finished my GCSEs the aforementioned parents were on holiday in Bulgaria and I had nothing to do in the summer except watch football. They were glorious days that ended in Rome, on penalties, with Gazza’s tears and Sir Bobby’s clenched fist of regret.

If only, it seemed to say.

Those days are recalled as a silver age by England FC. Not Moore and co in 1966 at Wembley but the next best thing with unfair exits at the heart of the mythology of both. A far cry from Fabio and a team which struggled to put three passes together in a row in South Africa.

Perhaps not. In 1986 the English started against Portugal – do not let the name scare you these were a third rate European nation then – and a win was expected but did not come. Indeed I can recall clearly seeing the ball sweep in from the close side and be finished untidily at far post by a rather portly looking chap with a moustache. England had threatened in the game I recall but ended with nothing at all.

Then came Morocco – a place that at the time I associated more with a cartoon Mole than football – who were the minnows of the group a fact illustrated by the way that they had two players to a sticker in the Panini album.

The minutia of the game – played in the early hours – eludes me but the major moments are burnt into the mind. Bryan Robson – who was a one of a kind player in his day – went off injured clutching the shoulder Sir Bobby Robson had begged Manchester United to allow him three months off to have an operation to fixed and about five minutes later Ray Wilkins was sent off for what some might call throwing the ball at the Referee although others would say that were the round thing to have hit a snail on the way to the man in the middle then it would have stopped so weak was the hurl, clearly not a red card offence but a red card was given.

I remember half time in our house but only when I’m talking to my therapist.

One point from two games and England where nowhere. The fans who had paid to go to Mexico were demanding that the FA or even the Thatcher Government pay for them to get home and most certainly for for Sir Bobby Robson to be sacked. Having failed to qualify for Euro 84 it seems that Bobby – or Booby Robson as he was christened back then – and England would part company not long after.

Peter Beardsley was thrown into the side and Gary Lineker got a hat-trick against Poland and then the rest soon became a glorious history that does not record the pressure that Robson resisted that would have had him take the ageing Trevor Francis over Beardsley nor does it recall how and why Robson arrived on his pairing of the two, of deploying the uniquely useful Steve Hodge to do the running with Glenn Hoddle did not.

Robson – Sir Bobby – found his team after two games because his plans had to change.

Four years later Robson was a dead man walking. He had handed in his resignation from England and in the run up to the finals had been exposed as having an affair. Euro 88 had been woeful with England losing all three games and the pressure had told on the England manager.

The opening game saw Gary Lineker give England a good start with a scruffy goal but Jack Charlton’s Irish side ground the game down into an unattractive slug fest in a nasty wind and the game finished 1-1. A week later and during a 0-0 draw with Holland which saw England put in a good display also saw Bryan Robson once again be injured out a tournament.

The quality of that Dutch performance is understated and a strike from Stuart Pearce bulged the goal but was ruled out for being struck from an indirect free kick but there was a confidence that came from that display in 1990 which can not be said to be here in 2010.

Nevertheless there are three commonalities. Firstly that England had two draws in the group from the first two games and secondly that neither Robson nor Capello’s side had been behind at any point. Lineker and Steven Gerrard gave leads which were pulled back in the first games before goalless draws in the second.

Thirdly after two games – and to use a phrase which became popularised after the semi-final which resulted – the players went to the manager and “had a word”

The England players had decided that the team – as it was – lacked fluidity being a 442 with Peter Shilton in behind Paul Parker, Terry Butcher, Des Walker and Pearce; Paul Gascoigne and Steve McMahon partnered in the middle of flank pair John Barnes and Chris Waddle; Lineker and Beardsley up front. They told Robson that they wanted to move to a three at the back formation – adding Mark Wright – which would allow Parker and Pearce more freedom.

The machinations of the change are lost in football history. Butcher was injured when Wright played and scored against Eygpt but by the time the second round make with Belgium took place and David Platt scored his king-making late goal England had switched formation away from Robson’s choice to what the players wanted. That flexibility proved the making from the man to the legend.

England’s players enjoy a full and frank discussion with Fabio Capello enjoying the full public backing of his captain John Terry – who we recall got nothing of the sort from his International manager – who it is said are keen to see the Italian change from the 442 which has brought him so many honours to a 433 that includes Joe Cole on the left of a three up front.

It remains to be seen the results of such a suggestion. Sir Bobby Robson was able to be flexible to the needs of the matches ahead of him and the demands of the squad and in letting the players make the decision for him he signed over an ownership of the team to them. Invested in the selection perhaps Robson made the result matter more to his players because they felt more of an authorship of the team.

Perhaps the spirit of Sir Bobby – involved in advertising this World Cup – comes in the manager handing over some responsibilities inside the camp to his players? Capello’s high-handedness is a long way from that put very much what was wanted after “Stevie and Frank” and the regime of McLaren which was seen as too close to the players. Often the solution to the last problem becomes the current problem.

Indeed it remains to be seen how these first two games of the 2010 World Cup will be recalled. Portugal and Marocco, Ireland and Holland are but footnotes in bigger stories and it is not so much the result of the meeting, but the match on Wednesday and any that follow it which will dictate how Capello’s story is to be told.

Don’t send me flowers when I’m dead. If you like me, send them while I’m alive – Brian Clough

Search Facebook on Wednesday afternoon and you would find the group We Hate Keith Alexander

Football did not come to a sobering halt with the news of the death at 53 of Macclesfield Town manager Keith Alexander and perhaps did not even skip a beat but rolled on to watching England beat Egypt with the players wearing black armbands and Clive Tyldesley waxing lyrical about a man who’s team one doubts he could place on a map.

The booing of John Terry went on regardless, clubs like Farsley Celtic – the very type of low level club that as a player and manager Alexander served so diligently – continued to struggle to keep going, the people at the “We Hate…” group carried on swearing and being obnoxious. For all the shock and sadness of the death of an iconoclast manager football did not miss a beat, and that is a shame.

Alexander is lauded in death, but hardly appreciated. Tyldesley called him the type of man who is so important to football at the lower levels but is part of the very machine that tries to grind out that level of the game. Alexander’s death is shocking, but his work in life was no doubt sadly frustrating.

A man who gave his life to a the levels of game which seems prepared to allow that level to wither and die. Hardly an appreciation.

Gareth Evans will show appreciation. Evans credits Alexander with helping turn his career around at Macclesfield following his release from Manchester United and indeed it is over a tackle by Evans that the “We Hate…” group emerged.

The group – started by those lovely Notts County supporters – is hardly unique indeed the very discussion of football seems to be conducted by a not insignificant section of fans in this kind of hateful, disturbing way. A search for “Stuart McCall” turns up groups like “stuart mccall’s a ****” and “I HAT (sic) BRADFORD CITY AND STUART MCCALL BUMS DAVID WETHERALL” alongside calls for the former City boss to be given the job of Prime Minister.

Why is it that a section of football is so ready to communicate in such hateful terms? Mark Lawn considers this so much of a problem on Bradford City’s official message board that he wants to take steps against it by removing the anonymity of that site although the Facebook experience suggests that that will not be a total remedy.

Indeed as tributes were pouring in about Alexander some England fans at Wembley were booing and jeering John Terry who has been the subject of shocking abuse as football continues the culture that allows abuse to sit alongside criticism as if the two are natural bedfellows, leading to a suggestion that the one will bleed into the other.

BfB was asked to not criticise Mark Lawn and – when the joint chairman’s car was vandalised after the Accrington Stanley game – there was a suggestion that (what I consider to be very valid) criticism by one person becomes abuse by another that becomes violence.

This week a reader asked that the site not “fall into the trap of criticising Taylor after two weeks” following a news story about Scott Neilson going out on loan while Gavin Grant comes in and in a welcome and friendly exchange I details how Taylor will be criticised when he does things that people do not like – such as bringing in too many loan players, a continued bugbear of mine – and praised when he does things that people consider right such as switching back to 442 or retaining Wayne Jacobs.

No one need create a “We Hate Peter Taylor Group” because of it and no one has to vandalise a car.

Football culture has a continued problem with the inability to separate criticism from abuse and perhaps if we want to pay tribute to the memory of Keith Alexander we might look at how servants of the game such as he are regularly the subject of abuse which is as disturbing when he was alive as it is now he has passed on and see what we can do to change that.

Should the FA want to pay tribute to Alexander they might also look at the state of lower league football and the finances that sees Sheffield Wednesday – no one’s idea of a small fry club – the latest team to be talking about administration. The gold rush of the Premier League seems to be coming to an end and the clubs involved seem to have frittered away that wealth and perhaps there needs to be redress in show the money is distributed that would give managers like Alexander more of an even hand. A wider discussion for another time.

The abuse of managers and the struggles of club’s to stay in business comes to the fore when Bradford City face a team managed by Ronnie Moore. Moore had wanted City to be thrown out of football for going into administration but has since, no doubt, revised a view that would have seen his current club Rotherham United bounced out of the game.

I think Moore’s view was out of touch, unsympathetic and needlessly harsh but I understand the frustrations he had in trying to sign players and being outbid by the Bantams and feel that football could have learnt from that. Indeed City were out-offered by The Millers for Paul Shaw,Pablo Mills and – later – Nicky Law Jnr which suggests that even the smaller points Moore made have been ignored.

Rotherham are smarting from a 4-0 defeat at Rochdale in the week and have slipped to fifth from the lofty position Mark Robbins took the club to at the start of the season. The Miller’s Don Valley Stadium has seen only seven wins this season – two or three fewer than their promotion rivals – and seems to be as unwelcoming for the “home” support as it is for the visitors. The place is bitterly cold and the pitch not good for playing football on.

Not that that will stop Peter Taylor’s strong men at the front with the Bantams playing an increasingly air based game. Mark McCammon – who turned down Rotherham to join City – and James Hanson can expect the ball to come direct and to look for wide men Gareth Evans and Luke O’Brien for lay-offs to allow for delivery. Goals from under five passes are the order of the day, especially on pitches like the Don Valley.

Scott Neilson’s loan move to Cambridge United is a strange one. His replacement – Gavin Grant, who made a debut at Aldershot and was himself subject to abuse from his new supporters – is a non-contract player and should he wish can leave Bradford City whenever he wants. Neilson cannot return to the club for a month regardless and one has to wonder why the experience that is given from playing for the Bantams should be given to Grant and not to Neilson.

Peter Taylor wants Neilson to get some first team games but leaves him out of our first team. As a player he is obviously capable and has shown us such. The instability the club has been put into is underlined by the idea that one of the squad could simply wander away at the drop of a hat.

Michael Flynn and Lee Bullock both had chances to get an equaliser against Aldershot in the week and were unlucky not to do so. The pair can point back to the 4-2 defeat at Valley Parade earlier this season as proof that they have been able to boss a midfield against the Millers – goals scored from wherever you want, or offside, are not proof of a good midfield – and should prepare for battle. For all Nicky Law’s abilities “getting stuck in” was not one of them.

At the back Luke Oliver – all six foot seven of him – is expected to make a debut in the place of Matthew Clarke with Steve Williams retaining his place. Robbie Threlfall and Simon Ramsden continue in front of Matt Glennon.

The bump to Earth of the opening day of the season 5-0 defeat to Notts County may have shaped the Bantams season but in eighteen days time the result may be wiped off the records.

The saga at Meadow Lane has rumbled all season with some great results on the field not being matched off it. The Munto Group turn out to be smoke and mirrors, Sol Campbell making a cameo, Peter Trembling buying the club for £1 and promising funding which never appeared.

Trips to the County Court to avoid winding up orders are far more common than one might have thought for a club that cherry picked the quality of the division at the start of the season and at the moment the club are subject to a HMRC 28 day settlement requirement. Ten days in and the proposed investments are still ethereal appearing in the mist but vaporising when attempted to be grasped.

Trembling – who now has eighteen days to find enough money to pay the debt to the Tax man as well as pay the £300,000 monthly wage bill – seems no different to most lower league chairmen running from pillar to post to try make ends meet – however – unlike his peers in Leagues One & Two the amounts talked of at County are needlessly large and inflated by greed.

Greed in the form of the way that players were recruited to “the project” – as Sven Goran Erikkson calls it – with Campbell’s recruitment seen as a poster boy for the needless expense. County’s progress to fifth in League Two from that 5-0 is eclipsed by Rochdale’s reported thrifty accent to the top of the division and a reminder to clubs like City who wanted last season to spend big for promotion that gestated teams more than expensive shopping is the better way to progress.

If County cannot find money for the Tax Man in just over two weeks they will apply for administration. A judge will sit and decide if creditors are better served by keeping the club going as an existing concern or if that protection would be a waste of resources. Typically the latter would happen if the cost of running the business – at least £300,000 a month for player wages in The Magpies case – are higher than the revenues which could be raised for creditors. Should it come to that day then Trembling will be hoping that player wages of £1.2m before a player can be sold in the transfer window can be realistically offset by a sale of the assets.

The near 150 year history of a club could come to an end if that judgement goes the wrong way, City’s defeat removed from the records, and football will once again face calls for credible regulation of the game, the owners and the finances.

And those calls will be whispers compared to the screams of this week, and no one will hear them.

I don’t know the number of people who want John Terry removing as England captain and how that has increased since the confirmation that he might be – well – a bit of a git but I’m not one of them.

That is not because I think that Tezza and his wandering eye should be forgiven for his antics that seem set to lead to Wayne Bridge pulling out of his England role of being a reserve to Ashley Cole. It was that role Bridge perfected at Chelsea and one struggles to recall any player who has ever so clearly put being paid over being played. 129 games in the last seven years is a waste of a career and the fact that he has yet to play more games for the clubs who offered him the big money to leave Southampton than he did for the Saints is a damning statistic.

Bridge’s level of ambition aside it is not that Terry’s behaviour should be forgiven it is that I would never have picked him for the England captaincy in the first place. Steven Gerrard is a man who leads on the field, he near single handled won the European Cup one season and to me always seemed an outstanding candidate.

That said Gerrard was involved in a brawl in a bar and while he was cleared of any wrong doing legally had he been England captain would he have been called to account for the company he kept and the fact he was out drinking until the wee small hours? Others talk about Wayne Rooney as a potential England captain. If he had the job would he be required to curb his on field emotional outbursts to stay within the remit of skipper?

The problem with Terry’s role and the position of England captain in general – the position that Red Tops are calling for Terry to lose – is that for all the decrying over how poorly the Chelsea man represents the country neither Terry, England boss Fabio Cappello or the bosses at The FA could point to a job description for the position.

Naturally on a personal level we can all come up with a list of what we consider the most important things for the armband wearer to have and probably the vast majority of them would not include sharking on team mate’s better halves but there is no set of guidelines – as far as we know it – which the FA can point JT at and give him a cast iron reason why he should lose the position.

Should such a job description exist then the same people who are calling for Terry to be hoisted by the yard arm – The Red Tops – would have been the people who when David Beckham was England skipper would have been saying that the position should be all about the results on the field and the winning mentality within the dressing room and nothing about the personalities outside it.

As with the use of nameless “sources close to” Terry while objecting to super-injunctions the media are perfectly prepared to indulge in any double standard to sell newspapers.

Bradford City have had four captains this year: Peter Thorne, Zesh Rehman, Michael Flynn and – on Saturday – Simon Ramsden and most City fans have an idea of who they believe is best suited to the role although it might be worth noting that in Saturday’s 2-1 comeback all four were on the field when the goals went in.

In football leaders are Heaven sent while captains are often titular. Short of putting a rag in Stuart McCall’s mouth Rangers could not have stopped him showing the same leadership he did at City even though other players had the armband. Good teams have many people who are prepared to lead and taking the captain’s role from John Terry will not stop that ability coming through on the field.

Moving forward one suspects that despite the furore of the weekend this story is a seven day wonder and by the time South Africa comes around England will have largely filed John Terry and Wayne Bridge alongside the Steven Gerrard scrap, the Frank Lampard radio phone in and numerous other Earth shattering events that are supposed to have forced action from the national squad but in retrospect hardly wobbled the needle on a Richter Counter.

Moving forward – and before anyone else is given the armband and named England captain – it might be worth a set of guidelines emerging as to what the requirements of an England captain are and what is considered to be outside that remit. If the job is about representing the nation then why remove Beckham from the job? If it is about results then why even discuss Terry’s future?

Until a set of criteria exists that the occupant of the position has to work within then we are going to forever be trying the Captain accused in Kangaroo courts, deciding on an ad hoc basis what we want the job to be.