A s Theresa May has been at pains to stress: Allardyce means
Allardyce. There will be no backsliding, no attempts to weasel out of
the full implications of the Football Association's decision, however
unhappy or depressed with it some people may be. The FA clearly
signalled its intentions with Big Sam's appointment to the big job, and
his predictable tendency to lump along with the status quo must be
delivered upon. Indeed, following the naming of his first squad for
Sunday's World Cup qualifier against Slovakia, that task appears to
already be well under way. Wayne Rooney remains captain, in the No10
role. Furthermore, both Rooney and Allardyce – and the kindly
Manchester United boss, José Mourinho, – believe United's Marcus
Rashford will be much happier in the Under-21s.
These days, we know that any England
manager is essentially managing decline.
That was clear with the appointment of Roy
Hodgson over Harry Redknapp. With Harry,
there would have been hope. Totally
misplaced hope – but hope nonetheless.
And we can't be doing with hope as far as
the England football team are concerned. As the John Cleese character in
Clockwise so rightly observes: "It's not the despair … I can stand the
despair. It's the hope."
There was no such baggage with Roy. It made perfect sense that he had
previously managed Switzerland, a nation with whom we would do well
to accept footballing parity. The Hodgson appointment, I reflected at the
time, was a timely acceptance that England belonged in the twilight
home of international football (we had long belonged in the twilight
home of international politics). We'd had a good innings, but it was high
time to have a rug tucked round our knees and settle down to a nice game
of draughts with Switzerland.
If appointing Hodgson was the equivalent of voluntarily giving up our
seat on the UN security council on the basis that we obviously hadn't
been a world power for yonks, Allardyce seemed to be the perfect
continuity successor. The Big Sam appointment was the equivalent of
saying: "Yes, we finally accept that we wouldn't be allowed to use our
nuclear weapons unless the Americans ordered us to, and that is why we
are unilaterally disarming." I had a lot of time for it.
Unfortunately, there seems to be some raging against the dying of the
light in the more obscure reaches of the Wembley executive suite. This
time last year, we learned that 100 FA staff were to lose their jobs in a
restructuring and reprioritising exercise. The FA chief executive, Martin
Glenn, spoke of "the ultimate ambition of resourcing our elite England
teams to give them the best chance of success at tournaments". Strong
words, and almost decipherable.
Perhaps more flesh has now been put on their bones by Allardyce, who
used his press conference this week to reveal the existence of an
intriguing-sounding FA department. Its job: sourcing foreign players
who might be eligible to play for England. "We have a department to
look at the whole situation," he declared, "in all areas for every [age
range] international team." All the other sports do it, he said, and all the
other countries. "We all know the shortage of English players in the
Premier League," Allardyce observed. "I think it is only 31%. If those
don't play on a regular basis and there is another option then, surely, if
we are going to win something and that player is of the calibre to force
his way into the side, we give him an opportunity."
Aha. Having tried the foreign manager approach, we will be now trialling
the foreign player approach. At some level, you have to admire the front
of the FA, which has spent years whingeing about the problem of the
shortage of English players in the Premier League. Still, if you can't beat
'em, join 'em.
Even so, I can't help thinking there could be
no more auto-satirical department at this
stage of Britain's post-imperial journey
than one dedicated to confecting
Englishmen. Ironywise, it ranks alongside
Nigel Farage's solution to the problem of
Britain not having any qualified trade negotiators to handle Brexit. "I'm
told we haven't got the skills," Nigel conceded. " So let's headhunt them.
Let's get them from Singapore, from Asia …" Or, you know … Europe?
They've got loads there.
Whether they've got any talented youngsters who'd rather play for us
than some other European country is unclear – perhaps, like Adnan
Januzaj, they'd rather play for Belgium or even Kosovo. It's almost as if
people no longer take as gospel the words of cuddly old Cecil Rhodes:
"Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first
prize in the lottery of life." Remember that you are an Englishman, and
will consequently go out in the last 16. You might want to try Iceland or
something instead.
Anyway, Big Sam is pretty sure that it won't matter so much when the
pretend English chap propels us to triumph. "It's a very difficult, very
delicate subject. I'll have to see if I actually do it one day how it's
perceived across the nation. If the player goes out and scores the winner,
will it be quite that bad?"
Answers to the FA's department of international outreach, please.
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