You can shout at Rob Shepherd by joining his online forum on Sunday between 11am and noon. He'll be discussing all the weekend's big talking points and you can tell him what you think of the FA Cup Final.
ROO'S BRIDE, OUR GLOOM
“FOR a while we couldn’t make any plans because I didn’t know whether I would be playing in Euro 2008.
“Had England got through we would have married later on in the summer but that meant we wouldn’t have had a honeymoon, so I guess there is an upside to it.”
That’s what Wayne Rooney was quoted as saying in December.
An upside? Maybe for you, mate, but for the rest of us the next three weeks will be tough.
The second biggest tournament in world football and no England.
Sinking in now, isn’t it? No England. No St George flags. No bunting outside buzzing pubs. No barbecues. No bloody England.
Absence
I doubt it was his intention but the timing of Rooney’s love match in Portofino next Saturday could not have been worse.
Maybe some PR guru reckoned a football nation denied seeing Rooney at Euro 2008 might be compensated by an obscenely expensive kitsch wedding on the very day England, not Russia, should be playing Greece.
For me, it only serves to intensify the pain of England’s absence. At the same time it will throw light on a root cause of our no-show.
The cult of celebrity, with a magazine paying £1.5m for wedding photos, seems more important for players than producing the goods for their country. It’s certainly more lucrative.
I’m not saying Rooney (above) should not get married just because England didn’t qualify. But why not last week?
Instead, salt was rubbed into the wounds when he and his pals were raving it up on a marathon stag week in Ibiza while the rest of Europe’s top footballers were working their nuts off in a training camp.
Our players should be keeping their heads down at the moment.
Instead, despite their rehearsed rhetoric of being “gutted” not to be there, they don’t really seem to give a toss. It wasn’t all Steve McClaren’s fault, you know.
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Roman is a clown
THE Chelsea managerial succession is a circus.
Here’s a solution. Roman Abramovich becomes manager and picks the team but persuades coach Steve Clarke to stay and do the nitty gritty on the training ground and from the bench.
It’s called cutting out the middle man.
Well, it almost worked last season.
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It's up to you, Gazza
TERRY VENABLES deserves praise for his forthright message to Paul Gascoigne over his obsessive drinking.
What a pity family and so-called friends have been less forthcoming over the years.
But the bottom line, Gazza, is that the only person who can help you is YOU.
As an English patriot I'm relieved that England aren't at Euro 2008. If you thought Sven's England were a tedious, feeble embarrassment, imagine instead the thrilling football of McClaren's Boro but projected onto a global stage. But I agree McClaren is a symptom rather than the disease. I refer you to a radio 5 interview with Brian Barwick last week. When asked how he thought he'd done as FA chief: 'I think I've done rather well' he chortled. Yes marvellous Brian, more pudding?
As for Abramovich, apparently he's distressed about Chelsea's poor image, failing to see the cause is staring at him in the mirror. Football must be the least self-aware place on the planet.
Posted by: tracey | June 08, 2008 at 01:46 AM | Report this comment
What about NUFC hiking Platinum Club Tickets 28.25% this coming season,can any other club beat that? This is an absolute scandal for a club who have not won a domestic trophy for 53 seasons and continue toi employ dross ( one currently at HMP earning £60k p/w).
All comments welcome
Posted by: Rob Heslop | June 15, 2008 at 11:33 AM | Report this comment