England appoint Aidy Boothroyd U20s boss. Hope springs eternal, eh?

Boothroyd: new Eng U20 boss. This is not a joke.
Well, that's debatable actually...

Some days you wonder if anybody even turns up for work at the FA. I have visions of a solitary, fusty chap in his eighties steadfastly manning the ship – replying to letters, making a few decisions, pottering away quite happily in a small office in Soho Square. We'll call him George...

[dream sequence]

George quietly bumbles about his business undisturbed most days. Occasionally Trevor Brooking pops in with a ham and mustard sandwich, scratches his head as if not knowing what to do, before leaving again with a baffled expression an hour later. That's unless there's a showpiece game coming up, when a load of haircuts in fancy suits suddenly rock up claiming they've been "working from home".

But most days George is on his tod. He's been told he can bring in an office temp if he wants, but he doesn't like to be a bother, plus that would mean fixing that new-fangled computer whatchamacallit. The old thing hasn't worked since 1997. A dusty Encarta CD-Rom lies next to it, long since repurposed as a drinks mat and covered in coffee rings.

Recently a letter arrived from Gareth Southgate's agent, which George opened, in which it became apparent that Southgate wanted to appoint a new manager for England's Under-20 side. "Under-20s?" thought George? "I don't think we have an Under-20 side. Perhaps he means Under-21s. I'd best give him a quick tinkle and check."

The phone rings and goes through to Southgate's agent, Ashley Woolfe.

"Good afternoon Mr Woolfe. I'm calling with regards to your letter about Gareth wanting to appoint a new member of coaching staff. I just wanted to check if there'd been an administrative error. Your letter discusses the matter of Gareth appointing a manager for the Under-20 side. But we don't have an Under-20s, as far as I'm aware."

"Actually George, turns out you do. I must admit it came as a surprise to Gareth when he found out about it last week. It would appear that other countries have been focusing on this age group for some time now and we've been a tad left behind. Can't the FA find somebody who'd be willing to give it a bash?"

"Well, it's just me in the office today. It's just me in the office most days actually. I try and pass things up the chain of command, but unless it's to do with a sponsorship deal I don't generally hear anything back."

"I see. Well, since this appointment is rather small beans, perhaps you could arrange something yourself, George? I'm sure a man of your experience has a wealth of contacts."

"I suppose I could see if Phil Neal's free. Although saying that, I think he's got rather a lot of after-dinner work on at the moment, wouldn't want to overload the chap. Tell you what, I'll have a look into who else is out of work and see what I can do. Stay on line, I'm getting my book."

And so George reaches to a shelf on the wall. There, next to some signed photos of Tim Flowers and a dusty old box of Terry Venables' The Manager board game, sits a tatty old contacts book. George's pride and joy. He flicks to the pages marked '2013/14 Managerial Departures' and thumbs down the list.

"Still there Ashley? Right... hmmm... let's see.... Sean O'Driscoll? Too much of a fancy-dan for my liking. I don't like watching his teams play. You'd think they'd never heard of hitting the big man up top. Tony Mowbray? Personally I can't understand a word the man says, and again, his teams are a bit tippy tappy aren't they. Nobody ever won anything playing football like ballet, did they? Ah, now then, Aidy Boothroyd's available. There's a hot young coach with a bright future. I had him earmarked for the top job a few years back. Not sure why the hell he's out of work, poor chap. I'll offer him the job, it'll get him out of the house. Cheerio then."

[dream sequence fades to black]

***

So that's that. If you're still reading, sorry it wasn't very exciting. But now that I've created an ambiance of measured calm (read: boredom) with that gently paced opening scene, hopefully it affords the following highly considered and cerebral observation the necessary space to breathe. What I'd like to say, as eloquently as possible, is:

Aidy Boothroyd?! FOR F***'S SAKE, FA!!

*downs bottle of bleach*

Also...

Mmmmmnnnnnnnnrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhh!!!!

***

Deep breath. I feel mildly better now, but Jesus H Batman On Stilts, what are the FA playing at in appointing Boothroyd? Answers on a postcard.

Have they ever watched a Boothroyd team play football? It's an absolute abomination. A relic harking back to the early 1980s – all high tempo, put 'em under, let 'em know you're there, game management and all that guff.

When the news broke and one or two choice words were aired on Twitter, Northampton Town fan Ben Trasler had the following to say. (Boothroyd of course having recently been let go from Northampton for turning them into an incompetent shower of ugly hatred that was – and may still be – on course to drop out of the Football League).

"When winning, it's ugly. When losing, it's barbaric," said Trasler. "God, it was awful. He's the reason we're in the poo*".

(*Not the actual word he used.)

I can't really better those sentiments. There are a few unscrupulous types managing in the lower leagues, but there can be none more steadfastly committed to winning ugly than Boothroyd. To watch a Boothroyd side is to willingly torture your own eyeballs. Seriously, my corneas would rather take a direct spray from a can of Lynx Java followed by a plunge into a heavily over-chlorinated swimming pool, than watch a Boothroyd side close out a 2-1 win. The closing minutes of a narrow Boothroyd win are football's equivalent of trolling. 

Every time I've seen his teams play, I come away a little sickened. It's as if he spends serious time on the training ground teaching his players how to master little niggly fouls that aren't quite worth a yellow, how to charge down clearances with your studs up so your opponent might smash his toes to smithereens on the follow-through, how to spend 40 seconds getting ready for every throw-in when protecting a lead, how to pump the ball into the channels so it plops just short of the corner flag and both defence and attack then embark on a sprint race to get there first, before all getting there at roughly the same time, the ball almost an irrelevance as they inevitably crash into each other. It's a dispiriting experience.

And this is how we want England's promising Under-20s to be taught how to play? Our mentality in England is that, if you're a gifted teenager, we'll bung you straight into the Under-21s anyway. Or even the full squad. So who goes in the Under-20s? The slightly less capable teenagers and 20-year-olds, I guess. The ones who need working on if they're ever going to make the step up.

And Boothroyd will work on them, alright. You can take that as read. But in this age of pristine pitches in which highly technical sides like Spain and Germany dominate (while the England national side consistently founder), what good is Boothroyd going to do with our young nearly-good-enoughs that aren't quite the real deal?

He's probably going to make them play like grotty little sh*ts, isn't he. That's going to win us future World Cups for sure. Hey Sepp, maybe just give us all the trophies now to save time, eh?

*slow hand clap*

Well done, FA. Top marks.

Boothroyd: not a good thing.

But I suppose we shouldn't be surprised. Stuart Pearce and Peter Taylor were hardly names to make us think the FA were going to propel this technically semi-talented crop of young English players into something that might make us proud. 

A key driving force behind this appointment would presumably have been FA 'director of elite development' Dan Ashworth. Indeed, he is quoted as saying: "I’m delighted with the appointment of Aidy, he’s an outstanding coach of younger players and has a fantastic record of developing youth."

Wasn't Ashworth supposed to be a progressive appointment by the FA? I seem to remember some people being quite pleased when they prised him away from West Brom with the prospect of more than doubling his £200k annual salary. And yet apparently Dan Ashworth is "delighted" with Boothroyd. This ought to trouble anyone hoping for England to "do something" at any international tournament at any level in the future. And, frankly, if the Under-20s won the 2015 Toulon Tournament by playing to a Boothroyd template, it would give me very little encouragement for the future, because that way of playing is thoroughly old hat at the highest level. I know football tactics can move in phases, and maybe there's just a chance that kick-and-rush will have it's day again in the future, but we can't be planning for it on the off chance that a direct and heavy-handed brand of football has an elite resurgence.

A couple of years ago Zonal Marking editor Michael Cox tweeted this clip of England Under-21s training under Stuart Pearce. If you haven't seen it, I urge you to have a look (it's less than two minutes long). 

The squad are playing a game of 'two touch'. It's both hilarious and heart-breaking as the young players, limited to two touches, resort to raining shots in from anywhere rather than rely on their technique and movement to craft something better.

The FA put this video ON ITS OWN WEBSITE, as if it's something to be proud about. "Check out how much our young boys like smashing the heck out of footballs, folks! Brilliant eh?"

Listen carefully and you'll note at one point a distant voice incongruously yells: "Is anybody there?" 

Sometimes I ask the very same question about the FA. The lights are on but nobody's in.

Taking my eye off the ball.

I haven't watched a football match for two months and good grief I needed that.

I'd slipped into the habit of watching summer football in the last two or three years – like some of you crazy cats do – and I've realised it was a major contributory factor to my vague, uneasy feeling of jadedness towards football last season.

It wasn't that I'd fallen out of love with football, I'd just had too much of it. You can definitely have too much of a good thing. I mean, if I ate eat peanut butter every day for a year I'd certainly get utterly sick of it, but if I then didn't eat it at all for a couple of months it would no doubt taste delicious again. Same with football, I reckon.

In the internet age it's easy to fall into the trap of trying to keep tabs on every tiny happening in football over the summer. Well here's the thing: if Chelsea sign someone for a few million, or Ipswich lose one of their most promising youngsters, or Barcelona sign a new reserve keeper – it doesn't actually matter if you find this out in May, June, July or even early August. In fact, by avoiding this news over the early part of the summer you allow yourself one of football's great pleasures, that of devouring a pre-season preview when you don't know who's signed who.

In the 1980s and 1990s, before we found out everything instantly on Twitter and the internet, I'd often only discover who Newcastle had spaffed a few million on by reading a new season pullout from my nan's Daily Mirror, or in FourFourTwo's always-eagerly-anticipated "The Season Starts Here"/"Big Kick-Off" issue. Sure, occasionally I'd flick on Ceefax and have a brief browse, but often those printed column inches of "Ins" and "Outs" – with player names tantalisingly highlighted in bold – were the first I'd heard of these deals. You'd start reading with an idea in your head of where teams were last season, and by the time you'd read to the end your brain would be racing with possibilities for the new season.

And so, as July nears an end, it's time to dive in. For the first time in ages I get to enjoy some of these rather retro sensations again. Batteries recharged, now comes the rush. That glorious clamour for every fixture grid, pre-season preview, squad number list (have you seen Villa's? What a thrill), third kit unveiling, transfer announcement (though I draw the line at rumours), and prediction article (ranging from the play-safe to the downright nuts) that I can get my hands on. I can't get enough of it now, because I've reached the point of genuinely missing football. If you'd asked me a week ago, I still wasn't there. It's only arrived the last couple of days. But, if I'm honest, perhaps I've been suppressing it for slightly longer. You can't start too early though, otherwise it's not as good, not as gleefully satisfying. It lacks a certain giddy fizz.

I'm back in the game. Football, you're welcome back in my life. But one thing I won't be doing is watching any televised friendlies. I avoid them at all costs. Managers are still experimenting, nobody is taking anything too seriously, and exotic new signings are still shaking off jet lag and learning what "nobody told me my squad number would be 38" is in English.

But if you really must watch a friendly on television – if that really is the best thing you've got to do with your time – for goodness sake don't read too much into it. Otherwise you'll be going around saying things like: "Mark my words, Bentley's going to be a brilliant signing for Spurs, he's been on fire in pre-season" – Me, Summer 2008.

It's just pre-season. It means next to nothing. Shouldn't you be in a beer garden somewhere? Still no Match Of The Day for another four weekends. And that's actually a good thing. Let the anticipation build. Go and buy World Soccer and read it in the park with a Calippo lolly.

Everything in its right place.

Are most teams currently in the 'right' division? And is that healthy? 

Over the course of this season I've increasingly been struck by the idea that almost every team in English football's top four divisions is currently competing in its rightful division.

What do I mean by 'rightful'? I guess I mean a blend of club stature, history and resources, while taking into account mistakes in its recent past that may have led to a downturn in fortunes. For instance, most people would argue that Leeds United are a Premier League team in terms of stature, but few would say they are currently playing in the wrong division thanks to the mismanagement of the club in the past decade or so. The Championship is almost certainly the 'right' division for them at the moment.

In seasons gone by you'd look down the table and think "Cripes! Sheffield Wednesday/Manchester City/Southampton - what are they doing in League One?" There'd perhaps be a few in every division that you'd think this about. Take the Premier League in 1999/00, for instance.

This season, which teams are not in their rightful division? Here's the meagre list I came up with, and their 'right' division in brackets:

• Reading (playing in Premier League, 'right' division would be Championship)
• Sheffield United (playing in League One, 'right' division would be Championship)
• Crawley Town (playing in League One, 'right' division would be League Two)
• Bradford City (playing in League Two, 'right' division would be League One)
• Dagenham (playing in League Two, 'right' division would be Conference)
• Accrington Stanley (playing in League Two, 'right' division would be Conference)

Of course, this is all incredibly subjective and there's no need to write to me in an indignant huff. I realise I've probably just offended about three-quarters of supporters reading this blog who think their team belong a division higher, and perhaps flattered the other quarter who can't believe their luck that they're even clinging on at their current level. This is just my opinion - I'm not stating it as fact. If you like, make your own list and see how many teams you think are in the 'wrong' division. I doubt it will be significantly longer than mine. The only one that narrowly missed my list were Rotherham who, with their new stadium, bigger crowds and resources are arguably a League One team in stature now.

So what's my point here? I guess I'm intrigued by this levelling out that we've seen in recent seasons. Perhaps it's to do with traditionally bigger clubs attracting investment in recent seasons, enabling them to realise their potential and haul themselves out of stagnation? Perhaps the increasing importance of fitness, diet and tactics in the game means that the teams that can afford the best training facilities, sports scientists, scouting networks, etc are increasingly showing up their more old-school, disorganised counterparts on the pitch?

But is this a good thing or a bad thing? At the start of the season I worried it would definitely be a bad thing. I even wrote a piece honing in on League One, stating that it looked to be the worst League One on paper in recent memory and that it would just be a bunch of ordinary teams scrapping it out for the right to be relegation certainties a level higher the following season.

But it's turned out to be the two divisions either side of League One that are astonishingly even across the board.

In the Championship, everybody from 24th to 8th (EIGHTH!) still needs to worry to differing degrees about relegation. Derby, Bolton and Middlesbrough are all on 54 points in 8th, 9th and 10th. They are seven points clear of relegation with all teams having between six and eight games left to play (so 18-24 points available for all). Obviously it's unlikely any of those three would go down, they just can't rule it out yet. Plenty to play for still.

While in League Two, even in seasons without a couple of administration-riddled basketcases adrift at the bottom, 50 points is usually ample for survival. Bottom club Aldershot are already on 44 points with another 15 to play for. And they're only four points off Dagenham in 17th. It's incredibly competitive at the bottom. Two from eight will go down and not one of those sides is completely rotten.

Has such a level playing field made for an exciting, nerve-jangling season for Football League supporters? Most would probably say it has. There's a cluster of around five teams safely ensconced in the middle of Leagues One and League Two with not much left to play for, but everyone else is still fighting for something. And everybody in the Championship still has plenty of reasons to see their next three points as potentially season-defining.

So while a small number of teams might put this season down as quite a boring one (Notts County, Oxford, Chesterfield) most will feel they've given fans plenty to be excited/petrified about. As a fan of two teams (Bournemouth and Wimbledon) I've had plenty to keep me on my toes at opposite ends of the divisions they play in. Come the end of the season I could yet be celebrating a promotion for one while still distraught at the relegation of the other. Or it could be another season of both in the same divisions next year. And I won't know either way for a while yet.

Next season could see a few more teams in the 'wrong' division. Sunderland perhaps? Yeovil? But it won't be many. And hopefully that continues to be as good/bad for excitement/utter terror as it has been this term. The football may not always be beautiful but the bigger picture is rarely dull.

An instant gut reaction to Harry Redknapp's return to Bournemouth

Redknapp during his time as AFC Bournemouth
manager, many moons ago

Oh my. The most successful manager in Bournemouth's history is back at the club, in a voluntary, "advisory" role. According to the board he will assist the current managerial team and offer advice on any footballing matters.

The news has instantly gone global, with "Bournemouth" currently trending on Twitter. And, unsurprisingly, most of the people I follow on Twitter are assuming that this spells bad news for Bournemouth in the long term.

Are AFC Bournemouth - a club suddenly apparently blessed with a chunk of money for the first time in their unremarkable history - about to "do a Portsmouth"? By which I mean a brief and giddy period of unprecedented success and rampant spending swiftly followed by abject doom, poverty and quite possibly liquidation. Jumping the gun a bit? Quite possibly. But that's the instant worry I get in my gut - I obviously hope it proves to be an overreaction.

Or maybe everyone is jumping to conclusions? Redknapp lives at Sandbanks, which is only a few miles from Bournemouth. He likes a simple life away from football, choosing one or two favourite restaurants or a walk on the beach with his dogs over the normal trappings that someone of his status and wealth might enjoy. It might be that he's a bit bored kicking around the house and just wants to help a club that he has had an association with for several decades.

Alas, it probably won't turn out that way. Results have not been good so far this season and manager Paul Groves is already under pressure. Redknapp has worked with Groves previously and rates him - which helps - but if Bournemouth's iffy form continues and Groves gets sacked... it's a fairly obvious script from that point forward.

And if that happens - if Harry becomes manager of Bournemouth again - fans will have a quandary on their hands. There will, in all likelihood, be success and attractive football under Redknapp. We'd probably get promoted. But then what?

It's incredibly early for speculation such as this, but these are the sort of daydreams (or nightmares, depending on the individual) that will be going on in fans' heads this evening, so let's not kid ourselves any different.

As a Bournemouth fan, I want to enjoy any success the club has with intense pleasure. When we win a match, a league or whatever, I want that feeling to be glorious. I've not tasted that feeling very often in my 24 years as a Bournemouth supporter, and I don't want any glory to be tempered by a more-than-reasonable worry of what might be around the corner.

If Bournemouth are about to enter a successful period in their history (that's assuming this doesn't all go wrong sooner rather than later) then it is down to the club to convincingly persuade supporters that the long-term future of the club is assured. A wealthy benefactor is not going to bankroll us for ever, and will surely want to see a return on their investment. The club really needs to urge Maxim Demin to talk about his interest in the club and what he wants to get out of it.

Until we know more about him, why he chose to invest in us and what his long-term aims are, any enjoyment we take from milestone moments such as Redknapp's return will be considerably affected by the nagging fear that this will not end well.

We hope it will end well - we've almost lost this club on more occasions than we'd care to recall - but that worry will always be there while there are so many legitimate question marks about the way the club is run/owned.

One thing that is worth noting, though, is that, while Harry always seemed to be in it for himself at Portsmouth (and at Southampton and Tottenham, for that matter), there are two clubs that he has a genuine passion for and would presumably not want blood on his hands were anything bad to happen to them - Bournemouth and West Ham.

Speaking of which, this blog is going to look pretty silly in a month or two when Redknapp is West Ham manager and is hanging out of a car window talking about how much he can't wait to get into the Olympic Stadium isn't it...

Money plays havoc with a football fan's mojo. We want to win and enjoy winning, but even more importantly we want our children and grandchildren to have the opportunity to watch our club win when we're long gone.

I was hoping that writing this blog might crystallise what I'm feeling this evening. But I'm not sure it has. Redknapp coming back to Bournemouth ought to provoke a thousand happy memories of my childhood, watching his excellent Cherries side from Dean Court's F Block with my dad. Instead, while a glimmer of excitement is certainly there, the worries are significant. For now at least.

Phew, time for a pint...

2012/13: The worst League One in years?

League One does not look a strong division on paper ahead of the new season. Perfect timing then for an outsider to put together a promotion charge...

With Charlton, Sheff Wed and Huddersfield promoted last season, League
One looks unusually weak as teams prepare to go again in 2012/13

Cast your eyes down the League One table for 2012/13. Then, once you've finished yawning, pick your two teams to get automatic promotion.

Congratulations on immediately selecting Sheffield United before, thinking yourself slightly shrewd, opting for MK Dons as your second pick. We've all got those two as well. Still, give yourself a pat on the back.

Now the hard bit: pick your four teams for the play-offs.

This is you: "Hmm.... errr.... ooh, bit tricky.... crumbs.... can I get back to you?"

This year's League One looks like depressingly humdrum fare on paper. In most other seasons, relegated sides in dire financial straits like Portsmouth and Coventry would be settling for consolidating in mid-table, content to avoid the dreaded back-to-back relegations. Yet among such an average crop, they might actually fancy their chances. Although having just read this about Portsmouth's plight, perhaps not.

Most of the famous names that have slipped into this league in recent times have now managed to haul themselves out again. In a division that increasingly looks like a gathering place for the country's most tedious teams to wallow in their inoffensively low-key mediocrity, if ever there was a season for surprise packages this is surely it.

Carlisle looked to be quietly building something last season, and probably didn't get the credit they deserved for almost making the play-offs. Likewise Stevenage kicked on from their excellent run in recent seasons, only narrowly missing out on a date at Wembley as Sheffield United managed to nudge them aside in the play-off semis. Both sides will hope to go a step further this season. Heck, they'll never have a better chance.

There are also great heaped tablespoonfuls of pressure on Preston and Bournemouth to have strong seasons. Both are ambitious and itching to get promotion, but we know from laughing at watching MK Dons in recent years that this doesn't necessarily equate to consistent results on the pitch.

Preston manager Graham Westley, known for his eccentric methods and gruelling marine-like training regime, doesn't seem to be endearing himself to Preston's squad, recently informing a whopping eight players by text message that they needn't bother turning up for pre-season training. One of the eight was Iain Hume, considered not only one of Preston's best players but one of the best in the division. Westley does things his way and it either works or it doesn't, but it wouldn't be a huge surprise to see the Preston board's trigger finger twitching if they start the season poorly.

Could Swindon be a surprise package
and win back-to-back promotions?

Bournemouth meanwhile were very much the comic relief/car crash side of the division last year, with various incidents involving club chairman Eddie Mitchell and other board members (or, in one case, their spouse) causing some considerable embarrassment and distraction for the playing staff and fans. This close season has seen Bournemouth make a couple of intriguing signings, such as Rotherham's Lewis Grabban, who starred in League Two last year, and Eredivisie striker Frank Demouge, who joins the club from FC Utrecht. Bournemouth have also made several additions to their backroom team, including Dennis Rofe as first-team coach and former Torquay and Northampton midfielder Chris Hargreaves (author of Where's Your Caravan?) as development coach.

The Bournemouth board are determined to win promotion this year, with Mitchell rarely one to shy away from a bold statement. In any other season you'd put him saying "I want the club to win the league and that's the main aim" down to naivety, but with League One so lacklustre on paper perhaps that is a genuinely achievable ambition. Much like Preston though, don't be overly surprised if an early-season managerial change disrupts Bournemouth to such an extent that they start planning for 2013/14 season earlier than most.

Anyone else? Notts County quietly went about their business in finishing seventh last term. They could be dark horses again. And what of promoted Crawley and Swindon? Under the thoughtful stewardship of Sean O'Driscoll, Crawley will play nice football and could challenge provided there's still some mysterious money left in the mysterious money pot. And who would bet against Swindon carrying on as they left off last season, as manager Paolo di Canio continues to inspire and impress in equal measure.

There appears to be a great heaving mass of teams that seem unlikely to get promoted but are perhaps too good to go down: Brentford, Bury, Colchester, Doncaster, Hartlepool, Leyton Orient, Oldham, Scunthorpe. Most of these sides will expect to snuggle up to the cosy embrace of mid-table security. Yet while relegation is probably as likely as promotion for most of them, if ever there was a season to throw the kitchen sink at a promotion push, this is it. Brentford would seem most likely to surprise as Uwe Rosler continues his steady progress there. They seemed a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde team last season, but if they can find some consistency then anything is possible.

If we get one or two surprise packages in League One this season, it could be all the more exciting for the lack of big names in the division. However, if those surprise packages fail to emerge, it could easily become brain-meltingly tedious.

Commentators and "context"

A short rant about football commentary, match-day summarisers
and the production values of modern-day football broadcasting

Photo: Andy Hall

Competitive sport makes for compelling television for lots of reasons. But ask a hundred sports fans why they enjoy watching live sport and not one of them will tell you they like it "because the commentators talk about things other than the actual sporting action".

Over the summer the BBC was forced to apologise for their tennis commentators "over-talking" during the Wimbledon Championships, their excuse being that the commentary team were giving "context" to the matches they were describing.

Context? Really? If people are tuning in for a quarter-final between Rafael Nadal and Andy Roddick, I think it's a safe bet to assume that they know what they're watching and why this match is occurring. If they don't, they're clearly not very bright, so let them catch up as we go along rather than drag the entire viewing audience down to their level.

Of course, the producer often exacerbates matters, with his constant cutaways to the players' wives, girlfriends, mothers, one-time lovers. A lingering shot of some woman in sunglasses tossing her hair about does rather force the commentator's hand. If he stays silent, it's just a needlessly long shot of a crowd member. Provide context he must.

The problem is particularly bad in football. Football demands 45-minute periods of concentration from the viewer. That's quite a long time for the average person to concentrate solidly. So when you're trying to focus on the game, what could be less helpful that the commentator blathering on about the home team's chairman and his business interests, transfer speculation around the players involved, the big game coming up on that channel later that day, and so on. It's so bloody distracting.

Football on the radio today is a nightmare. Decades ago radio commentators used to divide the pitch into eight squares, to provide quick and easy reference points for listeners trying to picture the game in their imaginations. (This, as you may know, is where the expression "back to square one" originates from.) But now, when you listen to a match on 5Live or wherever, not only do they spend half the time discussing other things (the centre back's hair, the away team's upcoming European fixture, all those empty seats in the director's box, the traffic they sat in on the way to the game), but they constantly go "around the grounds" getting updates from reporters at other games. These reporters, knowing they've only got 30 seconds to impress, speak so fast it makes your head hurt. They pepper their little vignettes with flowery adjectives, metaphors and a hearty dose of oomph. By the time the producer cuts back to the main game, you've forgotten what was happening, who was shooting which way and (sometimes) why you even cared in the first place.

And how often they miss goals! Think how many times you've been listening to football on the radio and they cut away to Dave Bogbrush at the Reebok for an update on the Bolton game, and when they come back Alan Green, Mike Ingham or whoever has to sheepishly say: "And while you were away there's been an almighty goalmouth scramble, Everton having several chances to score and Villa continually getting bodies in the way. The ball eventually fell to Fellaini and he's nudged it home. So it's 1-0 now with 15 minutes to half-time and Villa have a free-kick..."

I want to hear that happen *live*, you scoundrels! I want to hear the glorious chaos unfold blow by blow, not be given a bite-size summary of how it wasn't the prettiest goal the crowd will ever see. I understand we need to know what's happening in other big games, but can't somebody just slip the main commentator a piece of paper that says "Bolton goal, 28 min, Klasnic header, 1-0", rather than having to waste 30 seconds getting a full description of the goal? Save that for half-time, for goodness sake.

Must we be so incessantly, constantly entertained? It's exhausting. If it's a rank bad game, let us glory in the fact. Let us laugh at ourselves for being foolhardy enough to tune in to Birmingham v Derby.

It is virtually impossible to focus on a game if the commentators are wittering on about mooted moves to new stadiums, unrest in the boardroom, "Oh, and there's Lily Allen in the crowd... she's wearing a woolly hat and there is a bit of a chill in the air, can't say I blame her. Daughter of Keith Allen, of course, lovable rogue and a big football fan himself. No doubt she'll be straight on the phone to dad at full-time".

Shut up, man! Darren Fletcher's about to take a throw-in. Now sodding tell me about it.

THREE EXAMPLES OF NO-NONSENSE COMMENTARY

1. Barry Davies, 1971, Coventry v Everton.
2. Brian Moore, 1985, Man Utd v Liverpool.
3. John Motson, 2001, England v Greece.

A worrying crush at Ghana v Brazil

Last night Fulham's Craven Cottage stadium hosted the international friendly between Ghana and Brazil. As friendlies go, this was a particularly enticing prospect, with the likes of Ronaldinho and Neymar on show to people who perhaps haven't had chance to see them play live before. Not to mention chance for London's sizable Ghanaian community to see the Black Stars in action against the most famous international team in the world.

It was a good game. However, I am extremely surprised that most of the talk in today's media is about events on the pitch and the cracking atmosphere in the stands. Both of these things are true, but far more pressing is the potential disaster that could have occurred outside the stadium pre- (and even post-) kick-off.

The crux of the problem was that lots of people had ordered tickets in advance for the Ghana end of the stadium (largely the Putney Stand), for collection at the ground. And by "lots" I mean hundreds. These tickets were being dished out from two small hatches (surnames A-L and M-Z). Said hatches were manned by four people at most. The process of dishing out tickets was astonishingly slow, and there was virtually no police or security presence managing the crowd until it became evident that a significant crush was starting to occur.

As kick-off approached, it became clear that we would not be witnessing the moment. In fact, we did not enter the stadium until the 32nd minute after an exhausting amount of queuing, jostling and trying to reason with club staff and security. We weren't the only ones. People were still coming in as half-time approached. The first thing we saw as we walked in was the referee showing a red card to a Ghana player – a key turning point in the game. I've no idea what it was for. 

This excellent eyewitness account by Headers & Volleys does a superb job of describing the widespread disorganisation and disarray outside and inside the stadium that hundreds of people experienced. (I also noticed a dismissive attitude towards the fans from several staff members.) I urge you to read this piece from start to finish, because every single point the article makes is important. This passage of text is particularly salient:

"With such shocking organisation and ridiculously poor planning, with another, more aggressive group of fans, the outcome could have been drastically different in the stands yesterday night. Thankfully for everyone, the Ghanaian fans just wanted to sing and dance."

It is to the Ghana fans tremendous credit that they remained largely calm and composed during last night's farce. Yes, there was some frustrated shouting, a few arguments here and there. But I didn't see anybody who had genuinely lost control. What I did see was a few frightened looks on people's faces, and one or two small children clutching their father's hand in the crowds by the ticket collection windows. There were three of us in our group, so myself and one other managed to worm our way out of the crowd, leaving the other to queue. It seemed the only course of action, lest two extra bodies contribute to the problem that was building.

Thankfully, as far as I'm aware, nobody got hurt. But I can't believe I've even felt the need to write a piece like this today. I'm stunned that Headers & Volleys have had to document at such length what a complete and utter shambles occurred. But it's to their great credit that they have, and I sincerely hope that Fulham FC treat their complaints with the seriousness they deserve. One of my party is also writing to complain.

And yet, perhaps we should have seen this coming? A couple of years ago I went to a European tie at Craven Cottage versus Roma. A similar – albeit much smaller scale – queuing debacle took place that night. One that you'd file under "irritating" rather than "deeply concerning". I wrongly assumed this must have been a one-off and that the club would learn the lessons from it.

However, not so. Here's Two Footed Tackle's Gary Andrews, with an account of a Europa League tie featuring NSI Runavik that he attended at the Cottage: "I arrived about 15 minutes before kick-off to find absolute chaos outside the ticket collection booth – just two people on the desk of lots of people queuing. They'd sent out tickets for various surnames with assorted staff and stewards, and people were having to find the relevant person."

He then goes on to describe a situation which is similar to that experienced by Headers & Volleys and also by my group last night: "There was a bit of a crush to get in and we missed the start of the game. When we eventually got into the stand there were people already in our seats and they had tickets for the same seats. Fortunately there were several seats a few rows forward, so we quickly snaffled these. It was a bit of a free-for-all and a bit chaotic," says Andrews.

What has become apparent today then is that this was a problem that has happened before. It remains a disaster waiting to happen. Has English football learned nothing at all from Hillsborough and other football crush scenes? Aren't there supposed to be security measures and protocols in place to prevent all this antiquated nonsense these days?

Several things need to happen in the wake of Monday night:

• Craven Cottage must not stage another one-off game of this nature until it has completely overhauled and modernised its ticketing system.
• Authorities must meet with officials from the club to learn lessons. This is a bare minimum to avoid a possible disaster in future, especially given Fulham's presence in the Europa League group stage. Can we be sure that fans of Twente, Odense and Wisla Krakow will respond as calmly to a potential crush as the Ghana fans did last night? Are Fulham seriously just going to wait and see how it pans out? The police were rather slow to the scene last night too. Who was in charge of their operations last night? These questions need to be asked.
• The Football Supporters Federation must take a close look at what happened too. I hope that they can use their influence to ensure Headers & Volleys' complaint is treated with the gravitas it merits.

The concern is that, while the Evening Standard have reported a (shockingly dismissive) series of quotes from Fulham FC today, it's only bloggers that have properly documented events at present. Will the powers that be take heed of the warnings or will this situation be allowed to continue until there is a tragic injury – or worse?

One can only hope that weeks, months or years from today Fulham FC and the police are not looking back at Headers & Volley's blog and thinking "Why didn't we learn the lessons from all of this?".

For now, my only advice to those thinking of buying tickets for a match at Craven Cottage would be: get your tickets posted in advance, arrive early and keep a cool head if there's somebody in your seat when you get to it.

Fulham have not heeded the danger signs that have been abundantly clear in the past. This is surely either pure neglect or a refusal to spend money on correcting the problem. How much did that Michael Jackson statue cost again?

They simply have to act this time.

Stoke. What the hell?

I've developed a grudging respect for Stoke City, even if they do cause me to giggle. A few curious thoughts on the latest chapter in their recent history...

As I was walking to work this morning, the absurdity of Stoke City's new-found abilities in the transfer market – the most recent of which being the ability to successfully sign Peter Crouch – was churning around in my head.

How had Stoke City - STOKE CITY - managed to sign a player with such an excellent international goalscoring record? A player who acquitted himself very well in the Champions League last season. For twelve million actual English poundlings. How had this come to be?

I can only assume that some sort of kidnap-style siege took place, with Crouch told in no uncertain terms that if he wanted to be enjoying Abbey Clancy's wobbly bits again any time soon, he'd better chuffing well sign the bit of paper.

As I lost myself in these stupid thoughts, I wondered what Pulis might have said to Crouch the moment the ink was dry. I imagine it was something along the lines of "Aha! There's no going back now, lad. It's too late. You're mine, all mine."

I don't know what was on my Cornflakes this morning, but I ended up picturing Pulis as the sinister, wife-collecting circus master Pappa Lazarou from The League of Gentlemen. A disturbing image and one you'll doubtless not want to visualise if you can help it...

Peter Crouch pictured at his unveiling with Stoke boss Tony Pulis

Oops. Sorry.

(That's the Photoshopper Of The Year 2011 award in the bag, I'd say)

I genuinely laughed out loud when I saw the news of Crouch's signing. I don't know why it tickled me so, but it did. There's just something very funny about Stoke and when they sign really famous players, as they seem to be doing with increasing regularity, it provokes an involuntary response from me along the lines of "Haha, him? Stoke? Really? What's he doing joining them, the silly clot!"

But then this is Stoke's fourth season in the Premier League. Those multiple millions in TV rights start to stack up after a while, until eventually a chairman realises – to quote the Blur song – "Whoops, I've got a lot of money" and starts wondering how he might spend it. (Everton fans, I know you're scratching your heads at this juncture. We don't quite understand it either.)

So having stockpiled cash for a while, suddenly Stoke have splurged on Crouch, Wilson Palacios, Cameron Jerome, Matthew Upson and Jonathan Woodgate. All of a sudden, a squad already containing some very good players starts to look something of a menace. Add in the Premier League's noisiest fans, gleefully singing themselves hoarse to the tune of 'Delilah' for reasons unknown, and you've got one heck of a tricky away day on your hands.

You sense Pulis has long fantasised at the prospect of having someone as tall as Crouch for Rory Delap to aim his Exocet long-throws towards. How many teams will crumble as Delap launches repeated missiles towards Crouch, Kenwyne Jones, Robert Huth and Ryan Shawcross? How high could Stoke finish in the Premier League this season? Fourth? It is a terrifying prospect. Yet, if they managed it, I'd fall about laughing. It's just funny.

Since Stoke qualified for the Europa League by reaching the FA Cup final, a lot of the cynicism towards them has turned into good will. It's as if people are thinking, "Well, I don't like what you do, but I have to take my hat off and admire what you've been able to achieve."

Even I've softened. I've never had any beef with the club, but I've spent two-thirds of my life not being able to stand Tony Pulis. He was a pretty terrible manager of my team (Bournemouth) in the 1990s and tried to get us playing physical, long ball football too. As a team with strong passing traditions, we never took to it and were glad when he was gone. But he's built on his philosophy as he's gone along, learning from his mistakes and turning Stoke into a formidable opponent for any team. Perhaps the most commonly cited cliché in football last season was the one that goes "Yeah, Messi's good, but could he do it on a wet Wednesday night at the Brittannia?" The humour's worn thin now but, still, praise indeed.

I have to admit that I have a certain amount of admiration for Tony Pulis now. I'll never entirely like him, but I can't help but admire him a bit. Lots of us support sides that play pretty football, but would we swap it all for the season those noisy boys at the Britannia will enjoy this season with the squad they've assembled? Not all of us would, but there'd certainly be a good few takers.

A rant about one of the dirtiest players in football history: Kevin Muscat

Another guest blog from me this week. The chaps at Magic Spongers have been publishing an interesting series of rants about the unlovable protagonists of the football world in recent weeks. When they asked me if I'd be interested in taking part, there was only one man I wanted to write about.

Kevin Muscat was a solid full-back who has enjoyed a long career in football. Sadly, he is cursed by his tendency to be overcome with angst and fury, and has made some absolutely appalling challenges on opponents during his career - even curtailing one Premier League player's career.

Here's the piece over at the Magic Spongers site. Do leave a comment if it provokes a response, and please share it with anyone else who may find it interesting. You should follow Magic Spongers on Twitter too: @magicspongers.

The disappointment hedge

Here follows an attempt at explaining the logic behind a type of football betting that few of us admit publicly to doing - betting against your own team. I'm taking the plunge and admitting that I've been experimenting with it during the football season just past. So is it cowardly or just common sense?

I feel slightly mucky. I was in the bookie’s earlier and now I’ve won £50. Fifty lovely pounds that I didn’t have before. Yet I am wallowing in a state I might melodramatically describe as self-loathing. I feel dissatisfied, glum. 

“But you’ve won £50 – presumably on the outcome of a football match that you correctly predicted the outcome of?” I hear you cry. Well, not quite. I didn’t call anything correctly. I didn't see anything coming. I didn't spot a value bet. I just bet on one team winning – the team that I actually wanted to lose. Welcome to the concept of The Disappointment Hedge.

Sometimes when I tell people about The Disappointment Hedge they look at me with a mixture of bewilderment and something close to malice. I wonder if they might be about to knock me to the ground and present me with their interpretation of how my ribs ought to be assembled. My crime? Betting against my own team – or any team I have an emotional attachment to. Profiting from your own team’s misfortune is, in some people’s eyes, not really on. It’s seen as weasely, sneaky, a grotty thing to do. 

Still, fifty quid, though. Fifty quid in my pocket. A free night out. What a git.

Other people – more rational people, such as women for example – ask me to explain why I do this. When I’ve told them about The Disappointment Hedge they nod, shrug and say something like “Well, I can see why you do this, but it doesn’t seem like a lot of fun. It's not really in the spirit of things.”

I began to experiment with The Disappointment Hedge last season and found it definitely did take the edge off a defeat to some extent - enough for it to be worth doing. But that’s exactly why it feels dirty. It’s not good for the soul. My fellow fans (be it club, country or some continental side that I’ve inexplicably developed a penchant for) are hurting. Our team needed to win today really. It wasn’t desperate, but three points wouldn’t half have been useful. The rest of your team's fans have had their evening ruined, possibly their weekend or even their whole month. Meanwhile, I’m just as peeved but I’ve got £50 as well. Which position would I rather be in?

You have to be careful with this kind of hedging. You don’t want to mess with your head. I like £50 as much as the next man (unless the next man is Bill Drummond), but give me a belting victory for my team over the cash every single time. Getting your hedge just right is a balancing act, and one that is dependent on your own personal circumstances. Bet too much and it’ll sting a bit when your beloved team win - and you don't want it to interfere with the joy of victory. But if you don't wager enough then your trifling profits will almost seem to mock you as you try to sulk off another defeat.

Some people have said to me that they wish they cared enough about their own side that they needed to have this kind of financial crash mat to ease the pain. But they tend to be people who don’t go to games regularly. If you’re spending money on your match ticket, your travel, beer, a burger, a programme - that's a fair bit of money. Given your initial outlay, then, I present you with three pre-match possibilities:

Possibility 1: All that money you're spending - I'm going to double it I'm afraid. But don't be gloomy; I'm guaranteeing that your team will win.

Possibility 2: You're going to have a wasted day watching your team capitulate, but you will make a fat profit in the process. 

Possibility 3: Your team huffs and puffs its way to a mildly frustrating draw - but today hasn't cost you a penny. Your winnings cover your costs. 

Therein lies the secret to perfectly balanced disappointment hedging. If I was a much wealthier man than I am, I think that's how I'd weight my bets every time. We win - it costs me double. We lose - I make a large profit. We draw - I'm breaking even. 

Here's an example using a fixture listed on Betfair from (in the interests of search engine optimisation) the Úrvalsdeild, that's the Icelandic top flight to you and me. It's the big one: Breidablik v Fram. Give it a click so that you can actually read it.

An example of The Disappointment Hedge in action.

Let's imagine a mad-keen Breidablik fan. His team are at home today to lowly Fram. Let's suppose his match ticket, travel, beer, food and all other matchday expenses have cost him £40. In the example you can see the punter is about to bet £8.50 on Fram to win. Fram are pretty rubbish so he's getting a fairly long price of 6.2 on Betfair (which is roughly 5/1 in fractional odds). This bet would net him £44.20 profit if it came off. At the same time, he risks £31.78 that Breidablik will NOT win, ie. he "lays" them. [When you place a "lay" bet on a betting exchange like Betfair, you say how much you want to win, not how much you want to bet. Betfair then does the maths and tells you how much you are liable to lose if you're wrong. This liability amount temporarily leaves your account while the bet is pending.] And so in this example either a draw or a Fram win will see him collect £48.90 on this individual bet. 

So the upshot of his two bets can be seen by looking at the numbers in red (potential loss) and green (potential profit) in the example. If Breidablik win, then he's lost £40. He's doubled the cost of his day from £40 to £80, but he doesn't care too much because his team won. If they draw then he's won his £40 back and had a free day out. And if those pesky Fram blighters go and ruin his day, he will at least have the cushion of £93.10 winnings (or £53.10 pure profit if you allow for the £40 cost of the day out).

However, that's a fictional example. Now back to reality. Due to not being wealthy enough to just throw money around like it doesn't matter, the prospect of a win costing me double isn't usually a viable option. It's then when the hedge gets awkward, the crash mat noticeably thinner. You have to hedge it so that the joy of your team winning is always much greater than any profit you stand to make. I'm not suggesting you try to reach some kind of equilibrium between your wealth and the emotions football generates in us - that would be psychologically a lot more messed up. Hedging is about breaking your fall to some extent. And yet it remains a taboo among football bettors - even when you know that betting against your team is the smart move, we certainly wouldn't go around on match day telling everyone that we'd done it.

Ultimately, it's just as well that I'm not a wealthy man, because I’m a bit out of pocket from this season’s hedges. And that’s because the two teams I care most about had good seasons. So do I care about the money? Not really, no. It’s been a joy to watch my teams this season, and they’ve brought me pleasure infinitely greater than the amount of money I’ve lost. 

How much money would it take to make defeat for your team hurt less?

Will I do the same next year, now one of my teams has been promoted and perhaps won’t win as many games? I haven’t decided yet. If I do decide to stop, it’ll have to be cold turkey. No point doing it some weeks and not others – it'll only add to the annoyance when my team gets a royal spanking from some bunch of relegation-threatened no-hopers. 

One thing is for sure though: if I do keep hedging then I'll get a separate betting account for it. I'm proud of the modest profits I've generated in recent years through non-hedging bets - the wagers for which I didn't have a vested interest in the outcome. It's a shame to fritter away your hard-earned betting profits just because the team you support is doing well. I'd keep the two things separate, and (obviously) only hedge with money I could afford to lose. 

As a relative newcomer to disappointment hedging, I haven't fully explored the range of its possibilities. I imagine the world of in-play betting can push your hedges to a level of sickness that I half hope I'll never get involved with. One-nil up on your biggest rivals with less than two minutes of stoppage time to play? Worried how you'll feel if they muck it up? Risk a tiny amount of money on the draw then. You don't care if you lose the money, you just want the ref to blow his whistle. But if that dreaded equaliser comes - your impressive financial haul will soften the blow. And that's all it's there to do - soften the blow. After all, it's only money, it's not as important as football. You all know what Bill Shankly famously said about football, but something Einstein once said about money and possessions fits quite nicely with my attitude to the disappointment hedge.  

“Many of the things you can count, don't count. 

Many of the things you can't count, really count.

- Albert Einstein

Maybe applying this to betting is not a responsible attitude during a recession, but I've no particular regrets from the reasonably modest sum of money I've lost dabbling with The Disappointment Hedge this season. Despite my simplified illustration earlier, I'm not trying to cover my costs when I hedge, I'm simply giving myself a crash-mat that is just thick enough to numb the pain. 

*** 

So there we are - The Disappointment Hedge. You’re welcome to try it out yourself. But if your team wins 15 games on the spin and you bankrupt yourself, don’t come crying to me. And if they lose 15 on the bounce then you can drink yourself silly on the profits. Just don’t expect to like yourself much in the process as you stuff your pockets full of money. Like Einstein hints at, money doesn't matter anything like as much as the important things in life - like football. But if football's going to kick you square in the goolies, you might as well get a few beer tokens out of it.

_______________________

Ever dabbled with hedging? Do leave a comment below if you'd care to share how you felt afterwards. Ever surprised yourself by realising in the process of a hedged bet that the money meant more to you than you thought it did? Or the exact opposite - that it meant nothing to you in the face of success on the pitch. I'm closer to the latter than the former, but not to the extent I'd want to encounter any sort of financial difficulties as a result. What about you?

As soulless as football can be

A trip to Arsenal's Emirates Stadium and a free seat in the corporate tier for their FA Cup replay with Leyton Orient turned out – perhaps unsurprisingly – to be one of this writer's least enjoyable evenings at the football

First, let's get one thing clear. I am not anti-Arsenal. I have no agenda against the club, manager or most of the playing staff. In fact, I probably like Arsenal more now than I have ever done. As a child I found them dull as dishwater and, as a result, vaguely disliked them in much the same way that I now vaguely dislike Stoke. You know that joke about children snapping one arm off each of the back four of their Arsenal Subbuteo team and gluing the arms back on the other way up – as if claiming an offside decision? That was my favourite joke as an 11-year-old. These days, they play admirably beautiful football, and while they have obvious flaws, I can at least gain plenty of pleasure from watching Arsenal. This is something my childhood self would never have thought possible.

But yesterday evening I had perhaps the dullest, most lifeless, anodyne football experience of my life. I'm struggling to think of a worse one. I guess the only consolation was that I did not pay for it. But, in a way, my free ticket did not help.

I was sat with the prawn sandwich brigade in the middle tier. And it wasn't even my employer that was paying for it. Another company with an interest in maintaining a good relationship with ours was footing the bill. In short, you could argue that I was one of the most freeloading corporate tossers in the whole stadium. But the difference was, the other freeloading corporate tossers were all there to watch Arsenal turn on the style; to see a Nasri or a Wilshere massacre a lowly Football League minnow and toy with its carcass. I was there in the hope of seeing something special, namely Leyton Orient making a fight of it and giving Arsenal a fright. The others got what they were baying for. Arsenal scored early and quickly killed the game as a contest. I got precious little, bar enormous respect for the Orient fans who were sat directly below me in my legroom-tastic middle tier.

As the second half started with the score at 3-0, the Orient fans were still in very fine voice. A boy sat near me, who looked for all the world like a younger Jack Wilshere, couldn't get his head around this. Surely these silly fans of such a comparably terrible team should be slumped in their seats? "Oi! Shut up Orient, you're crap! We're smashing you three-nil!" His parents seemed to think this was fair comment and continued to gaze gormlessly ahead.

As the strange mix of genuine fans and freeloaders around me lapsed into chatting about work, Barcelona and last night's telly, Arsenal won a penalty. I knew this because I'd heard the whistle and seen the referee point to the spot. But the fans didn't react to winning it. There was no cheer at my end of the stadium at all. They either didn't realise or didn't care sufficiently to emit any sort of noise. Yes, they cheered as the delightful Nicklas Bendtner duly completed his hat-trick, but it was more of brief "wa-heey" than anything else.

Bendtner had previously scored two first-half goals down in front of us. If I was in any doubt as to his character, his pointless goading of the Orient fans on netting his second did little to improve my mood. Classy behaviour from a man who ranks himself among the world's best. Having been in celebratory mood to this point, the Orient faithful suddenly had their backs up. A boo for Bendtner preceded a hearty and very salient burst of: "Four-nil and you still don't sing!". This chant echoed around an increasingly listless stadium.

"Stand up for the Orient," they sang, as eight or nine thousand away fans got to their feet and applauded. With the game now put to bed, surely this was the Arsenal fans' chance to acknowledge the efforts of Orient who'd played so brilliantly to force a replay in the first leg? Nope. I scoured the stands looking for Arsenal fans showing any sort of appreciation. I spotted one solitary fellow stand up and offer a clap in their direction. That was it. One guy.

Bemused and perhaps a little hurt, the Orient fans had had enough. They knew they deserved better than this. It was time to give the Gooners a quick jab in a painful and tender place. "Two-one to the Birmingham!" came the chant.

Clichy thumped in a decent fifth to complete what should have been a confidence-boosting rout for Arsenal. But surely a big part of rebuilding the side's confidence would be a standing ovation at full-time, in the hope of giving the team a lift before they head off to Barcelona? Instead, three quarters of the Arsenal fans had left by the 88th minute. The final few minutes were played out largely bereft of home fans, while the Orient contingent continued to sing.

I realise this was probably quite a different sort of home crowd to a regular league game. Some Arsenal die-hards might have given this fixture a miss for financial reasons, and that is more than fair enough. But Arsenal still had 50,000-plus in attendance last night, and only a fraction of those were freeloaders like me. Surely the lion share were Arsenal supporters of some description? Those in the regular seats did not seem to be enjoying it very much, nor did they seem interested in playing their part in rebuilding their side's dented confidence.

As the final whistle sounded and the players left the pitch, my fellow prawn-munchers and I filed out through our executive lounge area towards the stairs. At this point, I spotted a series of paintings depicting Arsenal legends. I couldn't resist taking a snap of the painting of Tony Adams. I've seen lamp-posts that look more like Tony Adams than this.

Bottom left: Tony Adams (apparently)

While I'm fully aware that I was on a hiding to nothing in hoping to see Orient pull off a shock in this game, once Arsenal took control it turned into a football experience that summed up much of what seems to be wrong with the game at the moment. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know of course – just providing a little snapshot of the game's ills in microcosm.

Has Andre Blackman blown it at Wimbledon?

Back in August, I wrote on this blog about how lucky AFC Wimbledon were to have a supremely talented 20-year-old left back on their books in Andre Blackman. I said this with some caveats though. Blackman's already been shown the door at few league clubs (a level at which he is easily talented enough to play), and the worry was that his attitude and lack of discipline would get the better of him. Sadly, these caveats are looking quite accurate at the moment.

Blackman was - and I'm going on overheard fan conversations here - apparently seen stropping off in the car park while his teammates were preparing to kick off against Eastbourne yesterday, leaving flu-hit Wimbledon to name only three subs on their bench. Who knows, maybe Blackman had flu too and was just frustrated that he couldn't play, but whatever the cause was, it's another worry to add to Blackman's growing list. There are plenty of rumours as to why he got kicked out of other clubs - most of them relating to off-field matters - but it's on the field where the concerns are at the moment.

Wimbledon started the season short of cover at left back. But this wasn't too big a problem because Blackman looked a nailed-on starter for that position. Quick, skilful, audacious, attack-minded - Blackman essentially looked like an exciting winger that could defend a bit. On the ball, there are comparisons with several Premier League left backs - with aspects of Ashley Cole, Micah Richards, Gareth Bale and Patrice Evra in the way he plays. Defensively, he's a bit naive and prone to being dragged out of position. And by "dragged out of position", what I really mean is "caught upfield after neglecting his defensive duties".

The frustrating thing is, it's not always naivety that makes him a liability. Sometimes it's just flagrant disregard for tactics. We've even seen him dispute shouted instructions from the bench. Like the time when, positioned as cover on the half-way line for a corner, like full-backs often are - he started creeping forward leaving only one man back. And when told to get back to his position, he started gesticulating at the bench as if he knew best and that going forward was the correct thing to do. Even if it was, that's a debate for the dressing room afterwards. When you're on the pitch, you do what the coaches tell you to do.

If you'd seen Blackman play during pre-season you'd understand why I thought he could be one of the stand-out players in the division. AFC Wimbledon manager Terry Brown agreed, labelling Blackman as "Premier League or Championship quality". But it's just not worked out for him yet. He's not been able to find a way past solid Brentford loanee Chris Bush into the first team of late, and Brown is now making noises about finding another left-back in January.

One surprising thing is that Brown hasn't really given Blackman a go on the left wing. I'm a huge admirer of the manager and I'm sure he knows better than me, but a player of Blackman's touch, pace and skill would presumably do quite well running at an opposition full-back. I'd like to see it tried once.

If Wimbledon do sign another left-back in January, I worry that could be the last we'll see of Blackman. And for such a talented player to just simply not be able to knuckle down and work hard at his game, listen to instructions and make progress, would be a huge pity. If he applied himself, he'd be playing league football in no time.

I'm sure most supporters can think of a player they've watched as a youngster who looked supremely talented, but just never quite had the mindset of a professional athlete - and thus didn't make the grade. Andre Blackman may be just the next in a long line of gifted players that don't fulfil their potential. But with the ability he has, it really wouldn't take a hell of a lot of knuckling down for him to regularly be one of the best players on the pitch.

I hope I'm wrong to be worried. I hope we see what he's really capable of in the second half of the season and that this talented but troubled soul can somehow channel his angst into terrorising the opposition. But I'm increasingly concerned that Andre Blackman may have kicked over his bar stool at the Last Chance saloon, and is now squaring up to nobody in particular, possibly just his own reflection in a mirror, as a potentially brilliant career starts to slip from his grasp.

Learning to not like ‘Arry

Harry Redknapp divides opinion like few other football managers. Some see him as a straight-talking, canny, shrewd operator and a wonderful motivator of players, while others see him as over-rated, ungracious and untrustworthy. In fact, many in the latter camp have more-or-less already made up their minds that he must have been involved in some illegal activity; the odd dodgy deal or twelve over the years.

I’ve always put myself – albeit increasingly tentatively – on Redknapp’s side. This is not a fashionable point of view, particularly in recent years. As a Bournemouth fan, who started watching the Cherries in the 1988/89 season and became instantly hooked for life, Harry was something of an idol to me as a child. Redknapp, captain Mark Newson, goalkeeper Gerry Peyton, classy midfielder Ian Bishop, and talismanic striker Luther Blissett were my heroes that first season at Dean Court. They were the key men, and none of them could do any wrong in my eyes. They all seemed immaculately good at their respective jobs. Redknapp seemed so much cleverer and more earnest than most of the kick-n-rush football managers of the late 1980s. I was, in short, a big fan. But that’s started to change in recent times, and never more so than this season. But I’ll get to that later.

Let me first explain where my fondness for the man comes from. The late 1980s were a cynical time for football. Much romanticised now of course, now we’re all pining for crumbling terraces and £5 tickets, but at the time it wasn’t much fun for many football fans. Functional football was increasingly the order of the day. Huge centre backs and centre forwards would crash into each other, nippy wingers would be chopped down by hard-as-nails full backs wearing metal studs, anybody with an ounce of guile – Peter Beardsley, Kevin Sheedy, Ossie Ardiles and the like – were adored like messiahs by the fans; givers of the few moments of flair that would, once in a while, light up a muddy Saturday afternoon and make it worthwhile.

The beauty of Harry Redknapp was his ability to combine skill and toughness into one side – a quality his teams still often exhibit today. The squad contained the flair of Bishop, Sean O’Driscoll and the vastly underrated Shaun Brooks, the searing pace of Richard Cooke, but also the rugged bite-yer-legs-and-any-stray-testicles graft and occasional downright nastiness of Tony Pulis. Most of the squad could really play, including the back four, but there was that bit of steel when it was needed. You can apply this template to most Redknapp sides ever since.

He was a champion wheeler-dealer even back then. Yes, I used the phrase ‘wheeler-dealer’. What better expression is there? That’s what he is. It’s not an insult. Astute signings from the Football League such as Gavin Peacock, John Williams, Blissett and Bishop were combined with brilliant, inspired non-league discoveries like Sean Teale, Efan Ekoku and Newson (pinched from Maidstone United, under the nose of apoplectic manager Barry Fry, after Redknapp found out Newson hadn’t actually signed his contract at Maidstone – Fry telling Redknapp in response that “there'll be two blokes coming down the motorway to shoot your ****ing kneecaps off”).

Bournemouth had their highest ever league finish under Redknapp in 1989, hanging around the Second Division play-offs until late March before petering out and ending up 12th. Sadly, they were relegated the following season (minus Ian Bishop, I should add), and Redknapp would soon depart the club. In a (not widely known) moment of controversy, it emerged after his departure that Redknapp had accepted a payment of £100,000 from then chairman Norman Hayward on leaving the club. Hayward insisted the money was his own and hadn’t cost the club, but still nobody knew what the payment was for. The story caused some unrest among the fans and led to the council withdrawing a grant for car park improvements. It was to be the first of a fistful of allegations and rumours that would dog Redknapp at various times during the long managerial career he has enjoyed.

After he left Bournemouth, I continued to follow Redknapp’s fortunes with some interest. West Ham effectively became my second team for several years. Players like Bishop and Matt Holmes continued a long-standing tradition of links between the two clubs, which carried on throughout the 1990s with the likes of Rio Ferdinand and Jermain Defoe joining the Cherries on loan, and Matt Holland and Scott Mean arriving on free transfers – much of this on Redknapp’s recommendation, no doubt.

And so there are the foundations for my liking of the man. Over the years since he left Bournemouth, I’ve defended him so many times when other football fans have been critical or taken the mick. I’ve sometimes felt that the main things he gets attacked for are slightly unfair.

The wheeler-dealer issue first. Surely the very definition of a wheeler-dealer is someone who buys and sells a lot of things, chiselling out a profit overall. Yes, he buys and sells at a rate of knots, but it’s misleading to say that he’s wasteful with money – as a lot of pub bores do. During his 27-year career as a manager the ‘spent’ and ‘recouped’ columns from his transfers are almost exactly balanced at approx £220-230 million each; if anything the ‘recouped’ total is slightly the bigger figure. That’s textbook wheeler-dealage! The bargains (Rafael Van der Vaart £8m, Sean Teale £50,000, and an honourable mention to Robert Prosinecki on a free while director of football at Portsmouth) and the stinkers (Robbie Keane £12m, John Utaka £7m, Nigel Quashie £2.1m) balance out and leave Redknapp marginally in the black.

Then there’s the twitch. People always laugh at silly old Harry with his craggy, jowly face and his ‘hilarious’ twitch. The affliction seemed to coincide with Redknapp’s recovery from a major car crash at the 1990 World Cup in Italy, in which Bournemouth’s inspirational managing director Brian Tiler was killed. Redknapp was lucky to escape from the wreckage with his life – and I’ve no recollection of him twitching before that. So as well as permanently losing his sense of smell in the crash, that twitch is a perhaps permanent reminder of the day Redknapp lost a colleague and a very close friend. It’s probably not something to make a cheap joke about.

The biggest Redknapp haters of all are probably Southampton fans – and they are perhaps the ones I do have some degree of sympathy for. He did take them down, and he couldn’t get out of St Mary’s quick enough when the chance came to return to arch rivals Portsmouth. To offer some sort of caveat, he did inherit a poor squad, where the likes of Darren Kenton and Neil McCann were getting games, and he did have Clive Woodward brought in over his head the next season – a rugby coach with no football experience. So it’s not quite as simple as dismissing him as a Judas, though it’s certainly true that he could have handled things a lot better.

But among the average football fan there has been a move towards having a go at Redknapp about every little thing he says in recent years. I’ve lost count of the number of conversations I’ve had with people in pubs where I’ve stuck up for the guy, and it’s been getting harder to win those arguments I can tell you. It’s been a challenge not to get sucked into following the herd, and sticking steadfastly to my own feelings about the man. Until this season, that is. I’ve gone. I’ve finally cracked.

Good grief – he’s been a dislikeable sod this season, hasn’t he? It’s been a non-stop torrent of spite and selfishness. He’s declared interest in the England job (more than once) when England have a manager and he himself has a contract at Tottenham. He’s threatened to stop talking to the press after speculation he could get into hot water for some conspiratorial and disparaging comments about referee Mark Clattenburg following Nani’s controversial goal at Old Trafford against his team. He’s humiliated an interviewer live on air for using the ‘wheeler-dealer’ tag ("I'm not a wheeler and dealer – f*** off. I've not made my name as a wheeler and dealer, don't say that. I'm a f***ing football manager"). He’s blamed Spurs’ performance away at Young Boys on the artificial surface, when clearly his team defended like they’d never seen each other before. He’s winged to anyone that would listen that Man City wouldn’t loan him Craig Bellamy – why the heck should they? Would he have loaned them anyone that could help them finish above Spurs? Of course not. And when asked before the World Cup if he was interested in signing Joe Cole, he hinted in no uncertain terms that Cole already had a deal in place with another club, giving no thought to whether the player himself might want to tell the Chelsea fans that had supported him for years that he was moving on. He’s become a real fan of poking his nose into other clubs’ business, and openly discussing rumours with journalists instead of politely avoiding the questions.

So the question is: were all of you Redknapp haters right about the man all along? Or has he just become much more objectionable in recent years?

He is, of course, due back in court in the next few months – to answer charges of tax evasion along with Milan Mandaric and Peter Storrie. Which makes his status as bookies’ favourite to be the next England manager quite interesting. Obviously he’s innocent until proven guilty, but if Fabio Capello has another couple of bad results and walks, Redknapp could conceivably be convicted of the crime while in the job. Then what?

Harry Redknapp, despite spending most of his career managing middling teams, has a career win percentage of roughly 40% – no mean feat. He has the knack of getting the best out of players, particularly those that lack the intelligence to comprehend complicated tactical instructions – as recent quotes from Van der Vaart made clear. He is a wily, savvy, dogged survivor. But though it saddens me to say it – deary me, he hasn’t half turned into a bit of a tosser.

Strange behaviour in the Darlington dugout

What is the point of any away team's manager getting involved with heated banter and bickering with the home fans? The very idea that a manager would even bother seems ludicrous. What possible good is ever going to come of it in terms of the team's performance on the pitch?

Some context. Yesterday I was at AFC Wimbledon v Darlington. The first thing to say is that Darlington got their tactics right, worked their socks off and were probably deserved winners. But Darlington manager Mark Cooper's conduct in the dugout was really bizarre.

Stood in my usual spot on the terraces behind the dugouts, I get to hear a lot of what the managers say during the game. I pick this spot because I find Dons manager Terry Brown's continual encouragement of his troops to keep calm and play attractive football rather heart-warming.

Opposition managers - Crawley's Steve Evans aside, obviously - have generally conducted themselves in a good manner this season at Kingsmeadow. I had always been under the impression that Mark Cooper was an intelligent, forward-thinking young manager - but that was not the impression I left with yesterday.

Some fans behind me were giving Cooper a little bit - and I emphasise the words 'little bit' - of stick, largely about how things hadn't worked out for him as manager of Peterborough. Cooper was giving a bit back for some reason, but it was largely harmless at this point. Then one fan quipped "How much dodgy money are they paying you at Darlo?", or words to that effect. Cooper's response was quite surprising.

He paused for a moment, then turned around and snarled: "About one-hundred-and-fifty grand, tax-free, ah-reet?!"

It's one thing to banter with the away fans - as the likes of Dagenham keeper Tony Roberts regularly demonstrate, you'll quickly gain widespread respect if your banter is good - but to spitefully start boasting about your salary just because a couple of fans have harmlessly taken the mick... as you can imagine, the fans took a real shine to Cooper from this point on.

During the second half, the manager continued to argue with the home fans. There was a lengthy debate between Cooper and the fans over a free-kick in Darlington's favour. And at one point, responding to a throwaway comment from a Dons fan, Cooper crowned his afternoon with a really bad 'Your Mum' joke aimed at one particular fan. And not a funny one either. How much is a manager's mind on his team's performance if he's coming up with crap jokes about supporters' mothers?

One final point. While Cooper remained a distracted presence for large periods of the game, his assistant Richard Dryden acquitted himself well. For much of the game it appeared that Dryden was calling most of the shots. On a couple of occasions it even appeared that Dryden had overruled Cooper on a couple of decisions. I'm sure it wasn't quite as it seemed, but there's no question that Dryden was the only one of the two that was fully focused on the game. Indeed he was the only person in the stadium who realised what had happened when the referee gave Darlington a penalty for more-or-less nothing in the second half.

Apologies if any of this sounds like sour grapes. Darlington did play well, with some impressive performances from the likes of Marc Bridge-Wilkinson, Chris Senior and live-wire substitute Daniel Powell. But their manager's behaviour was just plain odd.