BRIAN GLANVILLE
writes for worldsoccer.com each week.
TO HULL AND BACK
07/08/08
One was hoping that Hull City could keep the talented striker Frazier Campbell, emphatically their best man when they won that play off at Wembley.
There was abundant praise for the veteran Dean Windass, when his ferocious volley clinched the game and long delayed promotion for Hull, but it was Campbell, cleverly picking his way through defenders on the left, whose perfect ball to a criminally unmarked Windass made that goal. Campbell we knew was only on loan from Manchester United; could Hull keep him? I suggested afterwards to their manager that it would be in Campbell’s interest if he stayed, rather than warming the bench at Old Trafford. “You’d have to ask him,” was the reply.
Well, the bad news for Hull is that Alex Ferguson has taken Campbell back and with enthusiasm. He praised him on United’s European tour and, short of strikers, put him into last Saturday’s testimonial match against Espanyol at Old Trafford where he proceeded to score the game’s only goal. More power to his elbow or his boot, but United have such strength in depth that I still fear Campbell will spend most of this season as supporting cast.
As for Hull, who have been busy enough in the transfer market, which they could well afford to be with their £60 million windfall, I rather fear they will find Campbell irreplaceable. To the grief of that fine actor and committed Hull City supporter Tom Courtney, who largely stayed away from their games last season for the superstitious reason that they’d done so well without his presence; and didn’t go to Wembley because he prefers the atmosphere of smaller, more intimate, stadia.
Away back in the late 1940s, that major strategist Raich Carter, formerly of Sunderland and Derby, electrified Hull’s team as player manager, yet with all the generous millions of Harold Needler, the team could never then reach the top flight. Tom once sat next to Carter years later at a banquet; Carter called him “Mr Courtney.” To which Tom protested, he told me, “Don’t call me that; you’re God to me!”
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The Greed Is Good League is at it again. Thwarted in its fatuous, grasping despire to add a 39th fixture day to the calendar, all matches played abroad, it has come back with a scheme for mini tournaments in January, with the excuse that the month could be cleared of actual Premier League fixtures.
Some rest period! Meanwhile the abysmal Richard Scudamore may be watching with interest the vicissitudes of Thaksin Shinawatra, whom the Premier League, after an allegedly thorough investigation deemed a “fit and proper person” to take over Manchester City.
Now Shinawatra’s wife has just been sentenced to three years in gaol for tax fraud, while Shinawatra himself faces charges for alleged financial malfeasance. There was of course also the small matter of shocking abuse of human rights, revealed by Amnesty International, but that didn’t worry Scudamore and Manchester City, either.
Truth to tell, I was somewhat surprised to see Mark Hughes accept the role of City manager. If by some chance Shinawatra doesn’t wriggle out of going inside, what price the future of Manchester City? First and proper for what?
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Watching Arsenal’s double header last weekend at the Emirates, it was somewhat hard to understand how they have been impugned for not being busier in the summer transfer market. Not only did their English youngsters, wonder of wonders, get the chance to strut their stuff, but the team looked thoroughly competitive against Juventus and Real Madrid, even without such established stars as Tomas Rosicky and Eduardo; so cruelly fouled and injured at Birmingham City.
Nor did the dynamic Cesc Fabregas play in either of the games. True, Alexandre Hleb and Flamini have gone their ways, but the arrival of the hugely talented 17-year-old Aaron Ramsey, Cardiff’s star in the FA Cup Final, and of the precocious 19-year-old Mexican international, Carlos Vella, not to mention the expensive French international attacker, Samir Nasri, surely guarantees an embarrassment if anything of riches.
And then, excitingly, there is the splendidly precocious 16-year-old left winger Jack Wilshere, perhaps the most exciting English youngster to fill the position since Cliff Bastin excelled as a 17-year-old, from 1929.
Cliff as we know for many post war years held the Arsenal goal scoring record he had set up between the wars, as effective not least for England at inside left his favoured position as on the wing. Wilshere, yes folks, actually an English player (plus 18-year-old left back Gibbs in an Arsenal team, has pace, flair and supreme confidence.
There was one treasurable moment late in the game against Real Madrid when he came on as a substitute when, faced with a Real defender on the left, with no obvious way past him, he simply and remarkably suddenly surged past the defender, on the outside, to deliver a precise low cross into the danger area. Wenger still seemingly feels he needs to reinforce his central midfield. But when young Alexandra Song, a star of the last African Nations Cup, for Cameroon, returns from the Olympics, he could well be capable of filling the position; as indeed he did when deployed there in the Nations Cup.
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It was interesting to ready Harry Redknapp’s tirade on the subject of young English talent, or the lack of it. Black boys, he insists, are superior, physically stronger. Our own boys don’t spend enough time, by contrast with South American and African players, kicking about on beaches and waste ground.
“Growing up, all we did and all we knew was football,” he pursued. “We played on the estate every night until it was too dark. They are spending more money on gross roots football, but I feel kids would get more of playing with their mates, four hours a night 14 a side, so that when you got the ball you had to dribble it, otherwise you might not get it again for 10 minutes.”
Very much what has been happening for years in Brazil, where the incomparable Garrincha, even when an established star, still liked to return to his village, Pau Grande, to play on a baked earth pitch with a trench in the middle. For young boys, the emphasis would be on play. Trevor Brooking’s suggestion that they should start being coached at the age of five fills me with horror. In any case, who coaches the coaches? For God’s sake, please, not the descendants of Long Ball Charlie Hughes.
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In all the pseudo drama of Emmanuel Adebayor scoring a penalty against Juventus and kissing the badge on his shirt, little or nothing seemed to be made of the first half penalty Real Madrid didn’t get. When Guti put Raoul clean through, then Arsenal goalkeeper Manuel Almunia, dived at his feet and hauled him down; then punched on the loose ball. Mark Clattenburg, the referee, did nothing about it.
And Abou Diaby’s challenge on that excellent Dutchman midfielder Wesley Sneijder, has put him out of the game for months; with cruciate ligament damage. No wonder that, after the game, Bernd Schuster , Real’s German manager, spoke gloomily of the “intensity” of such matches, when top teams were involved.
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Speaking of cruciate ligament injuries, I was baffled to learn that those of poor Kenwyne Jones were examined only last Monday. All those weeks after David James so rashly and superfluously challenged him outside the box in Port of Spain. That unnecessary match when England paid obeisance to the unspeakable Jack Warner.
Perhaps Jones had already been examined and told to wait, before he was examined again. In any event, he seems condemned to miss most of this season and Sunderland, his club, have had to splash out money in the hope of replacing him up front.
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