Alan Coleman

I was accused of being a glory hunter at work today because I follow Manchester City. I use the word follow because I’m not a real fan, I don’t go to matches and I’m not from Manchester. The accusation did come from a Spurs supporter, so you have to understand that there’s going to be a little bit of sour grapes what with them being crap for the foreseable future.

I’ve been to see City play once, at the Emirates stadium, I sat behind a bunch of apathetic Russian women in complete silence, literally. The only noise to be heard that day was that from the few thousand City supporters at the other end, singing and taunting despite Arsenal running rings round them. I’ve even been to the City of Manchester stadium once, but by the state of me I could well have been watching Oasis from the Barside at Layer Road.

I Also like City because they’re not Man United. Alex Ferguson with his petulance, chewing gum and old man gait. It’s just Man Yoo isn’t it? The ever greasy Christiano Ronaldo, Old Trafford and Rio Ferdinand with his Simpsons style plasticine mouth. Mick Hucknall supports Man Yoo, he would do wouldn’t he? And who’d want to be associated with anything to do with that fucking twat? It’s no wonder that Liam Gallagher punched him in the face for being, “An insult to Manchunians”. Mick Hucknall. Why in the name of Jesus H. Corbett would you you support the same football team as Mick Hucknall?

United fans are finding it hard to disguise their jealousy, especially after being saddled with millions of pounds worth of debt by an American that openly admits that he doesn’t like them. Liverpool fans too are whining with envy, in their case the debt that they ended up with came from an American that didn’t even realise that there we’re two teams in Manchester, duh! Even Mandy knows that.

Anyway, you have to support a football team don’t you? So it may as well be a proper one, not one whose entire fan base has a Hackney carriage plate, a crash pad in Fulham or a bicycle rental business in Phukhet. And if you don’t support a football team then what’s the point of watching Match of the Day? Or Shite of the Day as Mandy calls it.

But after all that, I follow City because I felt sorry for them when they where shit. I liked Maine Road, Kevin Keegan, Stuart Pearce. I liked the way that the City fans respected the 50th anniversary of the Munich air disaster, and the way Mike Summerbee conducted himself in front of booing Man Yoo fans at Wembley. Talking of Mike Summerbee, he starred alongside Sylvester Stallone and Pelé in Escape to Victory with another City player, Kazimierz Deyna. Escape to Victory, no Manchester United players were involved with the film.

We, yes we, are loaded. Deal with it. Money doesn’t buy silverware? Oh yes it does.

FA Cup Final, Saturday 17th May 2008. Portsmouth Vs Cardiff.

The day starts with a journey down to Portsmouth on the South West Trains’ superb service out of Waterloo. Great station, quiet new trains with spacious carriages, £30 return. You can’t argue with that. People who moan about trains in this country usually listen to bands like Coldplay, drink Magners Cider and pretend they like Jeremy Clarkson. Go away.

The Final itself coincided with Ian’s Stag night, which was handy for getting refused entry to most pubs in Southsea, “Nothing personal guys, but no groups of blokes”. What do you expect? It’s the FA Cup Final, not fucking Valentines Day. You can stuff it anyway, who needs student pubs with stab vests, chalk boards and fake sawdust? Not when some of the finest pubs in Portsmouth are open for anyone, The 5th Hants Volunteer, The Devonshire Arms, proper boozers with Vinyl padding and dog hair. Pints in pint glasses and a dartboard without the irony. Urban pubs for industry, a dying and underrated breed.

A proper football club in a proper city. Women wearing football tops out drinking with their blokes. Humour, cigarettes, the buzz of victory and self respect. Great stuff, great day.

We’ve been asking for it for years, and there was certain inevitability about the disaster on Wednesday night that is almost comforting. It’s almost as we’ve finally been put out of our misery after years of suffering and abuse, safe in the knowledge that it’s going be at least a year before we have to put ourselves at risk of such humiliation again.

I think Wednesdays defeat to Croatia was a culmination of events – Injuries, a bad playing surface, some naive goalkeeping and a general lack of confidence all contributed. These aren’t excuses, England were beaten on the night by a better team, playing better football with a superior mindset. Croatia came for a game of football and took it to England, outplaying them both technically and mentally with guile and spirit.

Good luck to them too, they deserve everything they get.

And what of Steve Mclaren? For some reason I feel a little sorry for the bloke, although for the life of me I don’t know why for he doesn’t deserve my pity, and he certainly hasn’t earnt it either.

He was out of his depth from the start, even with my merge knowledge of the game I could see the ineptitude lurking behind the stupid grin and blow dried hair. A good domestic coach maybe, but a manager at international level is a different game altogether, we know what it takes and we knew from the outset that Mclaren didn’t have what was required. But the Football Association employed him anyway, an appointment made in haste, under pressure to employ an Englishmen.

It was a gamble that didn’t pay off.

Talking of which, it looks like he’ll be getting a nice big one too, no doubt running into millions so maybe I don’t feel sorry for him. If he was any kind of man he would have walked away from the job last night, proving that it‘s not about the money and in doing so saving the game, and himself, a little face. But no, he’s greedy, and the country’s lasting memory of him will be of a man hopelessly outclassed, stood on the touchline sheltering his blow dried under an umbrella.

The buck stops with the manager but there are other factors to consider here also, not least the players themselves. I’ve always defended football players in terms of what they earn and how they behave, most criticism being easily answerable as intellectual or class snobbery. And Wednesday night didn’t change my mind, I still saw eleven blokes trying as hard as they could to win a football match against all odds. The charge that anyone representing their country at its national sport wouldn’t have the desire to win is absurd, the sort of comment that screams regularly from the Daily Mail, lapped up its badly dressed readership. As stupid as the idea those results will improve if they earn less.

The skill is there, we see it week in week out and we saw glimpses of it on Wednesday night, the Beckham and Crouch link up being a good example. But maybe England can’t function without the flair and technical skill of foreign players, or maybe they’re not being led and motivated properly at managerial level. A player can only do so much, the shaping of the team is up to the boss, as it is in any organisation.

So what next? We need a European manager with strategic intellect and skill, that much is clear. It would be good also to see someone inject some passion into the team from the touchline, in the pouring rain if need be.

For me, it has to be Jose Mourinho

There was a certain amount of momentum leading up to the 2007 FA Cup final. Scores to be settled from the Premiership, a new and long awaited national stadium, and with that a general acceptance that football was finally coming home – sort of. The scene was set, the predictions made and the obligatory case of Carlsberg lugged back from the Offy in time for kick off. I was even looking forward to the pre match banter and pundity so essential to such an occasion.

The Empire all over again for 90 minutes as the world tunes in and sees how great we are – the romance of the FA Cup.

So where did it all go wrong? For me, it probably started at the point where Mike Summerbee walked onto the pitch to a chorus of Abuse from the Man Yoo fans. I asked myself what a man has done to deserve such treatment after dedicating his life to the game, representing his country and playing over 400 games for Manchester City. The sight of parents with dirty fingernails booing an elderly man in front of their children is probably everything you need to know about Man Yoo and its glory hunting support.

It’s a shame that those same supporters, probably from the Home Counties, couldn’t find it in themselves to abuse the balding heir to the throne as he delivered an entirely predictable speech as President of the FA. Who really deserves our praise? At least Mike Summerbee understood the offside rule.

So even before one of the most tedious games in the history of the sport kicked off, the day was tarnished. Perhaps that’s what happens when things get built up too much. Reality has a habit of biting us on the arse.

I’m glad Man Yoo lost, the only down side being that it was to Chelsea, the team of choice for fake football violence and its student flirtations. A team that has become synonymous with the brutality of greed, and cheating players like Michael Essien. A team that’s as ugly as the part of London from which it derives its name.

Apparently it was a good goal, but by then we’d stopped watching, the overwhelming anti climax being enough to make the Karen Carpenter story sound like a night on the piss with Roy Chubby Brown.

But should I be surprised? Maybe it’s not just the FA Cup, maybe it’s the game itself that is changing. It’s no secret that all those London Taxi drivers that used to go and watch the Arsenal have been priced out of their sport. Replaced by gaggles of women and Russian men with too much money to burn. Thus, changing one of the tenets of working class life into just another spectator sport like Rugby, or horse racing. But that’s for another day.

I love football, but the 2007 FA Cup final was crap.

We met some of Mandy’s friends last night in central London, and with quite a few of them staying in town it was decided that the best place to meet up was Covent Garden. Which can only mean one thing, The Punch and Judy.

I remember thinking how dire the place was about 13 years ago when I went there with a load of people I was working with in London. Standing on that balcony on a sunny afternoon watching all those stupid acts down on the street. Blokes leaping around in costumes spending half an hour working the crowd up to expect something amazing, then one hits the other over the head with an inflatable hammer to the sound of an old car horn. Hilarious.

At least yesterday it was dark when we turned up so I didn’t have to endure the so called entertainment, although on the way there we did pass someone playing a saw with a violin bow. Boring.

We arrived early last night, which is unusual for us, and the short wait for Mandy’s friends gave me ample opportunity for a nose around. Upstairs was full of stag nights, men slightly awkward in smart casuals looking like they’d much rather be at home watching X factor on a warm sofa. There’s more bloke parties downstairs, all trying to look harder than the next with shaved heads and tight fitting shirts, even if they tried it wouldn’t be possible to look any more gay. But hey, blokes out on the piss and who am I to criticize.

While I wait at the bar to spend £8.20 on two drinks, I am overwhelmed by something that afflicts most central London pubs.

Filth, it is unrelentingly dirty.

Every surface not covered in empty glasses is coated in a sticky residue that prevents touching. The floor, sticky again, is littered with cigarette butts and wrappers that have been discarded because there are no ashtrays. As wide eyed tourist gaze disappointedly at the cheap veneer, smells of toilets and foul lager permeate every pore.

The owners, maybe a hotel chain based in Leamington Spa, probably offset any customer experience against the outrageous profits gleaned from a combination of their own greed and their customers’ stupidity. The whole place reminds of Chelsea FC. Dirty and overpriced.

As I look around at the tacky theme fittings and fake blackboards, I wonder how much of a field day Dickens would have in this modern London squalor. He wouldn’t believe his luck, a reeking cesspit that sucks in unsuspecting tourists and dribbling louts. Besides the freakish customers there’s enough ground in dirt and contemptuous greed to write an entire trilogy.

Never, ever, again.