The London Review of Books is blogging the World Cup, with mixed results. This post, by R. W. Johnson, apart from being anti-vuvuzela (bzzzz) is riddled with odd ideas. England's '66 team 'had a core of Northern grit' - Alan Ball, Ian Callaghan, Roger Hunt, 'plus Jack and Bobby Charlton, Nobby Stiles and Ray Wilson.'
Those seven played in almost every game. This year’s team is very different. True, it has three vital Scousers – Rooney, Gerrard and Carragher – but the bulk of the squad comes from the South, reflecting the perhaps inevitable rise of London clubs in the age of giant cheque books. It is not exactly confidence-inspiring that England rely on Heskey and Crouch, both explicitly rejected by Liverpool.Apart from the absurd stereotyping involved in the notion that a squad should be largely born north of Birmingham, Liverpool wanted to keep Crouch and only let him go reluctantly, while Heskey was almost brought back to the club, before he opted to move to Villa instead.
Even more peculiar is the notion that, if London clubs had a financial monopoly, they would buy players locally from the home counties. The logic of unregulated trade, money without borders, means that the big clubs buy the very best, whether they are from Ivory Coast, Czech Republic, Ukraine, or Brazil. As for the London clubs' 'inevitable rise in the age of the giant cheque book'... The richest club before Abramovich bought Chelsea was Manchester United. And even now, the richest club is Manchester City. Northern clubs have never been slow to spend: from Newcastle and Leeds' (catastrophic) sprees, all the way back to Sunderland's 1950s nickname: the 'Bank of England' club.
Still, this Diary piece by Johnson for the LRB in the run-up to the tournament is excellent.
The problem is that, in order to be even minimally substantiated, a claim like this would need to be backed up by at least two cases - otherwise how do you know that you're not hastily generalising from something that was accidental? You might as well say that England won't win unless they have two brothers called Charlton in the team ...
ReplyDeleteExactly, it's absurd. That passage is a knot of bizarre assumptions and leaps...
ReplyDeleteYou'd need more than two cases, but for arguments sake, the second most successful england team in a world cup - Italia 90 - contained the following Hardy Northerners: Gascgoine, Beardsley, Waddle, Shilton, Platt, plus a few on the bench.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Crouch is a southerner and Hesky is a northerner - it's not who you play for, it's where you're from.
brilliantly bizarre... but then, The World Cup evokes this all the time in, well, everyone, myself included. It seems to defy logic in a very deliberate and literal way... it's a Dream event, one borne out of the collective switching off of the frontal lobes, one which allows all manner of idiotic and unrelated events to be glued together in a way that appears consistent... but I guess that's also partly why people bother to write about it; the cold hard logic (it's a bit dull, it's often a bit dull) seems, in turn, to defy interest...
ReplyDelete@zeno144 ... I did say at least two cases for even minimal substantiation
ReplyDeleteShilton was born in Leicester, which is in the Midlands, not the North.
So that leaves us with four northerners in the team - meaning a majority who weren't northerners.
And re Leicester - surely Heskey was born in Leicester?
ReplyDeleteWhen the title popped up on my reader I thought this might be about the brilliant draw achieved by All Whites against Slovakia.
ReplyDeleteIn a north - south divide I always co-opt the midlands into the north. I see this practice is not accepted here - apologies. I think Hesky is from Birmingham area ... but may be wrong.
ReplyDeletezeno144 - arggh, causes a lot of tension in our house that one. My wife says I'm a northerner; I say I'm from the midlands! Nothing wrong with being a northener needless to say, I'm just - not...
ReplyDeleteAccording to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emile_Heskey, Heskey is indeed from Leicester.
ReplyDeleteDoes no-one wish to challenge the vitality of Carragher?
ReplyDelete@ Giovanni - I thought I should leave the NZ game to you!
ReplyDelete@ DC - challenge R. W. Johnson's assertion that he is part of the team's hardcore you mean? I have mixed feelings about Carragher. He's an incredibly limited footballer technically. His tendency to stop the ball dead then jig around it looking for a safe pass is infuriating, it's as though he doesn't trust himself to play a moving ball, and it kills momentum. He has never exactly been quick either, though hopefully he won't have to defend against players as quick as Altidore et al in every game. On the other hand, he has qualities that Capello loves: discipline, experience, fearlessness etc. If England reach the semis, I would prefer him to the more fragile Upson/Dawson every time. Perhaps the biggest problem is that he's similar to Terry: not too quick, not too tall, but physically imposing, reads the game well, not amazing at distribution. You don't really want two CBs like that, you want one plus King or Ferdinand. Oh well.