2013-05-22T18:50:58-04:00 Mike Ward http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=mike-ward Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Mike Ward Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1623469 2012-06-25T05:49:12-04:00 2012-08-25T05:12:04-04:00

Mike Ward http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ward/
Thank the Lord our tournament "adventure" is over for another couple of years. Yet again, we can all breathe an immense sigh of relief. Feels rather good, don't you think? And for several reasons.

First, and most obviously, because I'm simply not sure I could have endured another moment of that. Honestly, watching England compete in major international football competitions has never been an enjoyable, uplifting, soul-enriching experience (the 4-1 defeat of the Dutch at Wembley in Euro 1996 was, off the top of my head, the only time I think I've truly enjoyed an England performance at that stage of any big competition, and only then did it become pleasurable once the result was clearly beyond all doubt), but even by our traditional standards, watching us steadily lose all purpose, poise, penetration and, er, passing ability, against what was a fairly ordinary (by their standards) Italian side was a miserable way to spend a summer's evening.

Second, and following on from this, a semi-final against Germany would have been a truly hideous prospect. Not just because it makes your life feel increasingly like an old stuck record, and not just because of the tiresome jingoism that would once again have been fired up - perhaps not to quite the level it would have reached in days of old, but there are some who just can't help themselves - but because, well, to put it bluntly, they'd have surely made the most horribly efficient, humiliating job of what the Italians achieved via somewhat more laborious means.

And third, because - perish the thought - what if they hadn't? What if England had not only fluked their way past Italy but achieved a similar "miracle" in both the semi-final and, gasp, the final? What if England, THIS England, this bunch whose spirit and noble intent cannot mask their woeful technical shortcomings, had somehow actually gone on to win Euro 2012?

Roy Hodgson is a decent man, I don't doubt, and an efficient coach who has commendably made the most of the limited time antakend resources at his disposal. But be honest, wouldn't it have been utterly terrible if he'd this England team all the way? Terrible for the game, for one thing (it would have been up there, or do I mean 'down', with Greece's grim triumph at Euro 2004), but also terrible for English football itself. A win by a side with such terrible limitations, playing football in that fashion - and somehow grinding out results by doing so - would have sent out a message that would have resonated throughout the domestic game, potentially setting it back years.

Where would be the pride or the glory in that? Could it have felt any more hollow and invalid?

And finally, how nice it's going to be from this point onwards, simply savouring what remains of this tournament, largely watching football being played the way it needs to be played if there's any point in watching it in the first place. Spain, Portugal, Germany, Italy - no great surprises, no giant-killers, no side that isn't there on merit.

The older I get, the more I come simply to appreciate the game's most gifted players - on the pitch, at least (I'm past the stage where I necessarily need to like them as human beings) - and the more I rediscover the pure magic of the game itself. By the same token, the less I find myself able seriously to give two hoots about any clunking old workaday England side.

Besides, what exactly is the point of international football these days in any case? Beats me.

So, OK, would I be saying all this if we were still in the tournament? Of course I wouldn't. I'd have remained in blissful denial, just as I've done in these situations for more years, and at more tournaments, than I care to remember. I'd have been preparing myself for yet another horrible, gut-churning, joyless 90 minutes - probably longer, of course - and convincing myself that any victory, should it somehow be eked out, would be long overdue and richly deserved, blah blah. A victory for English football's way of doing things. A way which, while perhaps not the prettiest, is every bit as valid as that fancy-dan, tippy-tappy stuff.

In other words, I'd have happily carried on kidding myself. I'd have gladly basked in the hollow triumph.

But this way, facing up to the brutal facts, surely has to be the better way, certainly in the long term. It's only by accepting a result such as this, and by taking an unflinchingly honest look at the reasons behind it, that English football can build itself a future of any real merit.

Ultimately, until we have an England side that's able to inspire, excite, uplift and produce football to be proud of, we shouldn't get too despondent when, yet again, they're sent packing.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1618476 2012-06-22T09:58:31-04:00 2012-08-22T05:12:22-04:00

Mike Ward http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ward/
"The Referee's A ****er."

"You Don't Know What You're Doing."

And a non-mover for several decades now - "Who's The ****** In The Black?"

Rousing favourites, every one of them. And all sending out the same essential message - that the main match official's performance is not meeting with the wholesale approval of the assembled throng.

Now, I'm not one for chanting this sort of abuse myself. I don't really chant at all, to be honest, mostly because I'm far too self-conscious (I even used to mime in my school choir, how ridiculous is that?). But I'd be a liar and a hypocrite if I didn't admit to having quietly shared such sentiments on many an occasion.

This is for two reasons:

(1) For the duration of any football match (one that I attend in person, that is, involving my own team), I became a wholly unreasonable, pig-ignorant individual. I am not remotely proud of this, but I'm afraid that's what football does to me.

(2) I have deep-rooted authority issues. Always have had. Which means that referees, while bravely doing the sort of job that I'd never have the guts to undertake myself, unfortunately happen to bring out the worst in me, simply by existing (as do stewards in high-visibility tabards, by the way, especially the guys with goatees and ear-pieces).

But - and I know I'm about to get my head bitten off for admitting to this - I actually quite enjoy, just for these isolated 90-minute bursts, becoming an obnoxious human being. Provided this doesn't spill over into the real world, and provided it doesn't amount to much more than me shouting and growling in the direction of the pitch, and provided I subject myself to certain constraints, language-wise, then I see it as a healthy emotional outlet, a brief, blissful release from the week-long obligation to be a nice, reasonable, well-balanced, responsible adult.

And that's why I'm worried about the introduction of goal-line technology.

Now, I know Simon Rice has already blogged on this topic, expressing his own misgivings, but mine is a more basic, perhaps less socially acceptable argument. Namely, that I'd miss the chance to rant at useless, jumped-up, self-important, jobsworth match officials. (See, it doesn't take a lot to set me off...)

Although I'm genuinely appalled and angered when these people screw up - especially when, somewhat significantly, they fail to spot that the ball has crossed the goal line - there's a part of me that actually loves them doing this; a part of me that relishes all the resulting outrage and controversy, as if it proves that I've been right all my life, and that authority figures are, without exception, hopeless, incompetent buffoons.

Utterly pathetic of me, I know. You don't have to tell me.

Once technology reduces the scope for such human error among match officials - or, gasp, heaven forbid, actually eliminates it altogether - this element of the football-watching experience will disappear. Sure, it should put an end to all those terrible injustices, whether they've benefitted our own side or our opponents - and yes, of course, the Beautiful Game will be all the better for that - but who will people like me (who sometimes dislike the officials more than the opponents) be able to yell at?

To reiterate, I'm not suggesting this is an attitude to be proud of. The fair and rational part of me, the bit which controls my thoughts and actions 99 per cent of the time, knows that football couldn't exist without referees and their assistants, that theirs is in many cases a thankless task, that maintaining your composure and integrity, not to mention your dignity, when tens of thousands of blinkered fans are howling at you requires superhuman strength of mind. As I say, it would be far beyond the likes of a wimp such as me.

But I know I'm not alone in secretly enjoying the furore triggered by refereeing mistakes. Not only do crowds love to let rip, but endless column inches can be generated by just a single controversy. Radio phone-ins, blogs, Twitter, you name it - they'll be buzzing with a billion points of view. It's part of the drama.

I realise I'm defending the indefensible, but surely it can't just be me.

Yes, football will be a whole lot fairer when technology comes in. In that sense, it can't happen soon enough.

But for those of us who, besides genuinely loving the game, have used it for years as an outlet for our rather sad authority issues, it's bound to take away some of the fun.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1603045 2012-06-16T20:16:24-04:00 2012-08-16T05:12:24-04:00

Mike Ward http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ward/
And TV-wise, make no mistake: it was truly ground-breaking stuff.
"Don't worry," ITV1's Chiles assured us, half-way through the thunder-and-lightning-delayed Ukraine-v-France encounter. "You won't have to miss a minute of the England match." Or words to that effect.

Now, I know this may not have sounded a particularly big deal - I don't suppose it'll be popping up one day on Channel 4's Most Shocking Throwaway Remarks On Telly Ever - but don't let's underestimate its significance.

What Chiles was effectively saying, you see, was: stuff Emmerdale.

That was the programme due to follow ITV1's coverage of Ukraine-v-France. But instead of insulting our intelligence, as has been the habit of TV sports presenters for as long as I can remember, by avoiding any reference to a rival channel's imminent live coverage of another crucial match - and pretending instead that Euro 2012 fans were all going to stay loyally tuned to ITV1 to catch up with the Dingle family's latest scrapes - Chiles openly acknowledged that we'd all be switching over to England v Sweden, his remark alerting us to the fact that it had been delayed until 8pm.

Now, I happen to be quite a fan of Emmerdale, thanks to my day job as Britain's fourth best TV Critic - I think it's desperately sad, don't you, the way the village's former vicar Ashley has recently found himself homeless and destitute? - but even I wasn't dim enough to believe this was the only terrestrial viewing option available to us football fans once the current game's coverage was over. I don't suppose many people were.

So top marks to Chiles, for cutting the traditional nonsense and just telling it how it was. They don't tend to do that, do they, sports presenters? They rarely go, "Ooh, well, you're obviously a football fan, or else you wouldn't have stayed tuned to this so-so game for the last two hours, so I guess you're going to be switching over to the other side for the big one in a few minutes' time, right? Can't say I blame you..."

And yet this was effectively what Chiles had done.

As I say, its significance may well have been lost of many viewers, but significant it most certainly was. Here was an unprecedented level of honesty and realism on a sports presenter's part - a willingness to address us viewers as if we weren't all idiots, to acknowledge that the coverage of this tournament was being shared with ITV's biggest rival, and that this was where, Dingle crisis or not, most fans would be turning in a few minutes' time. Usually they'll refuse to acknowledge the rival channel's coverage of any game, simply drawing our attention instead to their own late-night highlights package. And we'll quietly chuckle / seethe at their daftness, amused by the fact they think we'd fall for such a transparently lame tactic.

As to where all this honesty will eventually lead, we can only speculate. But the possibilities for TV are endless:

"And now on BBC1, Panorama investigates the crisis in the Eurozone. But if I were you, I'd switch over to Corrie, where there's a really good riot brewing in the knicker factory..."]]>