As the World Cup qualifiers gather pace, Rob Shepherd remembers the days when he was involved in an England manager’s witch-hunt, and bets that an Englishman could do the job every bit as well as a Swede.
In many ways the championing then the culling of an England manager is the cruellest of sports. There are times when the hack pack can certainly be far more bloodthirsty than fox hunters. Is it wrong? Hell no, so long as the argument stays on the playing field and you don’t join the Berkshire Hunt just to prove a point.
English football thrives on being a national obsession, so just as the rewards are high, so are the stakes. The notion that the English press are the worst haranguers of its national team is balls. Ask the family of Colombian player Pablo Escobar – shot dead on his return from USA ’94 in the wake of an alleged drugs and betting scandal. Or Brazil, Italy, Argentina, Germany – they all get hammered and ridiculed if they fail. After Euro 2004, half the coaches were ousted for not delivering.
Yet Sven Goran Eriksson, unbelievably with the security of a new improved contract signed before the tournament in Portugal, offered a shrug, a smile and, well, it wasn’t long before well he was scoring elsewhere. So much for the so-called Impossible Job.
Roasted turnip for starters
The Soho Square sex scandal wasn’t a cause to slag off Sven – but his lackluster management is. Indeed, it only seemed when the criticism started to get fierce after the farce in Austria in September that Eriksson was cajoled into doing something positive.
The hunt, though, is now on. I have seen it from both the fox and hound’s point of view. Although I wasn’t the one to put a turnip on Graham Taylor’s head when he was England manager, I was right up at there at the front of the pack hounding him.
It was always based on football arguments, not least over some bizarre team selections: first in Norway in 1993, then for a pivotal match in Holland to qualify for the 1994 World Cup finals in the United States. Taylor’s team lost both matches, so England failed to make it to America.
Enter Terry Venables. The Venables era was unusual in the sense that even on the day of his appointment, while being saluted by many as the People’s Choice, he immediately confronted a vindictive smear campaign to undermine his credibility.
It was all based on off-the-field matters. The fall-out from his bust-up with Alan Sugar at Spurs led to allegations about his business affairs. There was no honeymoon period. From Day One Venables was the quarry for some. During this period I got a taste of what it was like to be the hunted. Along with a few other reporters, I had a good personal relationship with El Tel and was convinced he could turn England into winners.
Ultimately, what happened during Euro ’96 proved that. Okay, glorious failures again in losing a penalty shoot-out in the semi-finals, but surely that entitled him to take the team on to the next World Cup. Tragically for England’s cause, the weight of the campaign against him made his an impossible job. Six months earlier, Venables made it clear he would step down rather than suffer the indignity of being kept waiting over a new contract until after the tournament. How times have changed.
That story tested my loyalty. I had become aware that Venables would no longer tolerate the FA’s procrastination about his future, because he had told me socially. It was not a useable ‘off the record’ briefing, but ‘off limits’ advice. He felt he couldn’t lie to me, but did not want the story out until he had formally informed his employers on return from a holiday over the Christmas period.
I had to play ball. It would have been a great scoop, but to double-cross him would have been the betrayal of a confidence. I held my nerve – just. The day before his scheduled return I took a call from a contact informing me that a shortly-to-be released book to which he had contributed was about to be serialised ahead of schedule.
Sliced Swede for afters
The story I had been sitting on was about to break, so I arranged a meeting the following day. In attendance were two rival hacks who, because of the book, knew what was afoot. Realising he could no longer keep his intentions private, he gave us the green light to run the ‘Venables Quits England’ story for the following morning, then immediately rang the then FA Chief Executive, Graham Kelly, to tell him the score.
Looking back, it was – from a national newspaper football reporter’s perspective – a top tale, but it was so unnecessary and, because of the FA’s lack of backbone, all so previous.
I would not say the same if I saw a similar headline about Eriksson in the coming months. Some argue the FA need to hang on to him because there is nobody else capable of doing the job. That’s utter nonsense. Just look at this list of Bet365’s favourites: Alan Curbishley at 5/1, Steve Bruce 7/1, Martin O’Neill 8/1, Arsene Wenger 12/1, Sam Allardyce 16/1.
I reckon any of those could do every bit as well as Eriksson, if not better. My money has long been on Curbishley, but the available Venables could come in and complete some unfinished business. Since Bet365 quote him at 66/1, though, it would appear Venables is a non-starter, mainly still for off-field reasons, which – strangely – don’t seem to affect Eriksson. Funny how, for a country with such patriotic instincts, the goalposts have been moved for a foreigner.
