Passive Attack - A View from London

BOOK REVIEW: Elmore Leonard, Up in Honey's Room

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A couple of weeks ago I went to Wembley to watch Miami take on New York Giants in the NFL.

With a media pass I got access to players that you don't get in most sports. Covering rugby, you basically wait outside the changing rooms until the media officer brings you the guy(s) you have asked to speak to.

In football, I understand it is the same, except you might get the addition of an agent standing over you telling you which subjects are taboo.

I'm going off on a tangent now but bear with me because this really annoys me. Why a player can't just say, 'I don't go want to go down that line', in the course of an interview, is beyond me. But agreeing questions beforehand is common place now but no less ludicrous and pointless. Especially when the people who put the money into sport, the TV media, are told what they can and can't ask.

(Remember Jeff Stelling being told he was 'out of order' by Bolton manager Sam Allardyce when asked a question about bungs in football following the Panorama documentary, because Sky had agreed not to ask questions about it. Why should a company who pay all that money to the Premier League and its clubs be told what they are allowed to ask? Bolton even threatened to ban Sky from talking to Allardyce, as the had done the BBC, makers of the Panorama investigation.)

As I said, I digress, but only because the NFL allows you access to its talent in the most open, almost too open, of ways. Miami and New York were back in their respective locker rooms at Wembley and, basically, the doors are thrown open and in you walk.

Unaccustomed to this, it is a daunting experience. The small guys are 17 stone and built like brick ****houses. And if you were wondering it is all muscle, it is all on display. And I mean all of it. My colleague interviewed a New York Giants defensive player dressed in his birthday suit, and although he kept his eyes on his subject's face the whole time, he could still report to his girlfriend later that the player in question 'should really have license to carry a weapon like that'.

Again I digress but you look around and wonder who you are going to talk to. I was in the Miami dressing room and already the season American reporters had collared TD scorer Ted Ginn Jnr. Coach Cam Cameron was already of to do his press conference and QB Cleo Lemons was getting some attention. Defensive vet and team "captain" Jason Taylor wore a face that said 'don't ask me right now' - but I asked, and he kindly said, 'come back later, let me get dressed first'.

So I turned my attention to a couple of other players, wondering if some rookies or less stellar names might be up for a bit of media attention and I was right. Wonder over and a guy will give you a straight answer to a straight question.

Nothing was off the agenda. The Dolphins had just lost their eighth straight game but ask them whether they were ever going to win, not an unfair question, and you got a fair answer. True, all the answers came from media training school. Polite, passionate and to the point but without serious revelations. But also without clichés and meaningless platitudes.

It was a different experience and one that the Premier League might do well to consider. In the US, the networks and the NFL are the paymaster and piper... they call the tune.

Article: Fins fight 0-16 talk

American game in London

Just over a week ago I was at Wembley Stadium watching Miami Dolphins lose (again) to New York Giants as NFL took another crack at broadening its horizons.

American Bowls, the World League and NFL Europa. All have come and all have gone but the NFL says, ‘if at first you don’t succeed…’ and good on them.

I was at the old Wembley Stadium, among some 61,108 fans who watched London Monarchs beat Barcelona Dragons in World Bowl I in 1991 but by 1995 the Monarchs were playing at Tottenham’s White Hart Lane in front of 16,000 instead of 60, and by 1998 the team was scrapped.

Before the World League, I attended American Bowls at Wembley between the Bears and the Cowboys in 1986, the Rams and the Broncos in 1987 and finally for the Dolphins and the 49ers in ’88. The American Bowl came back to London a few times until its final appearance 1993, and has travelled elsewhere, but hasn’t been played since 2005 in Tokyo.

All were well supported, particularly in the early years, but the novelty, spectacle and entertainment far outweighed the quality of each game. The American Bowls were akin to taking Manchester United and Chelsea to Los Angeles and playing Rooney, Ronaldo, Lampard and Terry for the first 20 minutes, and then replacing them with the youth team.

The World Bowls were poorer still. Back then there were 28 NFL franchises, with squads in excess of 60 players.. The teams that represented London, Barcelona and American cities not lucky enough to have their own NFL team - such as San Jose or Sacramento - were full of the players not good enough to make NFL squads. So that was basically like watching League One football, but without the players nearing even Championship, let alone Premier League calibre.

Unsurprisingly, sub-standard fare served up at three-star prices didn’t whet the appetite for too long and NFL Europa has now followed the World Bowls and American Bowls and was taken off the menu.

And so the NFL concocted another crack at conquering the world but this time they realised they needed to export the Real McCoy. In its first attempt San Francisco and Arizona travelled to Mexico City and played in front of more than 100,000 people. Europe, and London specifically, was on the agenda again.

When they announced that Miami would ‘host’ New York Giants at Wembley in October 2007, more than half a million applications were received for tickets in the first two hours of them being made available. The appetite was still there, but this time fans were going to see a regular season game, for the first time in Europe.

Except once again the game failed to match the expectation and hoop-la. All the other bits and pieces were there. A full house, cheerleaders, foot long dogs and plenty of beer but the game was poor, really poor.

The weather was bad, but no one should be surprised that it rains in London in October, it is the UK’s rainiest month. And so the turf cut up, and fast men looked slow, and probably became easier to catch.

The NFL weren’t also to know that Miami would be terrible this season – the only team to record a perfect season is heading towards an imperfect one having moved to 0-8 at Wembley – and that the Giants, who are being touted as Super Bowl contenders, would play terribly too.

Post-match, none of the players wanted to make a big deal of it, but the poor game was basically blamed on the weather by the media and it was probably spun that way by the NFL who are committed to at least two more games abroad.

Germany is rumoured and games will go west to Tokyo and south to Mexico, but London could see another game soon too. So it seems London will get another game, and it’s good job too, because even though this one was awful, I would go again.

There are no guarantees and although Manchester United and Arsenal served up a good one between the top four this weekend, it was the exception rather than the rule, so picking better teams might not make the difference… it might still rain and the pitch might cut up and sometimes, teams just don’t deliver on their reputation. We might have got the Bears!

Perhaps the game should be taken elsewhere. Twickenham could work because the rugby-ready pitch doesn’t cut up, or Millennium Stadium Cardiff is another idea as there is a roof, but the pitch can be dreadful.

Hold it where you like though because now we are getting the starters rather than the stiffs, the fans will come. Sooner or later they will get a good one. Despite a bad game, bad weather and bad teams, NFL have hit on the right recipe at last, and it should be here to stay.

What goes on tour…

It was inevitable really. With every World Cup or Lions tour come the diaries, ghost written columns and biographies, auto or otherwise.

And following them come the castigations that, ‘what goes on tour, stays on tour’. But should it?

Where once it was Matt Dawson and Austin Healey drawing back the curtain and letting us into the inner sanctum of Graham Henry's British and Irish Lions, this time it is Lawrence Dallaglio and Mike Catt taking us behind the scenes with England at the latest World Cup.

And because they decided to say out loud what has been said elsewhere, that they think Brian Ashton is a good coach but a lousy manager, they have been shot down in flames.

They were candid and spoke their minds, and thank God they did, because I can do without another sporting biography full of the sort of platitudes that tell you nothing about the man, the player and the game… for £13.99+

Why would we want to censor top players, men who have been there and done it, and who, with a little honesty might be able to help England move in the right direction? Because while the RFU might be busy patting itself collectively on the back for a great campaign, the rest of us remember what came before.

From the outside it looked more likely that Paul McCartney and Heather Mills would get back together than England reach the World Cup final, and from in front of my television, it looked very much as if England were devoid of a game plan.

Then I heard through the grapevine the same recollection of the Olly Barkley and Ashton story and my guess is that someone else took charge and England worked out a way to win. There is a chance that Catt and Dallaglio might have been at the heart of it.

We shouldn’t let the two quarter final and semi-final performances cloud the thinking needed to move England forward. If two experienced and World Cup winning players say they feel that Ashton is in the wrong job, rather than castigating them for it, perhaps we should sit up and listen.

So far the response has been damning from Guinness Premiership coaches and the RFU alike and of course some of the criticism is that if you have something to say, then say it to the man's face or take it up with the authorities.

Whether Catt or Dallaglio had told Ashton what would be printed in their books and serialisations is conjecture, but as the type of blokes who have taken on some of the hardest challenges rugby throws at you head on, it is unlikely they ducked an awkward conversation.

It is more likely that Ashton is aware that Dallaglio, among other players, believe the former Bath and Ireland man to be a better coach than manager.

And therein really lies the lesson here. Think more about what these guys have said, rather than the fact they said it.

Brian Ashton is apparently a fantastic coach, so let the guy coach. Clive Woodward was not a great coach but, by all accounts, a very good manager. When we let him manage, he put in place a system that gave England the best possible chance of winning the World Cup in 2003.

England made the mistake before of putting a good coach, Andy Robinson, in the wrong position, and they no longer are the beneficiary of his talents. They shouldn't make the same mistake again. Find someone to manage and let Ashton coach.

If the players had any confidence that the RFU would make the right decisions, they would be less likely to come out and make these statements, in books, newspapers or anywhere else.

But we have seen it all before. Will Carling had his rumble with the old farts over a decade ago and Dallaglio, with Martin Johnson, took England to the verge of a strike to facilitate necessary change for players’ rights and treatment.

So this is a different issue, and not one serious enough to merit a strike, but it is worth speaking up over if you care about English rugby. And whatever you want to accuse Dallaglio and Catt of, you can’t throw that one at them.

And frankly, all of the above aside, why shouldn't two blokes who have given everything for club and country over two decades have the right to share their opinions, publish a book and make a few quid.

I will buy both because they are players who have opinions that I want to read. Why should what goes on tour always stay on tour?

Four more years...

What are you supposed to do when you bump into a Kiwi mate when you are off out to celebrate England's victory over France on Saturday night?

You take him with you so you can rub his nose in it some more. Of course you do.

I hope that Chris, a mate of a mate, is feeling a little better today because when we bumped into him he looked near suicidal and this was a full seven days after the defeat to France. I hope when we left the pub that he made his way safely home and didn't launch himself off Chelsea Bridge into the Thames.

He took the stick well and it is fair to say that a trip to a pub jam-packed with pissed-up and jubilant England fans would not have been the tonic recommended on a call to Samaritans. I guess it is all part of the healing process, but you can tell that it is going to take a long time, maybe another four years, for some of these boys to feel better.

Part of the healing process too has to be to stop blaming the referee. This isn’t a trait exclusive to New Zealand rugby fans as I recall similar death threat campaigns to the one Wayne Barnes is currently the subject of, when a football official dared to send Wayne Rooney off for stamping on a Portuguese footballers privates in the last Football World Cup.

We’ve seen it before and we will see it again but while it might make you feel a little bit better in the short term, ultimately you will begin to see sense again and know that it wasn’t the referees fault that you got knocked out.

First up, of course it was a forward pass. And yes, Wayne Barnes missed it, but that’s about the end of it. Other than that, the man had a good game. Anyone who thinks he had a bad one is wrong, in my view, and to think he had a poor game on purpose – i.e. cheated because he wanted England to face France, wants to think long and hard before chucking allegations like that around about a very decent guy, by all accounts.

But it’s not his fault New Zealand lost. It is New Zealand’s fault – the players and the coaches.

The game should have been dead and buried before Luke McAllister took an early break. 20-0 it should have been and I am not sure the French were coming back from that.

By the time McAllister came back – you can argue either way whether he should have gone or not but you see them given and you see them missed, it went the yellow way so deal with it – France were back in the game.

Then there is the selection. How about looking at why Aaron Mauger wasn’t anywhere near the pitch in Cardiff? And why you had a full back, albeit a gifted one, playing at outside centre? And where was Piri Weepu to replace Byron Kelleher? And why on earth was Chris Jack on the bench?

This was the World Cup quarter final against one of the best teams in the world and being the best team in the world for the last three years meant diddly squat by the time the teams walked out at the Millennium Stadium. There is never, ever a case of leaving a guy out here to keep him fresh for the semis. That kind of thinking gets you… well, you know where it gets you, on the first plane out of Dodge.

The calming presence and experience of Mauger, the experience of Jack and the feisty half back play of Weepu was just what was needed for the final 20. Maybe one of them might have said, hang on a second, ‘let’s kick this drop goal, get in front and then see about getting back down that end and scoring a try’.

Even after the forward pass, McAllister, the replacements… the game was still there to be won. That it wasn’t, isn’t Wayne Barnes’ fault.

And even our mate Chris conceded that late, late into Saturday night. At this point he still wasn’t feeling a lot better. I think only England taking a royal humping from the Springboks will put a smile back on his face next weekend.

And even that might not be enough. Cheer up fella, it’s only four more years.

A golfing nightmare

I had the most bizarre dream recently in which for the first time in a very long time I properly fell out with my brother.

It happened once before when I was about 18 over a girl and another time after I had graduated from university when I questioned his sincerity about something he said to me. The first lasted longer than the second but neither lasted very long.

And I am very grateful for that.

But in this dream the other night my brother accused me of cheating at golf. He accused of me of marking down at eight on my card when in fact, he thought, I should have put down a ten. Now never mind the quality of golf that this indicated we are capable of, I was livid. Wronged. Accused without cause, and to put in frankly, thoroughly f***ed off with him.

After a long argument on the next tee, when several fourballs played through after hearing our very public argument, I decided to walk off the course. And then back to the tee box to take up the argument again.

I returned on two principles. One, I have only once before had a row with someone and not apologised. I did not apologise when a friend, who is no longer a friend, accused me of doing something horrible that I did not do, and so therefore I could not apologise for it – it would have been an admission of guilt. Because of this he would no longer talk to me. Again frankly, I am not too bothered about this. Who wants a friends who pisses himself in your sleeping bag and then moans to the whole town that you have betrayed him when you didn’t even realise until the next time you went to use it two summers later just what he was so upset about?

The other reason I returned is because there are some things you do not do in life. One of them is cheat at golf. You don’t do it. It is common place in football, almost encouraged in rugby – if you get away with it, there is nothing wrong with it – and tolerated in many other sports.

But not golf. Within the rules of a friendly game, you can offer your playing partner a mulligan, allow him a better lie or even give him or her a free drop should the bounce have been terribly unfortunate and the spirit of the game is such.

But you don’t cheat the score. However harrowing it is to scribble down in pencil double figures on your scorecard, you do it. It took you four shots to get out of the trap after your tee shot went OB and you missed the first two putts. You took a ten, mark it down. BUT I DIDN’T. I took eight shots and I will bloody well put eight down on my card.

I have never had such an animated dream. When I awoke I wasn’t bothered by the fact my brother of 32 years no longer liked me but was still seething that he thought I was capable of cheating at golf. We were playing strokeplay and the best score one, I would never cheat. Golfers know the rules and my brother didn’t know me at all. He thought I was capable of a crime lower than….

Outside of the realms of dreams I know a man who actually reported his brother to the Royal & Ancient – the guardians of golf if you like – for a rules infringement. Golfers take this business seriously.

My injustice was made worse by the fact that our playing partner, a good friend who makes his money as a criminal barrister, would not stick up for me. What irony! Our friend privately told me he didn’t think I shot a ten but would not stick up for me. I probably couldn’t have afforded his fee anyway but that’s beside the point. What’s wrong with a little pro bono on the golf course for a mate?

I wouldn’t mind if I had made a mistake, and could have been pointed out by my brother but he couldn't. It was unsubstantiated and he wouldn’t take my word for it and it drove me wild.

What is the point of all this and the point of the dream? Well to start with it reenforced the message of how lucky I am to have such a good relationship with my brother but I don't need a stupid dream to tell me that. Maybe it was a subconscious repsonse to Everton Football Club becoming so enraged at perennial idiot Jose Mourinho accusing one of their players of being a cheat, when of course some of Chelsea's players are the biggest cheats of all. Maybe there was some message in there about the importance of keeping integrity in some apsects of life when the end justifiying the means in modern life excuses just about anything.

Of course it was only a dream, but even so, you just don’t cheat at golf.

Ryder Cup

It is the night before the 2006 Ryder Cup and I can barely contain my excitement. I don’t know what it is about the Ryder Cup but it gets me going like few other sporting contests – maybe only the 2003 World Cup final topped it.

Before 1999 it was THE biggest deal. Watching the Sunday singles with my mates from school, hearing a cheer as we watched someone else putt out on Sky Sports, hoping it was a European man draining a 20-footer.

"It was too loud to be an American putt."

"I don’t know, it could have been Tiger"

"It was definitely European, maybe it was Monty?"

"Come on Monty!"

And so forth for hours.

And then it was all ruined a bit in 1999 at Brookline. That Ryder Cup left me wondering if I would ever be raised to this level excitement again. Well, I am up there.

I am not one of those who is happy to use the 17^th green at Brookline to have a dig at the Americans – although what happened shouldn’t have done, and it was a shame it did, and they were responsible for their actions.

But it was the result of a cause. The Americans "owned" the Ryder Cup. We had to go and ask our Spanish and Swedish friends to get involved to win it back. And win it back we did in ’85 at the Belfry, and then again a decade later over the pond in 1995 at Oak Hill having passed it back and forth over the Atlantic. By then it was a big deal.

And it became bigger still at Valderrama in 1997 and that is where, for me, the 17^th at Brookline started. The Ryder Cup had become bigger than golf, and so, like the Premiership in England, people came to watch that weren’t golf fans. They love the adrenaline, the tension – and who can blame them, it is brilliant – but they weren’t so aware of the history, the sportsmanship and so a few Americans were annoyed by some of the things that happened in their defeat in southern Spain.

By the time the Cup got to Massachusetts, it meant more to everybody and the Americans wanted it back. But that didn’t look likely on Sunday morning when Europe led 10-6 and needed only four points to retain the Cup. What the Americans did that afternoon was sensational, backs to the wall, out of the top drawer, golf. But that has been forgotten.

They sped to a 6-0 lead in the singles, and although there was still golf to be played, the unlikely had become possible and they believed it. Those points weren’t in the bag yet, but the Americans realised that their expected domination of the singles would deliver an amazing win. And within that win, one man played the most scintillating golf.

Justin Leonard, our Open champion, was 4 down to Jose Maria Olazabal after 11 holes. That, at least we thoght, would be one point in the bag for Europe wouldn’t it?

No and what Leonard pulled off was out of this world. It was inspired and after everything that went before, it was kind of understandable why the Americans went nuts when he holed one from a different time zone at the 17^th that meant he could no longer lose his match. They knew they’d won it, we knew they’d won it. But instead of taking our hats off to the Americans, we moaned about them running "all over" Olazabal’s putt.

Everybody knows it was wrong but the reaction to it was unbelievable and completely out of proportion. I’m not one for using this saying too often, but it is true, nobody died.

It is a shame that Tom Lehman, some of his team-mates, their wives and entourage decided to celebrate on the green before Olly hit his putt, but they did. And the Ryder Cup would never be quite the same again. Or at least so I thought.

The attacks on the World Trade Centre in September 2001 meant that – quite rightly – events at Brookline were far from people’s thoughts when a year late the dual restarted. The Belfry crowd reacted brilliantly, and so did the players – the golf was brilliant.

9/11 gave the Ryder Cup perspective again and so, at 8am tomorrow morning (Friday), I will be watching Monty, Harrington, Tiger and admirable Jim Furyk tee it up at the K Club. I won’t sleep tonight and that might be the only thing I have in common with those men.

Let’s hope the golf lives up to the expectation. It finally deserves to.

Reading: John Irving: The 158lb Marriage - hard and weird. And Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Marukami. One of the best by one of the best.

Listening to: Artisan @ The Bedford. The best you have not yet heard.

Watching: Little Miss Sunshine. Don't take yourself too seriously and watch a funny, well observed film.

To Bali via Chelsea and France...

I'll spare you all the details but August 2006 is a month I will never forget. It was the month I married Emily. Anyone who knows Emily, knows that her celebrations don't last the traditional amount of time. Her birthday isn't just October 29, but the week before and after. Christmas begins sometime before December and finishes with a hangover on January 1. So it came as no surprise that our wedding lasted a month. And what a month!

Aug 3: "Legal" ceremony in Chelsea Town Hall. My voice was croaking in the ceremony, Emily was laughing. Roma was crying and it looked as though Ben had a tear in the corner of his eye. Paddy wanted to know which of the children looked the best. It was perfect. Just 14 of us and a great meal to celebrate (C Garden, Sydney Street - great food and they love your kids). The evening was spent in Kisse on Lavender Hill, Battersea/Clapham. I don't think you are supposed to get hammered on your wedding day, but we both managed it. As Roma later said: "I have never drunk so much Champagne". I don't think anyone has, judging by the hungover text messages received from everyone the next day. Thanks to all for a great day.

Aug 13: The wedding. Chateau de Monbazillac in France. Again, the perfect day. 100 or so friends and family in this beautiful setting. The best of company, food, wine and days. Thanks to everyone who made the trek, sent cards and presents and made it all such an amazing day. Tam, Val and Cam - you were brilliant. So too the Bucklers wit their beautiful singing. The day raced by as everyone said it would but fortunately not so fast that we couldn't catch our breath and take it all in to keep some dear memories for life. It was perfect.

Aug 17-27: Singapore and Bali. I am writing now and it is September and the month we were looking forward to for so long is over. Sad as that is, it didn't disappoint. Chelsea, Monbazillac, Bali. All of it perfect. Singapore and the Shangri-La was the perfect stopover before Bali. The sun shone for the eight days we were there: Six days in the southern resort of Nusa Dua to relax and two days in Ubud at the stunning Alila hotel.

August 2006 will be a hard month to beat, but never forgotten.

In August I read:
Disgrace by JM Coetzee - Not a honeymoon read but a beautiful if traumatic book. So well written and a what I guess is a very real introduction into the shift of power in South Africa and the troubles that come with it.
The Hot Kid by Elmore Leonard - Every time I read Leonard, I say: "He is the king, that must have been his best yet." Well, Leonard is the king and The Hot Kid must be the best thing I have ever read by him.
The Full Cupboard of Life by Alexander McCall Smith - You know what you get from AMcS and Mma Ramotswe. The fifth installment doesn't disappoint. The dialogue is what makes it work and the way Mmas Potekwani, Makutsi and Ramotswe ambush their men into doing what they want them do is the key to the charm of this series.
Right as Rain by George Pelecanos. If anyone gets close to Leonard's dialogue, it is Pelecanos. The third Strange novel I have read and every bit as good as Hell to Pay and the brilliant Hard Revolution, which should be read first, in my opinion, or can be read alone.

Je ne regrette rien/ au revoir Zizou.

"What can I say? He said very harsh words to me and repeated them several times. I left but then I went back towards him and things went very fast. The words he said concerned my mother and sister. I heard them once, then twice, and the third time I couldn't control myself. I am a man and some words are harder to hear than actions. I would have rather been knocked down than hear that.

I receive the words of Zinedine Zidane (in a text message from a friend), who breaks his silence on his World Cup final red card with an apology, sort of.

The man has nothing to apologise for.

"I do apologise for what I did. Many children will have seen it. I have children so I know what it will be like. But I cannot regret it. He was not right in saying what he said. The person guilty was the person provoking."

Forget Marco Materazzi in this incident, I don’t care for the mud slinging in this case, he is neither due the criticism nor worth the attention. If you want to talk about a centre-half from this year’s World Cup, talk about Fabio Cannavaro, who is up there with Zidane as a real great.

The first time I ever watched Zidane play football, it began with a head butt. I was in the Stade Lescure in Bordeaux, as it was known in 94/95, and Monaco were giving Girondins de Bordeaux a right, royal humping. 4-0 and well into the second-half, Monaco’s left-sided French international full back Basile Boli decided he was going to make a lasting impression on a young Zidane.

He did so with his head, and the game changed on its own.

The match was in the Coupe de la Ligue (The French League Cup) and it wouldn’t be far from the truth to say that this tournament is as highly regarded in France as an under-10’s Sunday school six-a-side is elsewhere in the world.

But I didn’t care. I hadn’t long been in France and anyone I spoke to about football told me that I had to hot-foot it out to the Barrières and watch Zidane. Catch him while you can. He is great, not just good, and he won’t be here for long.

Correct on both fronts.

In the 25 minutes that Boli made it ten v 11, Zidane put on a master class and although the match ended 4-2 to the Monegasque, Boli would have spent a few anxious moments wondering whether he should have let his head intervene a little later.

Zidane was brilliant, mesmerising and a visionary. He played with his head in the air, perfection in passing and a flawless touch that near-guided the best Bordeaux side for generations (Bixente Lizarazu, Christophe Dugarry and Robert Witschge were team-mates) side to an improbably victory.

He was brilliant and remained brilliant for Bordeaux for a further two seasons until defeat to Bayern Munich in the 1996 UEFA Cup final convinced Juventus to take him on – and Bayern Munich to sign Lizarazu.

I followed my new hero – he has surpassed both Kenny Dalgish and Ian Bishop (don’t ask) – in Italy and Spain, where at Real Madrid for £45m he was signed as the world’s most expensive player.

There he won titles, and he scored sensational goals in European Cup winning seasons. His brace in Paris in 1998 gave Brazil les bleus and he had delivered on the biggest stage.

For eight more years he played the beautiful game more beautifully than anyone else I have ever seen. He is not an angel but he never claimed to be one. He may have finished his career with something he might live to regret – but probably not, it is part of what makes a man a man.

Let him who is without sin cast the first stone. Apologise for nothing. Zidane, you are the greatest footballer I have ever watched play the beautiful game. You made it more beautiful still. Au revoir.

Mondial

If you didn't know already, there is a World Cup on. In England, it is impossible to avoid it. Even if you don't possess a television or radio or pick up a newspaper, where every advertisement comes with one football connection or another, you simply cannot miss it.

Step out of your front door and it is highly likely that one of your neighbours' children, bless them, has decorated his front window with a St. George's Cross. If not, every third car carries a flag and your local watering hole tells you that you their establishment is not an escape from Germany and invites you to join in more national misery while spending your hard-earned over their bar.

I am not complaining. It is is just one of the many sporting events taking place right now that helps to keep the roof over my head and my fridge full of food (and beer, there is a World Cup on don't you know?)

In fact, I like football. When I was kid I would have told you that I loved it. My parents wouldn't need to look for me at dinner, bath or bed time. I would be outside pretending to be Kenny Dalglish with my Liverpool shirt on, firing the ball past one of my cata, between the two trees, over the fence and into the field at the back of our garden.

I don't love it anymore. Most boys turn into men at some stage and realise that there is more to life and I count myself lucky to be one of those men. But I still like it and I am enjoying the World Cup - despite drab English performances. It has just got me thinking about the way it makes us behave.

Like most of my compatriots, I am grateful that a World Cup or European Championship no longer means an exodus of men, who would have once upon time been assuaged by conscription, and feel the need to flex their muscles at the expense of another nationality.

I don't really mind the flags, bunting, beer mats, advertising and every other outpouring of national pride that comes with the World Cup. What I don't like is that it does seem to reach inside most of us and flick on the racist button.

I am not talking about anything too sinister for the most part, but just the way that we generalise, stereotype and patronise from our lofty English perch and turn into hypocrites.

I was listening to a television pundit talking about a refereeing performance during a second round game this week, when the reason for a poor performance was that the official in question didn't come from a major football playing nation. How could someone that didn't officiate in the world's best leagues, such as England's Premiership, be able to handle the pressure of such an occasion?

Except that he had conveniently forgotten that only two days previously England's refereeing representative, Graham Poll, had failed to send a player off having shown two yellow cards, and remembered to do so when producing a third. It is this sort of hypocrisy that can drive a man mad.

One of the features of the World Cup thus far has been the play-acting and diving, known as simulation by football's governing body FIFA. Every evening we are treated to commentators and experts chastising this foreign affliction, yet they forget that four years ago England's captain, David Beckham, and Michael Owen couldn't throw themselves to the turf quickly enough to win the set piece that ultimately put paid to Argentina.

Even those that didn't watch those dives through rose tinted specs excused them on the grounds that either it was Argentina, and they deserved it for the Hand of God in 86 and Beckham's red card in 98, or because they wouldn't have done it had foreign footballers not brought this habit to the game in England. It is not the ugliest form of racism, but it is racism nonetheless, and we just can't help ourselves.

Our television stations invite World Cup winners from Brazil and France into their studios but we barely get to hear them speak so that men who have barely played in a World Cup, let alone lifted one, harp on with an air of unmerited authority.

Our newspapers criticise their German counterparts for mocking David Beckham, or his wife. But of course that is their job, when they are not making as many crass Nazi references as possible, so how dare the hun take the p*** out of our captain!

It's all a bit too much. Can't we just watch the football? Can't we just enjoy watching Argentina without mentioning the Falklands or the Hand of God? Or watch Brazil without a commentator drooling over his microphone while saying "Samba Beat" or "flair is in their blood"? The Germans are organised, the Dutch are temperamental, the French don't like each other, the Africans are corrupt etc... etc... What, all of them?

Maybe it is best if England just gets knocked out by Portugal (how dare their manager snub our top job!) and we go back to doing what we do best... Moaning about why we can't win a World Cup. Oh, and blaming the Swede.

Reading: The Switch - Elmore Leonard (Brilliant)
Watching: Desperate Housewives - Series 2 (Pretty good) & The World Cup.
Last Movie: Godsend (Not even average)
On my iPod: Trouble - Ray LaMontagne (Excellent)
Playing: Golf at Stockley Park this weekend (Expecting to be very poor is slice on the range is anything to go by)