Where’s Wally Now?

It is very easy to find yourself on YouTube, browsing through reams of home made videos specifically designed to entertain, amuse, and even ridicule. And when it comes to Steve McClaren, ‘ridicule’ is certainly the actionable buzzword. Simply by typing his name into YouTube, you have at your fingertips an array of mean-spirited videos: for all the joys of 21^st century technology, it really does give voice to society’s cretins, clueless and illiterates.

Many of the comments attached to these videos reveal simply that the ‘authors’ spent much of their time at school either wearing the dunce’s hat in the corner or, I have to assume, high on lighter fluid. I quote, ‘complete and utter tw@t! but funny to watch! w@nker’. Clearly ‘Lewyyasmith’ was elsewhere when capital letters were taught. My favourite has to be ‘GH3Ftw1’, who writes, ‘The mans from f***ing Yorkshire ! what a stupid prick you dont pick up a strong dutch accent within a month the ginger w@nker !’Note the absence of grammar, poise, or even a trace of the English language in that one.

More alarming however, leaving aside this semantic snobbery for now, is just how recently these comments were posted: within the last seven days in fact, the very seven days in which Fabio Capello’s England triumphed 4-0 in Kazakhstan, 6-0 over Andorra, and a full 19 months since ‘the wally with the brolly’ was fired. I may be putting my head on the block here but does anybody else think its time we all moved on?

The facts are these: England are the leading scorers in the European World Cup qualifiers, only one goal away from setting a record for the most goals scored in qualifying campaign history. We are one victory away from qualification; with two games to spare and Fabio Capello has a win percentage of 80%. That’s better than Sir Alf Ramsey for goodness sake. The England national team under Capello has become a colossus: nothing short of a slick, smooth operation.

It seems to be taking everyone forever to realise that his failure is the best thing that has happened to English football since 1966. There is no doubt that he made a complete pudding of the whole process, but this was hardly the worst-case scenario. The worst thing that could have happened would have been for him to have got us there, however unconvincing we were in the process, and for the drab, predictable and disappointing quarter final exit that typified the Eriksson era to continue in perpetuity.

I assure you that if we had bowed out in the quarters of the European championships, that grease-ball Brian Barwick would have kept McClaren on as manager, we would be level- at best- on points with Croatia in our World Cup group right now. Slaven Bilic and co would be laughing themselves hoarse at the prospect of facing us at Wembley in three months time. As it stands, beating them will see us qualify, and you can bet your bollocks to a barn dance we will do just that. Far from laughing, I imagine Bilic will be looking for the nearest Premier League job he can find, sparing his blushes as we administer the Wembley hiding Croatia thoroughly deserve.

The fact is that Steve McClaren is not a bad manager. He stepped up to take on the most demanding, poisoned chalice of a job football can offer, save managing Newcastle United, and he did not meet expectations because in a job where perfection is a prerequisite, he was not perfect. Remember, this is a man who got Middlesborough to the UEFA Cup Final, and won them the Carling Cup. Ask anyone on Teesside today where they would rather be- Eindhoven on an early summers night, or Bramall Lane on a cold winters evening in the pissing rain- and I think most would favour the McClaren inspired former. His work at FC Twente has been largely ignored, mainly because his highly commendable record highlights just how good a manager he is.

The point is that when McClaren managed England, he was out of his depth. The moronic Barwick and his merry men at the FA looked for continuity by picking Sven’s right-hand man. But they failed to account for the huge difference between putting out cones on the training pitch, and getting into the astonishingly thick heads of players like Wayne Rooney, Ashley Cole and John Terry. England needed a master tactician and a thinker, an authoritarian who would turn international duty into a privilege, not a holiday.

England did not need a manager turning up to the most important game in years sporting a cheesy brolly and a cheap cup o’ joe, nor a man who rugby tackled our captain and called him ‘JT’. England needed a leader, a boss, a gaffer. Mistakes were made, but at the very top: McClaren was not ready to be thrown in at the deep end so completely, and consequently does not deserve derision for drowning. Only by failing did he highlight at just how high a level the England manager needed to operate. Our success has come at the expense of one man’s failure, so to ‘Lewyyasmith’ et al I say this: learn to punctuate, move on and get over it.