All Change For Florent

Live football today was Chelsea and Blackburn at Stamford Bridge. A strong performance and a 2-0 victory for Chelsea, albeit too late in the season for it to actually mean anything.

Florent Malouda, apparently stung by my criticism of his fruit-based hairstyle last week, seems to have had it redone. The braids remain, but, instead of one little stalk, he has got the braids at the front and back of his bonce, and pulled them together so there is a sort of furry line across the back of his head where they meet.

It looks like a cross between some kind of hairy bivalve – a whelk, perhaps – and the talking plant from Little Shop of Horrors. He must have a go-to guy for braiding who’s on call twenty-four hours a day. “That pomegranate look was okay, but I’ve a big match coming up, can you make me look like I’m wearing a hairy lop-sided tiara, please.”

He scored Chelsea’s first today with a clinical header though, so perhaps the new do is paying for itself.

Spanish Grand Prix

As the circus moves to Spain, there was much talk of Alonso mania in Barcelona, and we were duly shown pictures of autograph hunters and flag-waving supporters. I’m not sure how big an influence this really is on a Formula One driver. Nigel Mansell always used to say the crowd at the British Grand Prix gave him an extra second per lap, but it’s hardly the same as the Gallowgate End when you are in a deafening car and your ears are securely plugged.

A realistic Fernando Alonso wasn’t playing the game. “Will you give your fans something to cheer today?”

“Well, we’ll do our best, but it’s going to be very difficult.”

Some of the Spanish fans were too busy poking fun once more at Lewis Hamilton. This is an interesting cultural difference between Spain and Britain. There are very few black people in Spain, so they still see it as a bit of wacky knockabout fun to black up and pretend to be Lewis Hamilton, whereas in Britain, we prefer our racism to be a little more subtle.

Following up on the Ferrari team’s travails, the BBC had a filmed interview with Kimi Raikonnen which had been recorded earlier in the week. Raikonnen is never overflowing with charisma, but I thought he was about to lapse into a coma during one answer. He seems to have applied the same level of enthusiasm to yesterday’s qualifying, finishing in sixteenth place.

Eddie Jordan was incandescent, advocating his immediate suspension. Michael Schumacher should take his place, apparently.

Martin Brundle, sick of being blanked by the top drivers on his pit walk, decided to go to the back of the grid where he presumed the also-rans would be delighted with the publicity. So who did he interview? Lewis Hamilton’s girlfriend.

He moved on to Sebastian Bourdais and led with, “anything you can do from back here?” He might as well say, “You’re a bit crap really aren’t you?” Incidentally, whenever I hear Sebastian’s surname, I start singing “On a Ragga Tip” by SL2. That’s a pretty obscure reference unless you are almost precisely the same age as me.

He then interviewed the two Force India drivers who had qualified in the last two positions on the grid and actually led into Adrian Sutil with this question: “How do you cope with waking up in the morning, brushing your teeth, and knowing you don’t have a prayer?” I’m surprised he didn’t get a punch in the teeth.

The start of the race was one of those belters that I enjoy where there is complete mayhem as Jarno Trulli’s Toyota went off the road, then speared back across the field, taking out both Torro Rosso cars and Adrian Sutil. Looks like Brundle was right about his chances.

The race was again dominated by Brawn with Button eventually coming out ahead of Barrichello, but their lead over the rest of the field is now huge – they have 68 points in the constructors’ championship, with Red Bull trailing in second on 38.5

Felipe Massa was having a good race in fourth place with five laps to go but rather farcically ran out of fuel, and had to allow Vettel and Alonso past him so he could coast home. Coupled with the fact that Raikonnen failed to finish once again, Ferrari are becoming a laughing stock. Eddie Jordan is probably hiring hitmen as we speak.

Spanish GP Qualifying

It’s a fortnight since the Bahrain Grand Prix, and in that period, McLaren have been up before the authorities again – I’m getting bored of this now so I won’t go on about it. Especially as the biggest off-track news was the proposed changes to next year’s championship.

In a beautiful piece of Formula One backroom politics, FIA president Max Mosley took the ball-gag out of his mouth and announced a £40m budget cap from 2010*. A sensible idea designed to allow teams to budget in these straitened times, encourage new teams onto the grid, and level the playing field. This being the FIA, however, they managed to take a good idea and turn it into a complicated mess.

The £40m budget will cover all expenditure except one or two exceptional costs:
1. Marketing and Hospitality – okay, that’s fair enough. No sense punishing a team for putting on a good spread.
2. Fines imposed by the FIA – erm, okay. But I would have thought any disciplinary wrongdoing should be included as a punishment.
3. Drivers’ Salaries – what? Surely the driver is an integral part of the team’s performance. That should be number one on the budget process surely.
4. “Any expenditure that has no influence on performance in the championship.” – Oh you’re just taking the piss now.

I haven’t got to the best bit yet – the budget cap will be entirely optional. This makes it beautiful in its redundancy. It’s like taking the government’s ID Cards, saying that you don’t need a picture on it, and that your date of birth is optional, and it doesn’t really matter if you carry someone else’s instead.

* There was no ball-gag, and any suggestion that there was a ball-gag would be a filthy lie.

Before qualifying, the BBC boys continued their habit of conducting interviews in front of the team garages, despite the fact that the engines are being revved in readiness, making it the loudest place in Spain. Ross Brawn and Williams’ Patrick Head were both interviewed about the proposed budget cap, and both seemed to dismiss the idea as unlikely to happen, but this didn’t stop Eddie Jordan working himself into a lather.

I think perhaps I am being unfair on Jordan, but he just seems so angry. Mind you, the Dalai Lama would look pissed off standing next to David Coulthard, soaking up the sun with his air of benign contentedness.

There was also a short film on the British Grand Prix featuring an interview with Simon Gillett, who runs the Donington circuit that will host the British GP from 2010. The back-story here is that Bernie Ecclestone fell out with Silverstone over their inability to expensively upgrade the circuit and, amid threats to remove the British GP from the calendar, Donington stepped in and secured the contract.

The problem is that Donington is not much more than a building site, they are being sued for £2.5m in unpaid rent, and the bank has withdrawn their credit. This chap Gillett was trying to sound reassuring about securing funding and having the place ready in time, but he came across as something of snake oil salesman, and I reckon Silverstone might yet have to step in.

Jake summarised the piece by saying, “I’m sure British fans wouldn’t want to lose the British Grand Prix.” Well, that’s probably a safe assumption for the tens of thousands of fans who pay their £250 to attend each year, but for the rest of us, it wouldn’t make that much difference – Barcelona or even Singapore is just as close as Donington for me because I’m watching them all in my front room. The British GP only gets more media coverage than, say, the Spanish, because all the papers’ top sports editors fancy a day out.

In the actual qualifying, Jenson Button pulled out the final lap of the day to secure pole position alongside Sebastian Vettel – they say Barcelona is not a great course for overtaking, so this might shape up to be yet another victory, but that’s for tomorrow.

Further back, Ferrari’s much vaunted upgrades seemed remote as Kimi Raikonnen managed to go out of the first qualifying session, and will start sixteenth on the grid. Although Felipe Massa made it to the second row of the grid, it seems that all is still not right at Ferrari.

Commentary of the day:
Martin Brundle, commenting on Kovalainen clunking onto the kerb, said he had, “an armful of opposite lock through seven and a tankslapper through eight.” I have no idea what any of that means.

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Hapless Footballers Number 1 – Nicklas Bendtner

After Arsenal were knocked out of the Champions’ League on Tuesday night, young Nicklas Bendtner decided to go out for a quiet drink to drown his sorrows. Approximately six hours later, he was photographed leaving a nightclub with his jeans round his ankles, that quiet drink presumably having turned into one or two louder ones, followed by the inevitable public display of underpantage.

“Reaching a Champions’ League final is one of my biggest dreams and getting knocked out was a massive blow,” Bendtner snivelled. “However, no matter how disappointed I was, it does not excuse my behaviour later in the evening. I want to apologise to the club and the fans for letting them and myself down.”

What is curious about this apology is that at no time yesterday, or indeed at any point throughout the season, did he see fit to apologise for the fact that he is completely hopeless as a footballer.

Bendtner joined Arsenal as a sixteen-year-old from Denmark and joined the Wenger dream-factory, scoring buckets of goals in the reserve team but not cracking the first team beyond the few mandatory League Cup games.

Honestly, there was one third round tie against Burnley a couple of years ago when Wenger played a team made up entirely of the schoolfriends of one of his grandkids just for a laugh. A lot of pundits grumble that Arsene brings the League Cup competition into repute every time he picks a team, whereas I believe the Cup was brought into repute long before that, when the Football League allowed it to be sponsored by the Milk Marketing Board – who ever got an open top bus parade for winning something called the Milk Cup?

And while I’m on the subject, why the hell did we ever need a Milk Marketing Board, and more importantly, why did they have a budget large enough to sponsor a national football competition? Were people sitting around drinking Tizer until they saw Ronnie Whelan’s extra time winner in 1983?

Anyway, Wenger loaned Bendtner out to Birmingham for an entire season, during which he helped them get promoted from the Championship. According to press reports, City manager Steve Bruce wanted to sign Bendtner on a permanent basis, but, extraordinarily, rather than taking Bruce’s hand off like a half-starved alligator Wenger instead gave Bendtner a five year contract.

This seriously calls into question Arsene Wenger’s reputation as a professorial polymath with an impeccable eye for a player. But if Steve Bruce also wanted him, then there must have been something there.

Why, then, has Nicklas Bendtner in the two seasons since then, degenerated into such an incompetent figure of fun. The main reason that Arsenal fans mourned the loss of Eduardo after that nasty leg break was that it meant Bendtner would be forced to have a lengthy run in the side. Apparently he and Emmanuel Adebayor don’t speak to each other any more, presumably because Bendtner thinks Adebayor’s goals make him look bad.

He’s wrong. It’s his own lack of pace, brick wall first touch and woeful eye for goal that make him look bad.

Champions' League

After two of the greatest football teams in the world clashed last week an stuttered to a boring nil-nil, I must confess that my hopes weren’t high for last night’s second leg of Chelsea vs Barcelona. However, having watched Barca destroy Real Madrid at the weekend, I confess I was hoping for some attacking flair and Chelsea being humbled in front of their own fans.

It turned out to be a controversial affair that ended with Didier Drogba swearing on live television and a roly-poly Norwegian referee being smuggled out of the country like a paedophile at The Old Bailey.

Michael Essien scored Chelsea’s goal after nine minutes with a one-in-a-thousand left-footed volley into the top corner – a goal that deserved to win any game, making the next hour and a half all the more amusing.

Throughout the game, Barcelona had the majority of possession but couldn’t get near the goal as Chelsea soaked it up and played on the break. Much to the dismay of their supporters and players, Chelsea had a total of four penalty appeals turned down by the ref and, just on the law of averages, at least one of those ought to have been given. But they weren’t.

In the 92nd minute, Andres Iniesta hit one of those rising shots that looks like it would kill a spectator if it goes wide. It tore into the top corner leaving Michael Ballack thumping the ground with his fist, and Didier Drogba, by now back on the bench in an apoplectic rage.

I missed a lot of the scenes after the final whistle, which featured Drogba almost tearing his clothes in horror at the injustice, because I was bent double with mirth. As a relative neutral, I have to say that the prospect of Manchester United playing Barcelona is a much more appealing final than yet another meeting with Chelsea.

As in previous rounds, I found my mind wandering during the action, and started assessing the Chelsea squad by haircut. I have had my suspicions about Drogba for a while now, but every time I see him, it becomes more and more apparent that the man is quite plainly going bald. He has it long at the back and wears that headband, but it does him no favours.

After he scored, I noticed exactly the same thing about Michael Essien – he has thick lustrous locks covering the rearmost 60-70% of his bonce, but there’s no mistaking that self-same receding hairline.

Surely this is a role for Ray Wilkins – brought in during the Scolari regime to instil some good old fashioned British grit and determination, he needs to pull these fancy-dan foreign boys aside and tell them to shave it all off. He is living proof that looking like Uncle Fester need not be an impediment to an international football career.

Looks like Nicolas Anelka got the tap on the shoulder some years ago.

While we’re on the subject, what on earth has Florent Malouda done to his hair? He has his hair braided (which sounds like agony to me), and then drawn into a point at the back, where there’s a little hair stem that makes him look like he has a freshly plucked piece of fruit on his shoulders.

We used to have a guinea pig before the boy was born who had hair growing in every different direction possible. The poor little sod looked like someone had dragged him backwards through a brush, covered him in glue, thrown a pile of straw at him, and then dried him off with an industrial strength fan. John Terry, ladies and gentlemen.

Petr Cech has got the right idea with his skull cap – designed specifically to match his big girl’s blouse. For all we know, he could look like Manuel Almunia under there.

Incidentally, there is a lot of hot air at the moment about whether or not Manuel Almunia should be allowed to play for England. Despite being 100% Spanish, he has now lived in Britain for long enough to claim citizenship, whereupon he will be entitled to play for any of the home nations (I would pick Northern Ireland just to annoy Capello). Although this is within the rules, there is much hand-wringing about whether we should allow a Spaniard to wear the three lions.

But this is totally missing the point – the real debate should be whether or not we want the England shirt to be worn by a 32 year old man who thinks it is appropriate to bleach his hair.

We’re Going Down With The Mackems

It looks like Newcastle United are now in complete freefall. This month’s saviour couldn’t save his own pocket money and, unless there is a resounding victory against Middlesbrough next Monday, it will be almost impossible to stay in the division.

Alan Shearer has now had five games in charge of the team and has steered the club to just two points in that time. Worse, his 3-5-2 formation has served up just one goal. The experiment has failed – it was hoped that he would give the players an instant lift and motivate them to earn the handful of points needed for safety. Instead, he has fiddled with the formation, swapped players like they are on stickers, and, even with Iain Dowie beside him, displayed no evidence of any tactical acumen.

In just one month, the physical strain is starting to show. On Sunday, he looked so pained as Liverpool scored their third goal, that even Dowie looked calm and carefree in comparison.

I’m sure he’s lost some more hair too. The male pattern baldness that has been stalking him for several years had left him sporting a small patch of hair at the front of his head – a patch that has become known in our house as Shearer Island. After just five games as a Premiership manager, Shearer Island has disappeared, like that place in the Caribbean that sank under the waves after a particularly troublesome volcano went off.

After the Liverpool game, Shearer focused his anger on the increasingly farcical figure of Joey Barton. Having seen him sent off for a clumsy tackle on Xabi Alonso, Shearer decided to scapegoat him for the fact that the club is in 19th place in the league. He then took the morally courageous decision to suspend a player who was already suspended from playing due to the red card!

I’m no particular fan of Joey Barton, but it is unfair and just plain lazy to blame him for all Newcastle’s woes. The tackle wasn’t even all that reckless – it was a red card offence, but Shearer was so disgusted with it that he seemed to completely forget the time he tried to put one of his football boots inside Neil Lennon's head.

The real problem facing Shearer is that, as his status as Newcastle’s messiah slowly burnishes, his fallback day job may be looking just as precarious. In much the same way as I have never bought into the idea that he would be a great manager simply because he was a great striker, nor have I ever been convinced by Alan Shearer the pundit.

Whilst he’s been away, a couple of young pretenders have been establishing a foothold and may prove difficult to dislodge. Lee “Alan” Dixon, in complete contrast to Shearer, is interesting and insightful; and I can’t be the only person to be surprised at Martin “Alan” Keown. I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but who could possibly have looked at this marauding old-fashioned centre-half, a man who made Tony Adams look like David Beckham, and foreseen a glittering media career? He is articulate, well-spoken, and confident. Why should the fact that he looks like Mr Punch be an impediment to a television career?

Tyrannosaurus Ref

I feel as though I ought to write about the weekend’s Ricky Hatton Fight, although I am struggling for anything original to say. I love Ricky, but I think the boring and sad truth is that he has now found his level.

He has fought two of the best boxers of the last twenty years, and they have both beaten him – there’s no shame in that. On Saturday night, Manny Pacquiao used his superior hand speed and phenomenal power to put what I hope is an end to the career of one of the most charismatic and, let’s be honest here, one of the most extraordinarily talented British fighters of my generation.

But what could be my unique take on this? I can hardly bang on about what a great fighter Ricky has been – it’s been done. I could talk about other British boxers who have found success in America, although I don’t think anyone has ever taken twenty-five thousand fans across with them.

I could talk about the dramatic impact Pacquiao is having on the world of boxing, eclipsing Floyd Mayweather as the now-universally acknowledged best boxer on the planet. But that’s all been said.

No, the real story here is Kenny Bayless. He is the American referee who pulled out Ricky’s gumshield two minutes into the second round. He has taken charge of several world title fights now, has established a reputation as one of the best in the business but best of all, he runs unmistakeably like a T-Rex.

Seriously, you have to see some footage of him – he sort of bounces around the fighters on his hind legs, moving his head around as though he’s looking for food, and his gloved hands sit limply in front of him like the vestigial limbs of a flightless bird. I reckon the only reason he is so good at what he does is that his vision is based mainly on movement.

It’s an odd job, that of the boxing referee. Almost exclusively the preserve of former pros, the crucial skills appear to be the ability to fasten a bow tie, and the willingness to stand between two psychopaths. Back in the old days, the ref was on the payroll of the promoter and there are countless examples of “long counts,” where the knocked out fighter would be nudged with the boot and encouraged to rise and continue. “These people need to get their money’s worth.”

Nowadays, boxing likes to hold the fiction that the safety of the boxers is paramount. I’m not anti-boxing – far from it – but I am anti-hypocrisy and there is no way you can describe this as a safe sport. Nonetheless, the referee these days is much more likely to step in and save a struggling fighter rather than allow the fight to continue and a serious injury to occur.

You can hardly blame Bayless for not stopping the Hatton fight early – not a single person in the state of Nevada saw that left hook coming, much less Ricky.

I love the unwritten rule that appears to dictate that the physical size of the ref has to be in inverse proportion to the fighters. So whereas Bayless towers over the welterweights, tiny Mickey Vann – something of a personality with his own catchphrase, “no naughties with the heads…” – always gets put in with the monstrous heavyweights.

I hope Ricky decides the time is right to retire. He has been one of the all-time greats and will have a long and lucrative career of TV punditry and after-dinner stand-up. My only concern is that, if he lets himself go and puts on the pounds, we’ll not be able to find a referee small enough for him.

El Clasico

It seems that every other week, particularly as we approach the end of the season, there is a “showdown” between two of the Premiership’s Big Four. Endlessly hyped by Sky, if it’s not a GRAND SLAM SUNDAY, then it’s yet another so-called European showpiece tie being played out to a boring stalemate by two of our ubiquitous top clubs. The fact that English clubs have provided three of the four Champions’ League semi-finalists in each of the last two years is not a source of joy to me. I also disagree that this is evidence that the Premier League is the best league in the world – it is evidence that our top four clubs are the best in the world, but where are the rest?

This season, the team attempting to stop the Premiership’s dominance of Europe is Barcelona. The fact that Sky have the rights to Spanish football means that a football fan can watch this amazing team every week, and yet they make a lot less fuss about this than they do over whichever Premiership match they happen to have.

This weekend saw the showdown between Barcelona and Real Madrid – the traditional rivals that make Manchester United and Liverpool look like childhood sweethearts. Going into the game, Barcelona were four points clear at the top of the league and knew that a draw in Madrid would probably secure the title.

I was a little worried that, with so much at stake, it might be an edgy game, but Gonzalo Higuain scored after fourteen minutes for Real, before Thierry Henry responded for Barcelona just a couple of minutes later. Interesting that Henry left our league to go and play in Spain.

Before twenty minutes were on the clock, Henry won a free kick near the penalty area on the left and Carles Puyol headed in Xavi’s cross to score his first of the season. After such a flurry of goals, I wondered how the game could possibly continue at such a pace, but it seemed that, having been stung by conceding an early goal, Barca just kept getting better.

For the next fifteen minutes, Real keeper Iker Casillas was playing like a psychic, improbably getting himself behind every Barcelona shot from any angle. Their front three of Samuel Eto’o, Thierry Henry and the great Lionel Messi were attacking like the Harlem Globetrotters. Their reputation is well earned – between the three of them, they have scored more goals this season than any other club in Europe. On Sky, Gerry Hamilton was reduced to endearing sighs and cries as he watched the action.

It couldn’t last of course, and Leo Messi scored after thirty minutes. After that, it became slightly embarrassing as Barcelona, with their Velcro touch, lightning runs and telepathic understanding, passed the ball around as if they were playing a youth team.

At the start of the second half, Real shook off their inferiority complex, presumably having been shown a copy of the table at half time, reminding themselves that they are second in the league, not in the fourth division. An attacking free kick was headed in by Sergio Ramos after a penalty area tussle.

Unfortunately, as in the first half, this just seemed to anger the beast and, barely a minute after Hamilton had cried “Game On!” Henry scored another. Messi then scored his second; a goal which left the Real defence watching in awe – his 36th goal of the season and the second time during the game that I had spontaneously risen to my feet and applauded.

By now, Real were utterly defeated and looked like they just wanted to start their summer holidays now. In the last ten minutes, one more sweeping move carried the ball from one end of the pitch to another before it was tapped in by, of all people, central defender Gerard Pique. Why did Manchester United let him go?

Next time you are bemoaning the state of the Premiership and the fact that our league has become boring, give the Spanish League a try. I can’t promise you eight goals every week, but I will assure you that you’ll see some great football and genuine talent.

Loneliness Of The Long Distance Snooker Player

The last two weeks have seen the World Snooker Championships in Sheffield. The Embassy, as it used to be known during my childhood has had to ditch its long term sponsor and is now known as the BetFred.com World Championships – gambling being a much more socially acceptable vice than smoking.

The annual event at The Crucible is ingrained into my childhood memories like steam pudding, grazed knees, and nits. I used to watch it avidly in the eighties, but I must confess I have lost touch with it in recent years (well, recent decades, actually). As a result, aside from the names such as Ronnie O’Sullivan and John Higgins, whose fame has transcended the sport, I have no idea who the current players are, although I was pleased to see Stephen Hendry still going strong, and with better skin.

I settled down this morning to watch some semi-final action between Shaun Murphy and Neil Robertson, and I must confess, I really enjoyed it. For someone whose skill levels never went beyond playing pound-a-frame pool at college, I am full of admiration for their talent.

Shaun Murphy looks like a poorly inflated bouncy castle. I don’t want to rehearse the old argument as to what constitutes a sport, but even the biggest snooker fan would struggle to refer to Murphy as an athlete.

Neil Robertson is an Australian chap who has a ridiculous blonde Vernon Kay haircut that makes him look like he should be playing for Exeter City. I wonder what happened to him at school in Melbourne, when the lads were specialising in Rugby and Aussie Rules, to make him settle on snooker.

This is the thing about snooker players, especially Australian ones, but generally all of them. They are, basically, complete nerds. The skills are amazing and the dedication admirable, but there is a constant undercurrent of tragedy surrounding the entire venture. When I look into Shaun Murphy’s eyes, I don’t see happiness. Even when he is winning a frame, all I see is hopelessness and darkness.

What is interesting is how the TV coverage has changed in twenty years. Not just the inevitable technical advances – more camera angles, computer generated table shots showing the various angles – but also the human coverage is very different. For example, after he missed a crucial yellow, we were treated to a slow-motion replay of Neil Robertson’s disappointment-etched facial reaction. That owes much to the sports production of football where replays of goals are followed rapidly by reaction-shots of both managers.

I’ve been watching for about an hour now and, I admit it, I’m starting to get a bit bored. I reckon I will revisit this next year, even if it’s just for a random hour.

Bahrain Grand Prix

The story of this season is rapidly becoming a tale of two teams. The success story – more so than even they would have dared predict – is Brawn. Meanwhile, the grand old lady of motor racing, Ferrari, are having the worst start to any season since their inception in the thirties.

The team and the car they have produced appear to be just terrible this season. A decade ago, Michael Schumacher won five consecutive world titles with that team and, whilst Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikonnen might not be as good as Schumacher, they are not second rate drivers.

Massa was second in last year’s World Championship, and has eleven Grand Prix wins to his name; whilst Raikonnen was himself Champion the year before, and has won seventeen Grands Prix.

As if all that’s not bad enough, Eric Clapton is there supporting them.

Kimi Raikonnen managed to avoid an unprecedented four non-scoring races for Ferrari by finishing sixth, but they did their best to screw that up, as Massa bumped into him at the very first corner of the race.

So what is the difference? In two words, it is Ross Brawn. He designed the car that propelled Schumacher to his record titles. And now he has started his own team, which is leading the Constructors’ Championship by a lap.

Brawn again dominated the race with Jenson Button. Another victory and now a twelve point lead in the World Championship.

Before the race, a pre-recorded interview with Lewis Hamilton did nothing to dispel my theory that he is sitting uncomfortably somewhere on the autistic spectrum. As there were awkward questions to be asked about Hamilton lying to the race stewards in Australia, the BBC decided that Jake should do the interview. Eddie Jordan’s style not entirely suited to anything tougher than a promotional video for Centerparcs.

Despite this, the interview was blander than a beige packet of Ready Salted crisps. Nothing was gleaned from it other than Lewis is “just focused on driving the car.” Groundbreaking.

Back in pit lane, Jordan was left to philosophise on the human condition: “More cooling means more horse power. That’s just a fact of life.”

Martin Brundle’s grid walk was particularly entertaining this week as he combined his usual struggle to find anyone willing to talk to him with an ongoing grumble that he was not allowed to speak to visiting VIP Robert Plant. He got hold of Eric Clapton, sporting a Ferrari cap, and just grumbled that he couldn’t speak to Plant.

He approached Jenson Button’s car only to find he had buggered off – there was just a white umbrella sheltering the space where he should have been – so Brundle talked to his Dad instead. Old Man Button, looking like Ray Winstone in Sexy Beast has a permatan, shirt unbuttoned to his navel, and a twinkle in his eye.

Moving on, Brundle bottled out of interrupting Bernie Ecclestone as he was schmoosing the Global CEO of Banca Santander. Even Brundle knows better than to get between Bernie and a sponsor.

As always, he fell back on “Ruby” Barrichello, who is old enough to have been a teammate of Brundle, and so can always be called on for an interview when everyone else is shunning his attention.

I’m very conscious that I have written about twice as much about Martin Brundle’s shoddy interview technique as the high performance motor race, but you mine where the gold is.

Bahrain GP Qualifying

As the last two races have been all about the rain, the Formula One authorities have hedged their bets on the rain and decamped to Bahrain, where there’s less chance of a thunderstorm than of Bernie Ecclestone playing in the NBA.

I’m joking of course – F1 is not in Bahrain because of the weather. It is there because of the money, as we were reminded with much footage of Bernie Ecclestone and the Crown Prince of Bahrain wandering around their tarmac playground, making jovial noises, and comparing the size of their relative entourages.

In the paddock, Eddie Jordan was back on the BBC team. There was a weak joke about his bus pass not reaching as far as Shanghai, and then they all carried on as if he’d never been away. As a license-fee payer, I am not satisfied with this explanation – where was he when the circus was in China? Has he done something to irritate the Chinese authorities? Has he spoken out about human rights in Tibet?

This week’s sycophantic Jordan interview was with the aforementioned Crown Prince… “This is the sixth time we’ve had a race here. Has it been as successful as you’d hoped?” It’s virtually pointless to even have this interview – they might as well just read out a press release. I would like to have asked him how welcome any gay Formula One fans would be this weekend, as homosexuality is still outlawed in this relatively progressive middle eastern country.

The BBC cameras followed our threesome of pundits as they strutted through the Red Bull garage and down the pit lane. It was like watching a hi-tech version of The West Wing as Jake, DC and Eddie waxed lyrical about Sebastian Vettel’s good start to the season..

The way the qualifying works, with the five slowest drivers dropping out after each of the first two sessions, means that there seems to always be one big name who judges it wrongly and gets knocked out early. This week it was Mark Webber, second in China, who left it till the last minute and got blocked on his qualifying lap, and will start at the back of the grid.

Ferrari got both their drivers into the last qualifying session and onto the grid in the top ten for the first time this season. After three races, they haven’t yet scored any points – they are one of the great names of F1’s rich history and, for the moment at least, they suck.

Chinese Grand Prix

In the fortnight since the last Grand Prix, the teams have moved North to China, but the soap opera has been all over the place.

Lewis Hamilton’s woes have continued as the fallout from his disqualification have claimed the jobs of the top two people in the McLaren team. He is genuinely unpopular among his peers and I think I have an inkling why. If you watch him, you will see that, apart from when he is actually driving, his Dad never leaves his side, and apparently hasn’t done so since he was born. He has been with McLaren since he was a foetus. He is the motor racing equivalent of a home-schooled, twelve-year-old Oxbridge graduate. The bottom line is that he is fucking weird.

Meanwhile, the FIA court of Appeal cleared the Brawn diffuser, meaning that the first two races’ results will stand. If you are not following this, then don’t worry – Formula One increasingly resembles an episode of Lost.

The best part of the court case was seeing Ross Brawn leaving the hearing. In a suit and tie, I realised who he has been reminding me of all year. He is a slightly slimmer version of Uncle Monty from Withnail and I. Now I’m not going to be able to take him seriously ever again.

Before the race, a bloke called Mike Gaskell joined Jake and DC in the paddock – he was introduced as a technical boffin then proceeded to tell a toe-curling anecdote about Coulthard’s underpants. He is some former technical director, blah blah blah, years of experience, blah… Whatever, where the hell has Eddie Jordan gone? He was simply not mentioned, airbrushed from history like a modern-day Trotsky. I am expecting to see his body turn up on the news in a hotel room in Kuala Lumpur with an ice pick in his head.

Since Malaysia, several cars have dropped the KERS, claiming that the weight of the battery makes it unworkable. Nice to see Formula One making that extra effort for the environment. Like everyone else, they are perfectly happy to be green, as long as it doesn’t cost too much or affect performance.

Speaking of Formula One’s vapid ethics, it’s also instructive to compare the hand-wringing that preceded the Olympics regarding the Chinese regime’s questionable human rights record, with the apparent lack of concern shown by the unstoppably rolling money-making machine of F1. I can’t imagine Bernie Ecclestone having many scruples – it wouldn’t surprise me if they engineered a publicity stunt, putting a Ferrari in Tiananmen Square with a white-shirted Chinese student holding his hand up in front of it.

The race itself started, as the last race finished, in the rain and behind the safety car. They all crocodiled along for eight laps before the race director got as bored as the rest of us and, despite the fact the conditions hadn’t changed at all, let them go for it. Overall, the race was a lot more exciting for being on a wet track – lousy visibility and poor grip make for a lot more fun. Perhaps they should spray the road throughout every race, creating artificial rain. Sounds like something the Abu Dhabi boys could waste some money on.

Sebastian Vettel, who won from pole position, seems like a thoroughly lovely young man. Being German and a bit fast, he is inevitably being compared to Michael Schumacher. Unlike the great champion, however, Vettel appears – for the time being at least – to possess human emotions. His delight at crossing the line, which was evident over the team radio, was rather endearing.

Before the race, a pre-recorded interview with Coulthard emphasised just how youthful Vettel looks. Is it a sign of getting old when you think Formula One drivers are getting younger these days?

Button finished third and remains top of the championship, but the real mystery remains, where is Eddie Jordan?

Smears, Jeers and Tears

It’s not been a great week for the Government with the slowly unfolding email smears, and the Culture Minister being heckled at Anfield.

The story of the smearing emails has dragged on for far too long now, perpetuated by the media’s need for a new headline every day, and encouraged disgracefully by the hypocrite Tories parading their fragrant wives to take turns tut-tutting Gordon Brown and criticising him for employing someone who wasn’t perfect, then firing them straight away.

The truth is that there was absolutely nothing in those emails that I wouldn’t have expected someone in there to be discussing – ways to undermine opposition politicians are a government’s currency. I would be extremely surprised if there isn’t an equivalent operation in Tory Central Office – albeit with a slightly better firewall this week.

This is a great example of a media firestorm. A chap got caught sending an email he shouldn’t have, and he was fired. That genuinely is the end of the story. Everything that followed is 100% media-generated…

Tories are interviewed and their indignation is broadcast to the nation… Every day another titbit of information is released, despite the fact that it all reached the public domain in one chunk… Gordon Brown is asked to apologise and refuses, saying quite reasonably that he has done nothing wrong… Commentators start to talk of a “smear culture at the heart of our politics…” Vox pops are taken from members of the public, voicing their anger after spending three days being poked with the stick… Tories change tack, saying that things will be better when they are in charge, as though Blair didn’t say exactly the same thing (or Thatcher, for that matter)… Labour desperately tries to move on the agenda to the great work they are doing in healthcare, but this is drowned out by George Osborne’s bloody wife grabbing the headlines… Brown finally caves in and apologises, presumably just because he is so bored with the whole thing… Tories crow and claim a victory despite having achieved nothing save making every single voter slightly more nauseous.

I’m not surprised that Brown apologised, but it really is pathetic. He’s like a parent who threatens an unruly child with no pudding, only to cave in and let them have another French Fancy. It started with the on-off election after he took over from Blair but, this time, Brown’s apology has left his credibility is in tatters. He has caved in over and over again, to the point that, this time, everyone knew he would end up apologising, hence the unrelenting pressure. Why didn’t he do it a week ago? Now he is even weaker.

In an attempt to shift the headlines, Brown sent Culture Secretary, Everton fan, and Rimmel-model Andy Burnham to Anfield to tackle the Hillsborough Memorial Service. Poor old Burnham had no chance. In what must have been the most awkward moment of his career since he wore eye shadow on Question Time, his speech to the fans was drowned out by chanting Liverpool supporters demanding “Justice for the ninety-six.”

I have a lot of sympathy with Liverpudlians – any city that can boycott The Sun for twenty years is alright by me. But the endless singing is enough to grate on anyone. The service was ended with a 25,000 crowd joining Gerry Marsden in an emotional “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” I don’t know what Boris Johnson was talking about…

Burnham stepped right up to the plate though by calling for the release of all unpublished evidence from the twenty-year old disaster. The cabinet minister and long-standing member of the government said, "I believe now the public interest lies very clearly in full disclosure of all such information, so that the families and others can make their judgement on all the facts."

Well hang on, Mr Burnham, which secretive bodies have been hiding this information. Who is covering it up? Surely that is something the government could have a look at. When he says that “further information should be published,” who is he addressing? Why doesn’t he just mention it to Jack Straw at the next cabinet meeting?

Champions' League

Tonight, I watched the Liverpool – Chelsea Champions’ League match. My hope was for an early Liverpool goal to make a game of it, and they didn’t let me down. It was a terrific match with eight goals and more ups and downs than the Barclays share price.

Even without Gerrard, in the first half, Liverpool were all over Chelsea, who looked like a pub team. The second half started with Chelsea coming back – Guus Hiddink must have reminded them about their win bonuses at half time. And then Liverpool just started scoring again. Much talk of Istanbul and a great deal of singing from the away end. But in the end, Not-Fat Frank Lampard put Liverpool out of their misery and put Chelsea into the semi.

But this is the Steam Engine, not one of the thousand other blogs that will tell you how great the match was. Despite all the action, I was completely preoccupied during the action, because I noticed early on that the players’ names on the shirts were somehow different. After a few minutes, I figured it out – they are both using a different font for their European games.

In the Premier League, all teams have to employ the same mandated font to identify their players – it is preset by the league. In itself, this stultifyingly Orwellian rule is no surprise. I presume that Richard Scudamore has a shareholding in the company that provides these particular letters.

In European fixtures, however, the clubs appear free to use any font they like. In response to this freedom, they have reacted like the dazzled children in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, and just gone crazy.

Liverpool are using a chunky, cartoony font which makes them look like the Why Don’t You XI, whereas Chelsea have gone for a cheery lower case job. I can’t begin to explain how much this sort of sloppy syntax annoys me, but what I can’t really figure out is why they are bothering.

The first reaction is that this has to be the most cynical marketing ploy of the season. But realistically, who would go out and buy a second shirt, identical in every way save for the font on the back? There might be the odd fan with more money than sense, but you have to give fans a little credit – there can’t be many of them who would fall for this. Certainly not enough to pay Didier Drogba’s wages for a week. Or even didier drogba’s.

The only other reason I can come up with is that they have a secretive sponsorship deal with the font itself. Perhaps the lower case franklin gothic font is secretly channelling funds into Chelsea in a bid to raise its profile and increase its use among Neighbourhood Watch newsletters in the ABC1 socio-economic groups. If anyone has any better ideas, let me know.

Incidentally, ITV’s commentary continues to infuriate and amuse me in equal measure. There were the usual crow-barred stats and strangled metaphors, and if I had a pound for every time the away-goals rule was explained, I would be able to fly to Rome for the final. But when Liverpool had a corner, late in the first half, Clive Tyldesley said of Petr Cech that, “there must be an alarm bell ringing, somewhere beneath that protective helmet.” I don’t care who you support, that is a beautiful image right there.

Why I Love The North-East

We managed to get rid of the boy this weekend, giving his loving grandparents the chance to fatten him up with Easter Eggs and unrestrained affection. Seizing the opportunity, Pam and I had a night away in a charming little hotel just outside Newcastle.

The Ravenscroft Arms is a huge pub with several bedrooms above a labyrinthine collection of dining rooms. Not quite in the middle of nowhere, it is planted just outside the A1 near Team Valley. This means that, if you face West, you see undulating countryside, villages and farmhouses, and the occasional car silently cresting a distant peak; but if you look East, you see an industrial wasteland; warehouses and railway sidings, over-passed by a motorway, and then, rising up behind it out of the valley, a residential area marked by tower blocks and terraces.

The Ravenscroft Arms is on the edge of nowhere, not in the middle.

When we arrived, we went for a short run, opting for the pretty route, and ran up into the hills, out of the valley on the green side, before doubling back and congratulating ourselves on having done a little physical labour before the gluttonous onslaught to come.

After a lovely evening that started early with a pint and one of those gastro-pub burgers bigger than Pam’s head, and finished with us both unconscious before half ten, we congratulated ourselves on having relaxed, shaking off the cares of work and the responsibilities of parenthood for at least one night.

In the morning, I woke up and decided to let Pam have a longer lie in by going out to buy a paper. I am not very good at lying quietly so the only way to avoid awakening the Kraken is to sail in the opposite direction. I had not seen any shops the previous day so decided to go the logical route and walk up into the residential area.

I crossed the railway, saying hello to a trainspotter who looked absolutely terrified of me. I know they are an odd bunch but I doubt that random strangers punch them in the street – why did he look so startled? It’s not like I was going to steal his trains.

Anyway, I then crossed the motorway and hiked up, out of the valley, into what I guess was part of Gateshead. I walked past a tower block and eventually found a row of three shops: a co-op, a newsagents, and a tanning shop. That is a Northern triumvirate, right there.

I went in the newsagents and took a copy of The Times to the counter. I should explain that I am usually a Guardian man but I am only human and have fallen for News International’s marketing ploy of giving away Pizza Express vouchers when you buy Saturday Times. I’m not proud of it, but I do like Pizza Express.

There was a lovely old chap behind the counter who, despite the fact there were four copies of The Times awaiting purchase on his bottom shelf, reacted as though he’d never seen the thing before in his life. “Eee, it’s a long time since we selt a Times, son. How much is that? One fifty? Bloody hell, that’s not cheap is it? Thanks, son. How, Joan, fella here buying the Times…”

There are some places where that reaction would make you feel awkward and apart, but in Newcastle, it was delivered with such warmth and affection that I felt part of the happy awe that greeted the purchase.

You wouldn’t get that in Peckham, Rio Ferdinand.

The BBC Gets It Right

Football Focus this week “dedicated the show to the 96 victims of the Hillsborough disaster.” I must admit that my heart sank when Manish introduced the show thus. I expected that Football Focus would make an almighty mess of this. I did them a disservice.

They had produced a fifteen minute, Sue Johnstone-narrated documentary using a great deal of the original footage, and interviews of victims’ families and witnesses. It was pitch-perfect – factual, emotional without being self-indulgent, and truly affecting.

Even Motson did well. A witness to the unfolding tragedy, he pitched his account beautifully and, save a solitary catch in his voice, he didn’t resort to emotional cliché.

Alan Hansen then presented a touching retrospective where he interviewed former team-mates who, like him, were on the pitch as the disaster began; and who, like him, spent the next few weeks attending funerals, and the next twenty years trying to reconcile what they had seen.

We saw John Barnes walking solemnly behind a coffin, Barry Venison at the cathedral service; and we heard John Aldridge on the verge of tears as he related to Hansen the stories of incomprehensible grief.

Lawrenson was given very little to do, which was a good idea because, even in his funeral suit, the man’s capacity to say the wrong thing is simply not worth the risk.

BBC commentator Steve Wilson who, as a young Liverpool supporter, was in the ground that day, was given license to stray from the party line and criticise the authorities’ response on the day and in the intervening years. In a calm voice, he condemned the behaviour of South Yorkshire police on the day, and of the perceived closing ranks of the authorities since then.

The truth is that nobody has ever been brought to account for what happened that day and, in the era of blame culture, that is extraordinary.

In this blog, I am quick to criticise the BBC, their sports department in particular. What’s more, I have a contrary tendency when it comes to public displays of grief. However, I am happy to say that, on this occasion, the BBC got it just right.

David Haye Sets a Date

It’s surprising, when talking to friends and family, how few people have heard of David Haye, much less seen him in action. All this despite the fact he has all the pre-requisites for the modern boxer – the hand speed of a Mexican welterweight, the power of the most clubbing of heavyweights, and the mouth of Mohammed Ali.

No stranger to the dark arts of self-promotion, the “Hayemaker” promotes his own fights, negotiates his own deals, and sells his own merchandise. He has fought on Sky and, in the era of Calzaghe and Hatton, he has stayed hidden from the wider British public.

Having come up through the ranks at cruiserweight, he beat Frenchman Jean-Marc Mormeck to take a world title before knocking out Enzo Maccarinelli to become undisputed champion. All the while, he grumbled about making the 200lb limit so it was no surprise that he left his cruiserweight titles behind and moved up to heavyweight.

What is a surprise is that, in only his second fight at the top weight, he will be fighting for the world title.

With a combination of his talent and his talk, he has forced him onto the agenda of the Klitschko brothers – the Ukrainian monsters who hold most of the cards in the alphabet soup of world titles, and are recognised as the dominant force of post-Lennox Lewis heavyweights.

This week, contracts were signed for a June fight against Wladimir Klitschko. No shrinking violet, Haye greeted the news with great confidence. ”I’ve been studying Wladimir for years. I know him better than he knows himself. I guarantee I’ll knock him out – I’m his worst nightmare.”

It could be Ali before the Liston fight – the smaller man against the established champ, talking himself up at every opportunity. If he can do it, he’ll be World Heavyweight Champion. You’ll have heard of him then.

Malaysian Grand Prix

This was a race ruled by the rain. Even before it began, there was debate over when it would arrive, what the tyre strategy should be, who would be the beneficiary. When it arrived, it was biblical – as everyone said at length, “these cars are simply not designed to drive in these conditions.”

As soon as the first drops started, the race became all about tyres and pit stops. Frankly, it was incomprehensible – I had no idea what was going on, and I don’t think the commentators did either. At one point, Jonathan Legard shouted excitedly that Sebastian Vettel “has gone off AGAIN!” only for Martin Brundle to calm him down by pointing out it was a replay.

Eventually the race was abandoned but not after half an hour of waiting whilst the cars lined up on the grid, waiting for the clouds to blow over, mechanics running around like rabbits in the rain, drivers looking disgruntled under umbrellas, and Mark Webber, drivers’ shop steward, out of his car and marching around telling everyone who’d listen that conditions were unsafe to drive.

It was a total shambles, and through no fault of the organisers, the whole thing was exactly the sort of thing which switches off the viewing public. Just for the sake of the spectacle, they should have told Webber to belt up and get them going round a few more times to see which was the last car on the track. I don’t pay my licence fee for this. Not in my name, Gordon Brown!

Anyway, as has been the way so far this season, the pre-race entertainment was far better than the race itself. Today, they featured an interview with “F1 Supremo” Bernie Ecclestone. It seems that he has changed his name by deed-pole because he is now referred to consistently as F1 Supremo Bernie Ecclestone. The BBC clearly thought that using a professional journalist to do the job would have produced a result not quite sycophantic enough, and so they sent Eddie Jordan – a man whose permatan says much of the debt he owes to Ecclestone.

Clearly Jordan’s incisive grilling last week of Richard Branson – “Can I just say that what you’ve done here for formula one is wonderful…?” – had convinced his new employers that he was the man to winkle out the truth from Ecclestone. Sure enough, the interview was conducted on a narrow couch, with Jordan reclined like a Roman senator with bad dress sense. Ecclestone sat alongside him, perched on the end of the couch like a hobbit, his hairy feet not quite reaching the floor. Apart from being tiny, the thing about Ecclestone is that he is as ancient as Methuselah. With his white hair and glasses, he looks like a dowager duchess at a fancy dress party.

The other part of the pre-race routine with which I am not entirely comfortable is the Brundle grid-walk. He wanders around, dragging a poor cameraman with him, just getting up in everyone’s face and interfering. The grid is a remarkably public place, right up to seconds before the start of the race; there are models, family, hangers-on, and sponsors all poking and prodding at the cars and drivers. Still, though, it just feels intrusive when Brundle elbows his way in, thrusts a microphone under Jenson Button’s nose, and asks him how he feels.

Being live and dangerous, it’s high-risk TV and the occasional scoop is far outweighed by the clunky pauses and embarrassing rebuffs. Timo Glock didn’t even open his eyes as Brundle swept past him yelling questions.

The climax came as he jumped around the back of the Toyota, trying to get a good look at their new diffuser. Five mechanics were surrounding it, clearly unimpressed with the mike and camera. “This is a public area,” pleaded Bundle, “I can be here if I want.” The mechanics silently stood in front of the camera and we all moved on.

Malaysian Qualifying

It’s a measure of how the Formula One bug has caught me this year that I found myself watching the qualifying from Malaysia this morning. Even fifteen years ago (the last period that I found myself following the World’s Greatest Traffic Jam™), I never managed to watch the qualifying. Partly because this was before the era of the red button, and the BBC were far too busy on Saturday afternoons showing rugby or athletics or cricket or darts or snooker, or one of the many other sports they no longer carry. But also partly because I thought that watching the qualifying was like going to St James on a rainy Friday night to watch the reserves – it takes you lurching over the line that separates a fan from a fanatic.

Since the end of the Australian Grand Prix, the storm has been swirling around Lewis Hamilton (“Liar Lewis” according to The Sun). To cut a long story short, there were some overtaking shenanigans while the safety car was out during the last lap of the Australian Grand Prix. Hamilton’s crime, however, was lying to the stewards about what had been said and done. As a result, he was retrospectively disqualified.

What makes me laugh is that Formula One has to be the most heavily recorded sport in the world – there are cameras dotted around the car like freckles and, the real belter, all communications between team and driver are recorded and broadcast live. So when Hamilton said, “I was NOT told to let Trulli overtake me,” he would have got away with it but for the fact the chief steward went home and watched the video.

Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke, of course. He must have cried himself all the way home to his Swiss mansion. But for the engine noise, you could have heard the other drivers sniggering into their helmets.

The BBC covered this whole shambles with a montage sequence, underscored with mournful strings. It gave the impression Hamilton had been killed by a brain haemorrhage, not got caught telling a silly lie. Honestly, this is the Formula One equivalent of a nine year old boy standing by a broken window saying, “Wasn’t me…”

The BBC, presumably having read my blog last week, also took the opportunity to explain KERS in a bit more depth. From the in-depth analysis of the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (so now I know what it stands for), I gleaned that it uses special mystical trickery to capture the energy wasted in braking, it stores it in a magic box, and then this can be released, literally at the push of a button.

F1 is laughingly trying to market this as a green initiative. Their (valid) argument is that the energy previously wasted as heat is recycled and put back into the car. What they don’t say is that the energy is generated in the first place by their V8 four-stroke engines. Even Branson has used this environmental hypocrisy it to justify his triumphal entry into the sport.

As to its effectiveness, the BBC’s pundits are unconvinced: Coulthard reckons that it is a disadvantage for heavier drivers, Jordan says it is “antiquated technology”.

The qualifying session itself has changed a great deal since my day. They now have a series of shorter sessions after which they eliminate the last five drivers until they’re left with the fastest, who run off for pole position.

The FIA have further complicated matters by stating that at the end of this convoluted process, they have moved Sebastian Vettel back ten places for causing an accident in the last race; and they have moved Rubens Barrichello back five places for having a new gearbox.

It’s so much more accessible these days.

Bottom of The Barrel

Like a balding horseman of the Apocalypse, the BBC’s most boring Alan is riding into Newcastle’s relegation battle. As the season slumps from bad to worse to Hughton, the fans are so resigned that they have even accepted Mike Ashley coming back to the ground without screaming abuse at him and his children.

And so to repay their faltering faith, he has given them what they want and what they deserve – the new messiah, the officer-commanding of the Toon Army. Alan Shearer.

Now I accept that I might be wrong about this, but my prediction is that Shearer will be a colossal failure as a manager. He will certainly fail to meet expectations, because those expectations have been growing steadily since he stopped playing. Ever since his final studs-up challenge and his injury-hastened retirement, he has been proposed as the saviour of the club. With every incompetent half-wit that has been dismissed from the position, his stock has risen further and further.

I say I could be wrong, because he is fundamentally untested. Appointing him manager is taking a chance as big as Middlesbrough appointing Bryan Robson, or Spurs appointing Paul Gascoigne, or anyone at all appointing Tony Adams. Ever.

Being a great player is NOT a qualification to be a great manager. There is even an argument that it mitigates against. The main criticism of Glen Hoddle when he was Swindon manager was that he couldn’t communicate what he wanted from the players because he simply couldn’t understand why they couldn’t play as well as him. A great player who, even in his forties, was unable to relate to players without his talent.

The Italians understand this. When Luca Vialli was appointed Chelsea manager, there was shock in his mother country. The respect in which Vialli the player was held was unquestionable, but the very idea he could become a top flight manager without serving any sort of apprenticeship was anathema.

Of course, Shearer is no idiot and has finally accepted the role knowing that he’s in a no-lose situation. If Newcastle go down, it will be Mike Ashley’s fault, and if they stay up, he will be the master of the geordie universe.