Why ordinary fans can't forget - or forgive - England's dreadful World Cup performances

By Ian Winwood

Published 13:03 15/10/10

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Andy Townshend’s statement at the outset of England’s European Championship qualifier against Montenegro at Wembley Stadium on Tuesday night was as grammatically confused in its delivery as it was flat-out wrong in its sentiment.

“Generally, I think people have forgot what happened in the summer,” he said.

No Andy, I don’t think they have. I think ‘people’ are still cross, bemused, insulted and, in some cases, outraged by the national team’s terrible display in South Africa just a few months ago. Only those suffering from acute Alzheimer’s disease have ‘forgot’ what occurred over four games in the Southern Hemisphere.

But just in case anyone had forgotten the true ineptitude that took place in our country’s name, this week England were on hand to remind anyone watching with a display as incoherent, as stuttered and as short on footballing grace as anything seen in South Africa, from any team. It’s just as well that the game was held at Wembley, a London borough miles from anywhere you’d usually want to go, cos otherwise the team would have stunk out the entire centre of town.

So bad was it that the authorities must surely have wondered whether the players had been the victims of some kind of nerve-gas attack.

The idea that there are no easy games at international level works well enough until you remember that Germany had a pretty easy one against England in the World Cup. But even those of us who have not forgotten the time we wasted watching the national team in the summer – and I would imagine that is most of us – would surely have expected the home side to have secured three points in their most recent midweek feature.

It is said by everyone close to the England set-up that the players care as much as the supporters do about the outcome of each game. I’m not sure that those being paid can ever quite care as much as those doing the paying, but let’s for a minute assume that this is true. Trouble is, even those who claim it is true must admit that it doesn’t look so.

In fact, the entire England set-up appears to have no thoughts at all for those it represents. All of the home games are at Wembley Stadium – tough luck if you live in Sunderland, or Plymouth – with its £4.20 pints of beer and its part-time tube lines. There’s a new shirt just out, months after the last one, made by Umbro – with the phrase ‘Tailored in England’ although of course it isn’t made here – and wanted by kids for Christmas. And there’s a manager who speaks English like some comedy turn from a 1950s war film, and who it seems can’t be bothered to improve on this.

At Wembley on Tuesday the parts of the stadium that showed the most empty seats were in the ‘corridor of indifference’, the middle tier normally occupied by the high-rollers and those looking to impress. But it seems the corporate crowd – exactly the kind of customer Wembley Stadium is most keen to please – have decided that England don’t offer much in much in the way of entertainment, corporate or otherwise, and at least for now have stayed away.

How long will it be before a noticeable number of England’s more ‘ordinary’ fans do the same?

This weekend footballing life will return to normal, as the Premier League once again takes centre stage. In the PL only 33% of players are home-grown – even less at the big clubs – so there it doesn’t really matter how the Englishmen play.

But come March and the next round of European qualification games, it certainly will. And no matter what Andy Townshend may say, in four or five months time people will still not have forgotten just how desperate things are for those of us who support England.

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