The Ten Key Footballing Moments of the Decade

This is my second "..of the decade" list. These things are always subjective and I am ready for the backlash: the list is unashamedly based on the view of an English football fan and includes five on-pitch and five off-pitch moments.

England beat Germany 5-1 in Munich
After Keegan´s walkout, England fans feared not making the Japan-Korea World Cup. Sven Göran Eriksson inspired the national team to a series of victories in the remaining qualifiers, and the icing on the cake was this 1st September 2001 win, in which Michael Owen notched a hat-trick. The Germans being Germans, they still went on to be the most successful European side in the following year´s World Cup Finals.

The Collapse of ITV Digital
The cost of the football rights was the main reason for the 2002 liquidaton of the company and its failure to be forced to pay (the Football League´s lawyers – Hammonds – were sued for 150 million pounds but asked to pay only four pounds in damages) meant it was the league teams which suffered, having budgeted for the television contract.

A ten point penalty for entering administration
Football league club woes were added to two years later when the league introduced a penalty for those clubs entering administration (a procedure allowing businesses to keep operating without being forced to sell assests in order to pay their debts). This has affected a number of clubs – most recently Southampton – and threatens more this season. In addition, there has been an increase in the number of teams having points deducted for other (often related) reasons and that the number of points deducted has shown a gradual increase (ask Luton fans).

France 0 Senegal 1
Pape Bouba Diop´s goal provided one of the biggest World Cup shocks in history. The holders went out at the first hurdle without scoring a goal and unfancied teams such as South Korea, Japan and Turkey performed far better than anyone expected. The trend in non-favourites exceeding expectations continued into Euro 2004, and culminated with Greece winning that competition.

Leeds implode
After 14 years in the top flight and extensive loans taken out to chase the dream (I´m not sure they quite lived it), Leeds went into freefall and – after suffering a ten point deduction as outlined above – plunged to football´s third tier. The financial problems associated with adapting to relegation from the English Premier League have been experienced more recently by a number of teams including Charlton.

Abramovich buys Chelsea
While many Football League clubs were impoverished, in 2003 the world´s super-rich began to see the English Premier League as an outlet for the pesky interest on their billions. Roman bought Chelsea back to back titles (with no little help from Jose Mourinho) and since then Aston Villa, Liverpool, Manchester City (twice), Manchester United, Portsmouth (twice) and most recently Birmingham have been sold to foreign owners, though admittedly with differing levels of benefits to the clubs concerned.

Zidane uses his head
“Magic is sometimes very close to nothing at all”: the thoughts of the great French player some time before he headbutts Mazerrati and ends his final professional match as the first man to be sent off in a World Cup Final.

Andres Iniesta scores against Chelsea
The late late Barcelona goal prevented a second all-English final in a row, which would have been the first time ANY two teams met in consecutive European Cup/Champions League Finals. Much of the world felt grateful until they were forced to sit through the lamentable Manchester United – Barcelona final.

Spain win Euro 2008
The “perennial underachievers” ™ finally shrugged off that title in style.

Real go for Galacticos II
After Barcelona´s fine year, their great Spanish rivals Real Madrid went on a spending spree to shame Roman Abramovich, yet their purchase of Manchester United´s Cristiano Ronaldo and Liverpool´s Xabi Alonoso may prove to benefit Chelsea more than anyone else in English football. The resurgence in Spanish football might also see a decline in English clubs recent (relative) domination of the final stages of the Champions League.

How wrong did I get it? What would you include in your key footballing moments of the decade?

Lend and Lease

Since the two home defeats mentioned in my last footballing entry, Watford have redeemed themselves with victories away at Middlesborough and home to Sheffield Wednesday, as well as stealing a point with a 93^rd minute goal at yet-to-win Ipswich.

Manchester United`s Tom Cleverley got the winner at the Riverside whilst Arsenal`s Henri Lansbury scored two as we found home form at last, beating the Owls 4-1 on Friday. Entrusted with some of the G4`s youthful talent (we also have Craig Catchcart from Man U™), we seem to be thriving in the season we sold all our best players. Now we have news that Sir Elton will play another concert at Vicarage Road, this time to raise money for us to actually BUY some players rather than survive on loans.

The next match – and the last before my birthday and the inevitable “life begins” messages – is away at West Brom. I would take even one point from the Hawthorns as an early birthday present, whether or not any goals are scored by someone borrowed.

Global Football Justice

It is time for global football justice and the revolution must start in England.

It was only in 1997-8 that “the big four” took the top positions for the first time. The second occasion was 2003-4, the third in 2005-6 and since then they have shuffled the Champions League positions between them in each of the following three years. There was a “bored by the big four” Philosophy Football T-shirt a couple of years ago but if it is only in the last four years that the Premiership places have been absolutely sewn-up, the relatively recent addition of European Champions League dominance has added an extra level of tedium.

Any initial tinge of patriotic pride in seeing Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United playing in the latter stages of the European tournament should be extinguished by the thought of their Russian and American owners or their lack of English or even British players. These days there is rarely an underdog to support: Portsmouth in last year`s FA Cup, Aston Villa for a while in the league this season (also US owned).

The only level of failure that these teams now know is not reaching the semi-finals or finals of the FA Cup and Champions League. Finishing fourth in the Sky Barclays Setanta premiership is still rewarded with ridiculous cash once the preliminary joke rounds of the European tournament are played out. How boring for the rest of us, but how uninteresting it really must be for the fans of these teams too.

At my club, Watford`s level, a 2-0 win at Doncaster is a triumph against the possibility of relegation while a 1-0 defeat at home to promotion-chasing Birmingham is accepted as not unexpected. Resignation and surprise still exist for fans of most of the G88 (the minor gods in the pantheon that is the football league) and without them a fan`s life is incomplete. Schadenfreude exists too, for us below the biggest, and perhaps for the local fans of the top teams too. It is the “plastics” who will not know that joy of a bitter local rival suffering.

The economic effects stretch to the cost of attempting to play with the big boys. Leeds descent into administration is well documented and Charlton are just the latest of several teams whose inability to “bounce back” has seen them slip into the third tier after the obligatory cost-cutting exercises. The ripples go beyond the lower leagues. Elsewhere in the world, attendances fall when matches clash with a “big” televised Premiership game.

Something must be done. The arguments are there: a player draft, a cap on wages, a minimum number of home-grown players or club ownership being put in the hands of the fans. Alternatively, the majority of the G88 could get together to demand a restructuring that brings (most of) the Premiership back under Football League jurisdiction (if the Big 4 want to float off into a European Super-League, let them). It won`t happen yet. The big four dominate English football like the G8 dominate world economic policy. The seeds of rebellion exist though. Viva Football Justice.

The mouse roars

Manchester United v Watford

Wednesday 31^st January

Drawing into Manchester Piccadilly Station at about twenty past six, Joss commented on the wet platforms. While much of the city has changed since I studied there between 1989 and 1992, the weather remains a constant element: reliably drizzly. We walked over to Piccadilly Gardens and got onto a packed tram for Old Trafford with foreign fans and a drunk local. I wiped my glasses dry again.

Joss (who already knew we’d drawn Ipswich at home in the fifth round of the cup) forecasted 3-0 to the Golden Boys for the night, the first time he’s been so unrealistic, in my view. I think this (and his refusal (a) to say whether he preferred Wayne Rooney or Christiano Ronaldo and (b) to be impressed by the stadium later) is a mark of his complete conversion to the yellow side. After the warranted abuse we hurled at their fans later, there can be no going back.

Outside the stadium we got talking to Anders from Sweden, a Watford fan who’d been converted after playing “Football Manager” back in 1998, and had spent £20 getting from Stockholm to Stanstead and a further £200 getting from there to Manchester. Al Gore would not be impressed at that ratio. To add to his expenditure, he’d put a tenner on Damien Francis scoring the only goal in a 1-0 Watford victory, at 35-1. He talked about our last stint in the Premiership and I explained a little to Joss about the victories over Liverpool and Chelsea in the 1999-2000 season.

We said our goodbyes (though he was just five rows in front of us inside) and took our back-row seats about 25 minutes before kick-off among fans who’d already started shouting encouragement to the team warming up. The rest of the stadium was quiet (due perhaps to the fact that it was mostly empty) and we could read the seats at the Stretford End but not the “big” screen. As though we’d willed him into appearing by mentioning his winning goal more than seven years previously in the 1-0 win at Anfield with Anders, Tommy Mooney was a few rows down in a flat cap (looking slightly Michael Stipe-like) and being celebrated.

Well, the Yellow Army’s enthusiasm far out lasted the resistance of the eleven men on the pitch. After twenty minutes Jay Demerit was penalised for pulling back Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the box (though it looked like the hobbit had handballed it first) and Ronaldo dummied (meaning a bunch of players encroached) and scored from the spot. United toyed with us and perhaps thought they didn’t need to try too hard but we defended well against such nonchalance though hardly threatened them. United fans’ shouts for Rooney were hijacked by us for Mooney (turning into “Sign him up”) and we offered to sing for them as per. A minute or so before the break with the score still 1-0 (to the referee) I joined in the “Time for prawn sandwiches” chant and had to explain it to my nephew.

United were all over us to an even greater extent in the second half but it still took 15 minutes for their fans to wake up. Then Lloyd Doyley, who wears the same number shirt as Joss (but isn’t 12 years old) put his head on a cross and got himself an own goal. The lad played a massive part last season but hasn’t featured so much this. Painful to start here and do that. More painful because the inevitability of a goal had finally kick-started home support just a minute or three previously. Doyley’s almost seemed a response to that. I started a “We’re gonna win 3-2” chant, but it wasn’t until 11 minutes and two goals later that the idea took off. This time it was “We’re gonna win 5-4” and we got a laugh.

There were the usual songs for the team but with the competition over, the focus on the quiet of the stadium consumed us. “Your support is fucking shit”, “4-0 and you still don’t sing”, “We sing cos we love our team” and even two rounds of “United” (to do as we offered) were followed by “Worst support we’ve ever seen”. In addition, our support split to “We’re the right side over here” and “We’re the left side over here”, which has inexplicably been Joss’ favourite since the game at Craven Cottage. Aidy broke his rule and waved during the game to us when bid to, and we left still shouting.

The greatest disappointment was not the score but the fact that I never heard the roar of 70,000 people. Deyika picked us up and we had take-away pizza at his place on the eleventh floor in Moss Side, from the window of which you can see the ground. Miho and I watched Desperate Housewives on E4 while Deyika beat Joss three times at Pro Evolution Soccer 3.

Thursday 1^st February

The paper on the train home (and Aidy’s email) related the fact that we’d signed three more players (Gareth Williamson, Cedric Aninel, Johan Cavalli) and taken another (Douglas Rinaldi) on loan just before the transfer deadline. We may have resigned ourselves to going down, but the manager is insisting that we are preparing for the future (he doesn’t admit that this means promotion next year).