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Bill Bridge: Reflecting for ages on Saha's quickfire goal
EVEN as Louis Saha's left-footed shot was bulging the net after just 25 seconds of Saturday's FA Cup final the memories came flooding back.
Can it really be 54 years since Jackie Milburn scored Newcastle United's opening goal in their 3-1 demolition of Manchester City with a brilliant glancing header from a corner after just 45 seconds?
At the time, Milburn's was the fastest goal to be scored in a Wembley finale and, equally remarkable, it was scored against a goalkeeper who had not been born in the British Isles. Bert Trautmann was guarding City's goal that day, a former German paratrooper who had served out his days with the Wehrmacht as a prisoner of war in Lancashire and would, just a year on from Milburn's stunning goal, suffer a broken neck as he helped City to a memorable 3-1 Cup final victory over Birmingham City.
Those were the days when the Cup final signalled the end of the competitive season in England, the only add-on being the occasional flag-waving tour of the Empire (yes, we still had one then) showing the colonials what a good game football could be for keeping their young men fit before the next conflict.
Things are rather different today. On Saturday England face a critical World Cup qualifying match in Kazakhstan and on Wednesday week face Andorra in what should be a comparatively straight-forward game at Wembley.
Things are different on another front, too: instead of having virtually the whole of the First Division to provide him with a choice of goalkeepers, Fabio Capello is grappling with straws.
David James, his regular first choice, despite being a man who does not seem to inspire confidence in anyone playing with him, is ruled out by injury. In the long term that might not be a bad thing; the thought of going to a World Cup final tournament with him guarding the net would guarantee nightmares.
In his place Capello is likely to opt for Robert Green, who has enjoyed a good season with West Ham but has rarely looked a goalkeeper of international class, someone who could be ranked alongside, say, Igor Casillas or Edwin Van der Sar. Behind Green the cupboard is empty.
The two Leeds United products, Scott Carson and Paul Robinson, have been tried and failed, the latter perhaps judged too harshly as a result of the freak goal he conceded to a back pass from Gary Neville, while the best two prospects, Ben Foster and Joe Hart, cannot get a game for their respective clubs Manchester United and their City neighbours.
The paucity of home-grown goalkeepers is an indictment not only of our Premier League clubs and their managers but of the coaching system overseen by the Football Association.
Every school team in the land must have a goalkeeper and the chances are he will be qualified to play for England; so must every club team at every level of the game's pyramid. Somewhere, there must be a dozen or two who have sufficient talent, who could, with the right support and advice, become good enough to play in goal professionally and of those it should not be too difficult to produce a handful who might be up to playing in the Premier League and even higher.
In the days when "foreigners" Trautmann, Jack Kelsey, Harry Dunlop, Norman Uprichard and Harry Gregg were plying their dangerous trade in our domestic game, England could still call upon the services of goalkeepers like Bert Williams, Gil Merrick, Ray Wood, Roy Baynham, Reg Matthews, Ted Ditchburn, Eddie Hopkinson, Colin McDonald and Alan Hodgkinson.
How has the FA managed to discard such a heritage?
Ferguson must look to close gap on brilliant Barcelona
IT was billed as the best European Cup final for years and had been anticipated as such among a whole range of acquaintances, varying from Manchester United fanatics, occasional football watchers, aficionados of the Spanish game and others whose weekly diet of Bradford City, Huddersfield Town or Leeds United had left them yearning for an uplifting end to the season.
In the end we were all disappointed but our feeling of being let down had nothing to do with Barcelona's performance. They were excellent and their coach Josep Guardiola had clearly out-thought the man who many regard as the finest manager in the game. Apart from an impressive opening salvo, Manchester United simply did not play.
What should have been a great game rapidly became one-sided, so much so that some of those in white who their fans have deified over recent seasons were anonymous, filling – sometimes literally – walk-on parts as Lionel Messi, Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta weaved their magic.
Perhaps Sir Alex had opted for the wrong strategy from the start, gambling on the mix of Michael Carrick – never the fastest of midfield players – and Ryan Giggs coupled with the pace of Anderson and the stamina of Ji-Sung Park. As a combination they never gelled and could barely lay a foot on the ball, so masterly were the Catalans.
Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and eventually Carlos Tevez and Dimitar Berbatov were provided with so little ammunition from midfield that it would not have mattered if Ferguson had sent on another two strikers.
In the end United were well beaten and their mood was best summed up by the sullen demeanour of Ronaldo as he refused to shake hands with Carlos Puyol – another of Barcelona's outstanding players on a night when they all played to perfection the role allocated to them by Guardiola.
The question now for Ferguson is how he can close the void between the two teams before they meet in next year's Champions League. The Chelsea style, all muscle and power, is not for him and even if it were he does not have players like Michael Ballack and Michael Essien who can impose their physicality. Ferguson will want to reclaim the high ground through his team playing better football than Barcelona.
The return of Owen Hargreaves will help United's cause but with Carrick short of the highest class and both Giggs and Paul Scholes coming to the end of their shelf life Ferguson needs to find a new creative inspiration in midfield.
There will be no rest for him until his midfield has been reshaped and a few million of the Glazer family dollars have been spent.
Formula 1 still has the power to intoxicate its fans
FOR a while it sounded quite dramatic with Ferrari and their allies threatening to pull out of next year's Formula 1 World Championship then ostracising the William team for signing up with the FIA for the 2010 season.
The argument was all about capping the expenditure of the teams with Ferrari and chums (all funded by major manufacturers) claiming that it was not fair they should have to trim the size of their operations just to allow a raft of new, marginally less affluent, competitors to take their place on the grid.
Ferrari also claimed that proposed new technical regulations would make next year's championship a "two tier" affair.
That was rich, coming from a team who have for many years had a special relationship with the governing body which allows them to operate at a different level in many areas of their business.
Now it has all been settled, as it was always likely to be, thanks to a little common sense. The expenditure cap will come into force but not at the level the FIA sought and over a two-year period rather than for the start of next season.
Of all the sports which keep us entertained, Formula 1 is the only one which never publicly discusses money. We have no idea of how much it costs to have a car on the grid or how the rewards of success are calculated.
What does Jenson Button earn for winning a grand prix? How much was the constructors' championship worth to Ron Dennis last year? Are drivers paid if they wreck the car?
It is all done behind closed doors, as was the debate on the finances.
But still we are lured by the fascination of watching diminutive chaps going round and round in projectiles which have little in common with proper cars.
This weekend a member of the family was delighted to pay 100 for a 190 ticket for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, quite possibly the last which will be staged at the old wartime airfield.
Advised of the horrendous traffic jams, the rip-off food and drink, the shameless hoteliers and the sheer boredom of being locked in Silverstone for much longer than in takes to run a grand prix he was unconcerned; he insisted it would be magical just to be there. The fascination goes on…
Byrne and Roberts emerge with pride as Lions lapse
NEVER mind banks of empty seats and a "crowd" made up of a few hundred Lions' supporters with enough money to spare to have made the journey to Rustenburg for the opening encounter of the 2009 tour of South Africa, the essence of the day was the lesson to be learned and surely the British and Irish tourists will never forget their first afternoon in action.
They were awful and, if Ian McGeechan responded true to form he would have told them so immediately after the final whistle. But the lesson was simple: under-estimate any South African team at your peril.
The Lions ran out as though on an exhibition tour, all suitably bustling, grim-faced and polished but without the nous, for an hour at least, to realise that if you do not do the simple things from the moment the referee signals the start of the action you are not only risking defeat, you are putting your own future as a Test player in doubt.
There were some, including, sadly, Keith Earls and Mike Blair, who put themselves straight to the foot of the Test rankings by, on the one hand, making a hash of things every time the ball came near in the first half and, on the other, providing such a poor service to Ronan O'Gara that it was a wonder the fly-half did not spend Saturday evening in the Royal Bafokeng Infirmary.
But while some disappointed, others impressed, none more so than Lee Byrne, who must surely be already pencilled in as the Test full-back, and Jamie Roberts, who offered the only threat to the home defence until they ran out of steam in the last 10 minutes, the chance of a famous victory slipping through their fingers.
Tommy Bowe, Andrew Sheridan, O'Gara and Martyn Williams did little wrong and will still be in the running for selection in McGeechan's ultimate XV but such was the Lions' ineptitude for the opening hour the stakes will have risen enormously by the time the next match is played in Johannesburg on Wednesday evening against rather stronger opposition.
As warnings go, Saturday's game was as good as they come; we should see a marked improvement over the next week or so. If we don't then we are resigned to disappointment.
THERE will be many holding their fire – and keeping their wallets in their pocket – before they back their Derby fancy until Johnny Murtagh has decided which of Aidan O'Brien's entries he will ride on Saturday.
The general consensus on this year's renewal of the world's greatest race is that the winner will be trained in Ireland and, following on from the series of trials over the past month or two that would seem to be a reasonable assumption, not least because of what we learn from history.
It is general knowledge that no horse beaten in the Dante Stakes at York has ever won the Derby and that would rule out what appear to be the best regarded English-based hopes Crowded House and Kite Wood.
Of the Irish battalions Sea The Stars is perhaps the best on form, his victory in the 2,000 Guineas was a classic in every respect, but the suspicion is that O'Brien, has, as ever, been playing a clever game with his Epsom prospects, perhaps, in the process, fooling even his stable jockey and the bookmakers, who rate Fame And Glory his likely first choice.
Murtagh has chosen wrongly twice on Derby reconnaissance missions – at Chester and at York – and there is no guarantee that he will make the right pick at Epsom so the sensible option would seem to be go with the form.
That means supporting Sea The Stars, taking a slight risk on him having the stamina to see out Epsom's stamina-draining final couple of furlongs, or going with the Dante form and backing Black Bear Island, whoever takes the ride.
His finish in the Dante, when he came from the back row to overhaul stable-mate Freemantle (with Murtagh aboard) was stunning. As an each-way investment he seems as good value as any.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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