Satisfying the Football fan: The Impossible Dream

Southend United are embroiled in a relegation scrap at the foot of League One. With five games remaining, they have it all to do following a second-half capitulation away at Leeds United at the weekend.


If the Shrimpers are relegated to the fourth tier of English football, it probably will not send many ripples through the footballing community. But it will highlight an issue troubling many clubs of a similar ilk, and especially the die-hard supporters who turn up week in, week out to support their local team.

Southend currently have five on-loan players in a group of just twenty. Maths has never been my forte, but that makes a quarter of Steve Tilson’s squad temporary acquisitions. Ones who, by no fault of their own, have no inherent loyalty to the club.

I’ve covered a handful of Southend’s games this season, and the last visit to Roots Hall had a lasting impression on me. One disgruntled fan piped up and said he would rather see Southend in the conference with local players or those developed through the club’s youth system, than have a squad littered with loanees playing in a decent league.

That Southend have utilised 35 players to date this season (one off a club record) highlights the comings and goings at a club that has failed to show any signs of stability and continuity among its ranks.

Last weekend, Portsmouth overcame the odds to reach their second FA Cup final in three years. John Westwood, better known as the overly tattooed, bell-ringing Pompey fanatic with the big hat and blue wig, follows his side home and away and will continue to do so come rain and shine.

“I'm not worried about what level we play at,” he said.

“I started supporting the team in the old Fourth Division when I was 12. It's about where you are from, it's about your identity. It's the city, the community.

“Pompey is a working-class city. We like football and we like a drink. It's about entertainment on a Saturday afternoon, singing my heart out and watching a game. As long as we have a club to follow, it doesn't matter what league it's in.”

Although his words are reserved to the foreign owners that have crippled his club, the values he stands for sit universally among football fans up and down the land. They don’t care if they’re not competing with the Manchester Uniteds and Chelseas. All they ask is their club is run transparently, and their players play with a drive and determination that mirrors their own.

As the Premier League continues to rack up the millions and sees the rich go further into the red and sees the poor, well, put into administration, it is lower down the leagues where you find the values that made football so good in the first place.

That is why when clubs like Southend flirt with extinction, or in Chester’s case actually cease to exist, it makes it all the more striking. That Tilson has had to bring in loan players to seemingly balance the books is a crying shame.

It has left the supporters watching a side play with no guile, determination and, subsequently, four points from safety and facing an uphill battle to remain in League One.

Their home game with Brentford tonight is crucial if they are to remain in League One, and takes on an added significance as Chairman Ron Martin will appear at the high court tomorrow to sort out an outstanding tax bill.

I for one hope – irrespective of relegation – they are still around next season and, once this has been negotiated, are able to put out a side that plays for the supporters and sends them away satisfied; happy in the knowledge they have put in a shift and stood for the values the club represents.

Half Marathon...Done

Last Sunday (Mother's Day), myself and fellow News Associates-trained journalist Dan McKeown completed Silverstone’s Adidas Half Marathon for our chosen charity, Amnesty International. Dan manfully ran for nine Nicaraguan women, while I was representing Ferhat, a Turkish lad who was shot by Police and is now paralyzed from the waste down.

My Just Giving page is www.justgiving.com/nickgrounds

while Dan’s can be found at www.justgiving.com/dangmckeown-amnesty

So far, myself and Dan have raised an amicable sum, both in the region of £200 each. My target is £400, and I would very much like to reach it and, if possible, surpass it. Dan will also be running both the Sheffield and Coventry half marathons in April and May respectively, so credit him where credits due.

I had never ran a long-distance race before, and I have to admit, I enjoyed every minute of it. The adrenaline at the start and the pain-free opening miles where runners bounce around the circuit exchanging pleasantries (or in my case chirp out melodies from my iPod - Blondie’s Heart of glass and Abba's 'knowing me, knowing you...SAHA!!' in-house remix) were particular highlights.

Yes there are times where you feel like packing it in, but that’s the challenge you are facing. Despite putting the hours in around Highbury Fields and in the gym, nothing prepares you for the real thing – other than experience. Now I have one under the belt, I hope to do many more halves.

A massive shout out has to go to the organizers at Silverstone, who got it spot on. There were regular water stops along the way, with two much-needed Lucozade ones. At the end, where I felt as though I wanted the world to swallow me up, they provided a goody bag of treats: more Lucozade, a yazoo chocolate milkshake (which I believe is still curdling with the said Lucozade), an energy-boosting bar, and a limited edition Ricola sweet, which went down very well with the mother.

Dan completed the course in a very impressive 1hour42mins58secs, while I hit 1hour47mins17secs, which I was quite pleased with – considering I went for a one-minute pit stop at mile 10 for a ‘number two’.

Much love to all those who have sponsored us thus far. It is for a worthy cause, and your gratitude has not gone unnoticed, and is greatly appreciated.

Who knows, maybe one day I’ll enroll onto a full marathon, joining illustrious names such as Radcliffe, Yelling, Selassie and McKeown – who yesterday announced, pint of Guiness in hand, that he’s attempting the Loch Ness Marathon. Running bug indeed…

Terry: Should he stay or should he go?

John Terry dominated the front and back pages this weekend as his private life reared its ugly head and portrayed the England captain in a less-than favourable light.

For those of you who missed the nuclear missile that hit our tabloids, Terry had his super injunction lifted by Mr Justice Tugendhat on Friday, revealing he tried to keep his affair with Vanessa Peroncell, the former partner of England team-mate Wayne Bridge, secret.

Calls from esteemed sporting journalists have requested he either steps down as captain, or, should he not have the bottle, for Fabio Capello to strip him of the armband.

They argue if Terry is not relieved of the armband, it could lead to infighting and a split in the camp that would eat away at team morale and cost the side glory in South Africa (clearly failing to consider the almost inevitable exit on penalties at the quarter final stage, as has become the norm).

Last night, the Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe entered the debate. He said: “On the field John Terry is a fantastic player and a good England captain, but to be the captain of England you have a wider responsibility for the country and clearly if these allegations are proven – and at the moment they are only allegations – then it does call into question his role as England captain.”

I, far from offering myself as England’s Messiah, suggest an altogether different proposition for Messrs Capello, Terry and the England squad as the World Cup countdown begins.

It would be very easy to write a piece lambasting the promiscuous Terry, demanding his sacking as national team leader – arguing he has been given too many chances and this latest act of unfaithfulness towards a team-mate is the final straw.

I believe I have an obligation to football to offer a contrasting argument, and if Capello is thinking how to best deal with the situation, and I know you are a regular viewer of grounds4concern Fabio, prick up your ears now.

If this is a matter that can cause a split in the camp, then it immediately becomes a squad issue, and should be dealt with as such.

A team meeting should be arranged, and the issue be dealt with in-house, where the England players are able to have their say on the matter and ultimately come up with a group decision on whether Terry keeps the armband.

I do not know if this will cross Capello’s mind, nor if this sort of scenario would ever happen at international level, but if it does not – it should.

The players are increasingly becoming disconnected from reality, and despite this proposed meeting initially sounding patronising to ‘adults’ who pick up wages in excess of £100,000 a week, a reported £170,000 in Terry’s case, this saga demands the need of a reality check (for some of them at least).

If Terry is “a leader of men”, as his supporters point to, he should welcome the chance to hear from his team mates just how they feel about his latest misdemeanour, and whether they remain united in his leadership.

The other scenarios are much more likely to happen, but I feel will end up doing more harm than good.

Should Capello speak to Terry privately, there is every chance that Terry, with one of the best chances to emulate Bobby Moore and lift the Jules Rimet trophy this summer, will suggest he retains the captaincy.

Speculation of course, but if there are members of the England team who believe they no longer have full trust in the captain, then this will sow the seeds for the beginning of the end of this side, months before a ball has been kicked against the USA in Rustenburg.

By the same token, should Capello take the decision to either keep him as skipper or, more unlikely, publicly strip him if of it, it would be a decision he will not relish, and will feel has been forced upon him at a time when he is gearing up for the equinox in his managerial career (after all, he may be paid £5m a year, but relationship counselling is not on the job description).

Yes, he is employed to deal with the players, and be able to expertly man manage them, but I believe this is a humanitarian issue, rather than a footballing one and such an unprecedented scenario demands an unprecedented response.

All three more likely outcomes to this farce will be detrimental to the future of this Golden Generation, and Capello should hold the squad referendum sooner rather than later, to prevent the rumoured ill-feeling from getting out of control.

This is the World Cup we are talking about after all, not John Terry’s bedroom aerobics.

Alex Scott Interview

Whilst women’s football in England has yet to achieve professional status, all this will change by 2011 with the inauguration of a new Super League. Looking ahead to this new era, Nick Grounds talks to England’s Alex Scott about the switch to professionalism and the differences it will make to the national side.

It is September 10th 2009 and England’s Faye White is leading her side out in Helsinki to face Germany in the final of the Women’s European Championships. Fast forward 90 minutes, and a 6-2 reverse and a lesson in how to kill off a game at the highest level duly follows. But England’s defeat to Germany was not a true reflection of the final, nor an indication of how far England have come under Head Coach Hope Powell since her appointment in 1998.

Not since the euphoria of Sir Alf Ramsey’s triumph with the men’s side in 1966 have England tasted success in a major tournament. However, there are already indications that, should Fabio Capello fail to deliver the ultimate prize in international football next summer, Powell’s women may well be the team to end the jinx and bring home the 2011 Women’s World Cup, fittingly to be held in Germany.

Quite a change, since Sir Trevor Brooking, Director of Football Development, speaking in October 2006, said the England women’s side that had just reached 2007’s World Cup, had done so “without structure.” But a quarter final place in that competition and a runner’s up medal against all the odds in this year’s European Championships have elevated the side to eighth in the FIFA Women’s World Rankings. So in terms of Booking’s assertion three years ago, what has changed and what does the future hold for a sport clearly on the way up?

In September 2008, a year before England reached their first official final, FA Chairman Lord Triesman revealed plans for the new professional Super League in England from 2010. Whilst this has now gone back a year – owing to a review of the FA’s financial commitments in the global economic downturn – the league will run from the summer of 2011 and rival the USA’s Women’s Professional Soccer league (WPS) and Germany’s Bundesliga.

Meanwhile, England’s talent, frustrated at having to wait until 2011, began a mini-exodus to the US, in time for the inaugural 2009 WPS season. Eniola Aluko, at 22 seen by many as an England mainstay for years to come, joined Saint Louis Athletica, while Kelly Smith, the symbol of the women’s game in England scoring a staggering 73 goals in 66 Arsenal appearances, was drafted in by Boston Breakers.

One of Smith’s new team-mates, England’s right-back Alex Scott, is another player to have pursued the American dream.

Blaming the uncompetitive nature of the current Women’s Premier League for her decision to crack America, Scott agreed with White’s condemnation of the league as “unstable”. Now professional, the defender revealed it was an opportunity she could not turn down and now she can focus all her energies on her football and concentrate on developing her game.

“Playing in America is like playing international standard every week because all the best international players are in the league,” she said.

“The standard’s a lot harder. Every game is a real fight – you don’t know whether you’re going to win, lose, or draw – whereas when I was at Arsenal, you could predict what was going to happen in the game.”

As WPS takes a breather and prepares for its second year, Scott admitted she eagerly anticipates its return in March after missing out on the play-offs by a point in the seven-team league.

“It ended up being a disappointing season for us as we were billed as one of the top teams along with Los Angeles.

“The league’s going to be even harder next year with all the other international players that will be joining us.”

Scott admitted she and Smith had adapted well to life in Boston, with the club catering to their every needs; providing them with both an apartment and a car each. So, would she be tempted by a return to play in the Super League?

“Never say never! But definitely, you’ll be able to play more and train more, so it’s an option,” she said.

“It will help retain some of England’s best players as they will be training everyday and playing will be their main focus – not having to struggle with a nine to five job as well.”

Intriguingly, only three English players will join the WPS in 2010, compared to seven British women in 2009 (Scotland’s Ifeoma Dieke represents the Chicago Red Stars) and although this evidence is only based on two seasons, perhaps the arrival of the Super League will help retain the UK’s best talent.

On top of the introduction of the Super League, the FA awarded 17 England players centralised contracts in May 2009 on a salary of £16,000. Although it is a meagre sum compared to the money on offer in the men's game, it is a step in the right direction, indeed, the FA are committing £1.28m to the scheme over the next four years.

Plans are advanced to appoint a performance manager who would oversee all the England women's teams, the FA talent development structure, players’ central contracts and liaise with and support the Super League, all with the purpose of closing the gap between England and the world’s best.

Following FIFA’s approval that an all-England team can represent Great Britain at London 2012, and the aforementioned changes, it all points to a promising few years ahead for England.

Scott added: “We were very disappointed with the score-line and everyone who watched the final knows we took the game to Germany and it wasn’t until the second half in a ten minute spell where they scored a lot of goals.

“The gap’s definitely closing and I think it will continue to close in time as we continue in the right direction.”

The FA must now ensure the Super League and the switch to professionalism does not suffer any further delays or it risks losing England’s most precocious talents to the professional leagues elsewhere and, more damagingly, prolonging the opportunity to reduce the gap between a force in waiting and the elite.

Jimmy Bullard, you gotta love him!

Jimmy Bullard, where do you start? On and off-field prankster, dead-ball specialist, golden-locked Soccer AM favourite, the likable Eastender has won countless plaudits for his care-free attitude to the game.

Due to his qualities as the in-house joker, his playing abilities have often been unnoticed. However, there is absolutely no question that Hull’s recent upsurge in form has coincided with Bullard’s return from a lengthy knee injury. During his absence, Hull’s 2009/10 season was looking bleak, a continuation of their dismal second half to last season.

Their opening eight games yielded just seven points with five defeats, including a 5-1 mauling at home to Tottenham and a demoralising 4-1 reverse at Sunderland. Since his return, a substitute appearance against former club Fulham, Hull’s fortunes have improved notably. Confidence has been restored at the KC Stadium and the dark clouds hovering over Phil Brown’s tenure have evaporated, for now.

Hull have recently picked up nine points, winning two, drawing three, with two defeats. Ok, perhaps not championship winning form, but Bullard has given a much-needed lift around the place and the general consensus is Hull have a better chance of survival now; a mid-week victory over Everton and a creditable draw against Manchester City at Eastlands, indicative of this.

Bullard may not have the technical qualities demanded by Arsène Wenger, nor the guile and strength evident in Manchester United and Chelsea squads, but Bullard’s ability has been evident ever since he began his playing career at the relatively late age of 20 at non-league Gravesend & Northfleet.

His performances at that level attracted the interest of boy-hood club West Ham and, despite not making a single appearance for The Hammers, his career was rejuvenated by Barry Fry at Peterborough, where he scored a credible 11 goals from 62 appearances.

After his success under Fry, Bullard made the journey north to Wigan for £275,000 in January 2003 and was subsequently named in the 2002/03 PFA Division Two Team of The Year. A key component in Paul Jewell’s side, Wigan’s renaissance saw them rise from League One mediocrity to the Premier League’s surprise package of the 2005/06 season.

This was where the jester first came to everyone’s attention and Bullard’s antics were a far cry from the modern-day footballer, severely detached from reality. The Micah Richards’ and John Terry’s of this world who happily park their flash cars in undesignated parking spots just for convenience could do worse than following Bullard’s example.

Indeed, Jermain Defoe earlier this month was lambasted by a judge for playing 'the litigation game', just because he could afford to. Following a six-month driving ban after his Land Rover was clocked twice for speeding last year, Defoe's appeal was labelled by the judge as 'sad and frivolous' and ordered the England star to pay more than £1,500 in costs.

Jimmy’s arrival onto the scene was a ray of sunshine at a time it was much needed. In Wigan’s home leg of their League Cup semi-final against Arsenal in February 2006, he was honoured on Soccer AM for running the length of the pitch in an attempt to score when the floodlights went out.

His antics in his first season in the Premier League did not stop there. During a home fixture against Everton, a goal-mouth scramble resulted in a pile-up, much to the delight of an incoming Jimmy who leapfrogged the pile, landing flat on his face.

In the same match, Jimmy fronted up to hard-man Duncan Ferguson, following the Scot’s dismissal for a punch on Paul Scharner. Jimmy had the courage to stare up at Ferguson with a cheeky smirk on his face. Someone had obviously not alerted Jimmy to the fact that Ferguson had single-handily dealt with two burglars in 2001, with one spending three days in hospital as a result.

Then came his celebration this weekend. Only Jimmy could have the audacity to mimic the embarrassing on-pitch team talk carried out by Phil Brown last season. Jimmy’s Pièce de résistance, however, had to be his antics in a Wigan dressing room involving a laundry cart. Wearing nothing more than underwear on his head, Jimmy led his former team-mates in a battle chant before being thrown around in the cart before crashing into the locker room wall.

It may surprise some people that the midfielder is 31 and, with no international caps to his name, he may well have missed the boat for such recognition and ultimately forgotten for his technical qualities. However, this would be unjust, as his pedigree is without doubt. If his legacy as a player is forgotten, so be it. But what is beyond any question is he will be remembered as a breath of fresh air in the modern game and one of football’s true characters.

Setting the wheels in motion

British Women feel it is no longer safe to cycle on our roads and are currently launching a safety plea to governments.

Sustrans, a sustainable transport charity, revealed in a poll that women have major concerns for their own safety on the roads.

Since September, the public have been supporting ‘Motion for Women’, Sustrans’ urgent plea to governments to make cycling in Britain safer for women. The petition is already being backed by organisations including Mind, the National Federation of Women’s Institutes and the Townswomen’s Guilds.

One of their major requests is the creation of more cycle lanes that are separated from all other vehicles. Melissa Henry, Sustrans’ Communications Director, said:

“Women’s response so far to the woefully inadequate provisions for cyclists in
Britain has been simple; they don’t cycle.

But, they are also telling us that they desperately want that situation to change.

The desire to cycle, and to enjoy all the benefits that cycling brings, is becoming a
priority for women.

We need to make it a priority for governments too and push for real changes in the way our villages, towns and cities are planned.”

The poll revealed 79 per cent of women do not cycle at all while 67 per cent believe the plea will encourage more women to travel by bike.

Women have until the end of November to register their support to ensure their voices are heard. All signatures will be presented to Government in December.

Women are asked to add their support at www.bikebelles.org.uk/index.php/sign_our_petition/

Heather causing a racket

Rising tennis star Heather Watson almost pulled off an astonishing scalp in a senior event in Canada last week.

In the first round of the Saguenay ITF tournament, Watson took the opening set with world number 133 and tournament second seed Valerie Tetreault, before gallantly losing 5-7 7-6 (7-5) 7-5.

The US Open girls' singles champion, ranked 736 in the world, came through qualifying on the Monday to give Tetreault a massive scare, and this performance is sure to give Watson a lot of confidence.

The 17-year-old from Guernsey seems to favour the hard courts following her success at Flushing Meadows, and this tie proved no exception.

Taking 18 games off an opponent ranked some 603 places above her in the world rankings is encouraging for the starlet, and is promising news for British women’s tennis.

The ITF Women's Circuit is the level below the WTA Tour.