England can't win

I’m not England’s most vehement supporter but recent events in the media have further encouraged a sense of injustice for the England national side. It seems negative stories about England are compulsory, regardless of how successful they are.

Having ensured qualification for the World Cup in Brazil next year, the British Press had every right to portray the England team with plenty of optimism.

All smiles for Hodgson

Failure to qualify would have been a wonderful outcome for the media, though. Stories of England’s demise and uncertainty over Hodgson’s position as manager would have undoubtedly dominated the back pages of newspapers and made for interesting reading.

Instead, England were to be briefly glorified after coming through two difficult challenges against Montenegro and Poland to guarantee their presence at the most illustrious competition in the sport at the home of arguably the greatest nation to have embraced football.

The England team are highly unlikely to win the World Cup. Quite simply, they don’t have sufficient quality to compete consistently at the top level. Whilst there are a large number of particularly talented individuals, who have the potential to be exceptional players, it’s currently unrealistic to make a comparison with the likes of Spain, Germany and Brazil.

This doesn’t mean we can’t support our nation, however. In fact, this provokes an incentive to increase England’s backing. They’ll need to be able to rely on committed supporters who can provide extra inspiration.

Unfortunately, the British media sometimes fails to gather this concept. After emphasising the significance of making it to Brazil ahead of those final two qualifiers, England would have felt the media owed them some praise after intensifying the pressure placed on them to deliver.

At the Olympics last year, the media made a substantial contribution to the feel-good factor within the UK through the positive representation of British athletes, who were performing so magnificently in London and achieving far beyond expectations.

Admittedly, British athletes work much harder than footballers for much less money so their success deserves to be emphasised. It will be challenging to ever replicate the mood of Britain during those Olympics with so much enthusiasm and excitement widespread throughout the country.

One factor that can be guaranteed is that the enthusiasm and excitement is contagious. People become infected sub-consciously.

If the media generated similar levels of hype when it comes to the England football team, there could be a considerable impact on the positivity and potential of the squad and would encourage an influential contingency of football supporters.

Yes, they’re paid unjustified amounts of money and should feel honoured to don the England shirt. Yes, pressure is part of the sport, increasingly so at international level, but there’s nothing to say they don’t deserve praise when they are victorious. Whilst the newspapers did give credit to the England side afterwards, the stories that followed the Poland match quickly extinguished the success.

This is where I get to the point I’m referring to when I say ‘England can’t win’. You may see this title as a reflection of their chances at the World Cup. That, although it may be true, is not the case. What I mean is that, even when England are successful, the media has a tendency to find a way of overshadowing times of celebration.

Townsend- centre of attention

This was demonstrated in the aftermath of the Poland match, which England had won 2-0 to finish top of their group. Andros Townsend, who has been the focus of attention in the footballing world after producing remarkable performances in his first two England games, has now become the centre of an apparent ‘racist’ incident during the half-time team talk of the Poland game. Roy Hodgson, the man who deserves credit for bravely selecting the young Tottenham Hotspur winger, used the expression ‘feed the monkey’  from the punch line of an old joke when instructing his players to look for Townsend to create more opportunities.


Toure was the subject of racist abuse in Russia

The term ‘monkey’ has been used to direct racial abuse at black players in football. There have been several cases of monkey chants inside stadiums and such despicable behaviour was evident in the recent Champions League Group D game between CSKA Moscow and Manchester City, where Yaya Toure was the subject of monkey chants from CSKA supporters. One of the most unfortunate ironies about this is that CSKA have black players themselves. The Russian club have since denied the allegations made by Toure, insisting that no racist behaviour took place, despite clear video evidence showing the monkey chants from supporters.  UEFA have now officially punished CSKA for the incident by proposing to close one section of the stadium for their Champions League tie against Bayern Munich in late November. Further punishment will be issued if the behaviour is repeated, with full stadium closure being a serious threat from Europe's football governing body, along with additional fines. There’s a theory that this incident has been exaggerated because we are bitter about the fact that Russia won the bid to host the 2018 World Cup ahead of England. Of course we are bitter. Look at the level of racism and the standard of stadia in Russia compared to England. Why wouldn’t we be bitter?

Going back to the Townsend situation, any civilised football supporter will know Hodgson didn’t say the joke with any intention to cause offence racially. Surely the fact that Townsend has said Hodgson was paying him a compliment removes any suspicion of the England manager being a racist. A pressure group known as Race for Sport didn’t understand this, and decided that the apologies from Hodgson and the FA were unsatisfactory. Sending a complaint to the FA, they advised that all football managers should receive cultural intelligence on the matter. Up until this complaint, I didn’t think the matter could be taken further out of context. Up until this complaint, I had never heard of ‘Race for Sport’. Therefore, it seems that this was a desperate attempt to raise the awareness of an organisation that is in need of recognition and status.

Kick Racism out of Football, the established campaign committed to ending discrimination in British football, haven’t responded to the issue, reiterating the idea that Hodgson wasn’t being racist.

It will be interesting to see how the next 8 months go for England on and off the field.

Friendlies against Chile and Germany await them in November, marking the beginning of preparation for the 2014 World Cup.