It’s been something of drab start to the season and now before we’ve even got going we’ve got this thoroughly miserable international football break. I mean, who on the planet has any interest in international football following a summer of very poor international FIFA flummory? Can we not get something of a break, for god’s sake?

But as a I write this I realise such cries are plaintiff and will have little or no effect than to add to the small snowball of fatigue that is growing in size within the ranks of English fans. Excuse the poor imagery but those with their eyes and ears open will have felt the counter-insurgency start to grow as ordinary folk start to gag on yet another over-hyped Premier League offering. Notice the many spare seats at places like Villa Park, Ewood Park, and the DW Stadium. Not new you say. Well, this is the start of the season and I would also say generally discontent starts at the fringes.

I was on the training ground of a Premiership club this week, the name of which I can’t mention, but as I waited bloody ages for the manager to get off his dooberrie and come for lunch, it was remarkable to witness the meanderings of the gods, as the over-paid players horsed around like any other football team, took the piss out of the old security guard and then left in vehicles of the quality not normally available to most of us. It was veritably a millionaires club although more Costa Del Sol than Cape Cod. I caught myself saying almost unconsciously ‘enjoy it while it lasts, lads’.

Now, I’m no harbinger of doom but you do feel the guardians of the game…the fans are starting to feel not a little queasy. Afterall, what is football for a fan? It’s camaraderie amongst friends and family, it’s community identity, it’s collective experiences, it’s ostensibly local soap-opera but real, and certainly it is history, tradition and local pride. What it certainly is not is wealthy foreign owners paying a football mercenary £200,000 a week to kick a ball around for a club he doesn’t give a flying burrito about.

And there’s the rub. At some point these world’s are going to rip asunder because increasingly one side, the fans and their motivations, have absolutely nothing to do with the other – the greed of the Premier League. But it’s a global game, I hear you shout. No it’s not, I reply. If the men and women of Birmingham, Liverpool, Blackburn, Wigan, etc don’t turn up to watch then you’ve got televised park football. And there’s nowt global about that.

It’s always worth remembering that like the bankers, the fat-cat Dave Richards’ of the Premier League don’t have a clue what’s happening in the real world. They’re just milking it for all it’s worth with the usual human naivety that the good times will last forever. Those of us in the cheap seats know this isn’t true, as generally we’re paying for it. So we watch and wait, for, as the oil industry rather quaintly terms, the tipping point.

But I digress. I’m certainly no Nostradamus. Let us see how the season and the atmosphere progresses….
And as for my time on the training ground this week, well, it was pretty boring. I managed to drag said manager off for a chat and some lunch but because it was before the transfer window had closed, I might as well not have bothered. He spent the entire time on his gooseberrie to the club secretary ranting about the demands of, and I quote, ‘no-mark, one-footed, journeyman, tosser footballers who think we’re gonna pay them a fortune for sitting on the bench’.

Needless to say, officially, the club were happy with the current squad.

Anyway, toodle-pip and I hope you all enjoy the international football. As for me, I’m off to Spain for a short break and a bit of beach footie with Terry Tappin and the wives.

Hasta la vista, footie fans,

Yours

W.R. Howe (Chairman)

So as the FIFA World Cup inspection team cruises the UK, being wined, dined and generally loaded up with gifts, freebies and goodness only knows what, their high-chief and the emperor of all parasites Slop Bladder has actually had to fess up and admit having the World Cup in England would be easy.

No, really, Slop? You surprise us. What, little old England capable of staging the World Cup? Why, how nice of you to say.

In which case why are the plane load of trough-weasels making entirely gratuitous trips round the stadia of the UK, no doubt at the expense of the FA? I mean, let’s be honest, Slop, a tired and emotional Paul Gascoigne, a telly tubby or even Peter Ridsdale could declare with confidence that this country could cope with a World Cup. Because if we can’t do it – who can?

But Slop’s a lot smarter than that. He knows that for the full expenses, nose-in-the-trough experience, there has to be a contest for the World Cup. Otherwise there’d be no free guided tours, no tons of vol-au-vents, and certainly no lovely designer handbags or general swag for Jack Warner to flog on ebay. Which is why, our Slop, is moved to introduce the dummy contender – Russia. Russia he tells us, is a serious contender, it’s not just a country – it’s a continent. Blimey, a whole continent. How can England compete with a whole continent? We’ve got Cornwall but they’ve got Siberia.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of the mushroom vol-au-vent and have scoffed my fair share over the years but this sort of behaviour is the complete antithesis of what football is about. These guys wander the globe skimming off the cream of football revenues, living off the fat provided by season ticket holders and subscribers to TV channels….living in the lap of luxury provided by the ordinary fan. And what do we get back – incompetence and avarice, lethargy and intransigence, no goal line technology and a World Cup ruined by an over-sponsored beach ball.

And now I must go and have a large gin and tonic and lie down….

Yours

W.R. Howe (Chairman)

From almost the first time I came across Mikel Arteta at Everton’s old training ground at Bellefield I could tell this young man had qualities usually not associated with the species. He had far more about him than the average proto-neanderthal-consumer-monkey which inhabits the majority of our professional teams, not least the fact that he’d worked in both France and Scotland and consequently spoke several languages, all by his mid-twenties. Recently, he’s further impressed me with his conduct in negotiating a new deal at Everton and his loyalty and fealty in an age of none. Can you imagine John Terry conducting a press conference in Spanish or French or English, for that matter, or not choosing to play for the highest bidder?

So when I hear Mikel finally heeding the calls of all Evertonians to consider playing for his adopted country, I would urge all other Englishmen to also spend some time weighing up the notion of having a ball-playing midfielder in the England team.

The arguments are simple and persuasive. There are many precedents of players adopting another nationality – Eduardo, a Brazilian playing for Croatia; Deco a Brazilian playing for Portugal, and most notably Marcos Senna anchoring the Spain team in the triumph at the European Championship having also been born in Brazil.

At a time when English football is bereft of footballing intelligence and the craft required to excel at the highest international level we should play Arteta. Look at it this way – yes, he’s a Spaniard but he’s first and foremost a Basque from Donostia (San Sebastian). And the Basque nation has long had strong ties with English football. Bilbao use the term Athletic – in the English – to delineate themselves from Castillian Spain. Plus, we should maybe think of it as just reward for Arteta for choosing to live and play and enrich the football in our country over many years and making this country his home. We should give him the opportunity to play football at international level which otherwise he might well be denied through injury and circumstance with Spain.

Marcos Senna provided experience, craft, determination and guile at a time when there was no Spaniard to provide them. And look where it took Spain. So don’t listen to Alan Hansen on Smug of the Day, who says it just wouldn’t be right. He’s a Scotsman, for god’s sake. Arteta could well be our Marcos Senna – the missing link in a footballing jigsaw that sees the renaissance of the English team.

So I urge you all to bring your support to….. Arteta for England – now.

Yours

W.R. Howe (Chairman)

Let’s hope Blackpool’s four goals in their first game in the Premiership turns into a fine season as it’s always nice to see clubs with a tradition do well. Equally it’s hard to see the attraction of a woeful Wigan. First game of the new season and there appeared to be no home fans there and those that were scarpered at the first signs of trouble. Not a very edifying spectacle.

I said as much to Radishlav Radishislovski, one of the ‘team’ at Stamford Bridge. Tradition is very important in the English game and while he nodded vigorously in agreement I could tell the wine had dulled his already dull senses. I have to say, I do my best with some of these flunkies at the big clubs but really some of them are so dreadfully dim. Is it any wonder so many of the clubs get into financial difficulty when these guys are running them. Ridsdale was always a frightful little man. I mean, you wouldn’t feel safe giving most of them a post office account let alone a few million quid.

Anyway, there we were in Etoile enjoying a very fine side of beef and indulging ourselves at the expense of his employer Mr Abramovich, while on the TV Joe Cole decided to make his debut short and sweet, and all Mr Radishislovski could prattle on about was Ukrainian beetroot production and what a fine socialist Yury Zhirkov is. While a love of the working class is undoubtedly commendable, I could do without the beetroot.

While we were making our way round the cheese board and hoping Arsenal might actually get a shot in at some stage, for some reason my thoughts turned to Craig Bellamy. One wonders what the man is really like. Is he just spectacularly opinionated, because we all know the football powers-that-be like you to wear a tie and tow the line, or is he actually an aggressive no-neck Welsh dwarf? Last season he was arguably Man City’s most effective player. The goal he scored against Man U was a real cracker. And yet now Mancini has put him out with the cat, except the cat gets to come back in at some stage, of course.

Poor Craig. No doubt he’s already eyeing up a career in punditry for when his already diminished collateral runs out. Let’s face it, if Rob E Sauvage can do it anyone can. However, I think Craig should broaden his horizons and follow another ‘opinionated’ player, Mr V Jones, into the acting business. I could just imagine him slugging it out with Phil Mitchell on Eastenders, tattoos and saliva flying everywhere. Either that or the new voice of Ivor the Engine. I may get in touch with Mr Bellamy and offer up some ideas. No doubt, at the moment he’s a little short of friends….

Yours

W R Howe (Chairman)

Martin O’Neill certainly did his bit to start the new Premiership season off with a very fine news story. Of course, it’s immensely sad that such a top gent should go just before battle is commenced. While many of us are also greatly vexed by the antics of the owners of Manchester City and the way they wield such obscene amounts of money, Martin O’Neill certainly has cause to feel persecuted. Two seasons in a row now the voracious Arabs from Middle Eastlands have swooped down on Villa Park and stolen his international central midfield (if as expected James Milner goes to a club ‘that can fulfil his ambitions’ yadda yadda yadda)

I was only saying to Biffa Girling at the FA the other day how distasteful the whole Manchester City thing is and while he wholeheartedly agreed he said he could think of a number of other things that made him feel worse such as having to watch Brian Barwick eat lunch or spend more than half an hour with the tedious David Davies. In many respects I had to concur having flown back from the German World Cup with Bumbler Barwick, I had to take cover as he sprayed the inflight meal across his voluminous stomach and my copy of the FT.

But anyway, Mr O’Neill we like. A true football man and one of intellect as well. No doubt some team somewhere will soon be benefiting from his many skills. And talking of skills, I was shocked to read that England’s bedraggled captain, Stevie G Lar, seems to believe Joe Cole is better than Lionel Messi. I fully understand players like to ‘big-up’ their friends (as I believe they say on Soccer AM) but there’s being complimentary and there’s being plain ridiculous. I hope Mr Cole was left squirming in his lamborgini or whatever status symbol he uses for transport. Biffa, myself and Terry Tappin were only having this discussion the other day in the Ivy that it was high time this bunch of England players were shown the door. Not only are they boorish and crap but they’ve become tedious to boot.

I digress, enough of England, god help us. The new season is upon us and what finer sensation in life can there be than the prospect of goodness knows how many months of sheer unadulterated pleasure. Fans around the country are assessing their squads, weighing up who might still come in, praying they won’t get Craig Bellamy and no doubt placing pointlessly hopeful bets with online betting companies. Very soon overweight, middle-aged men will squeeze their carefully nurtured bulks into a new strip and begin preparations for that first, sun-soaked game. You’d have to be some curmudgeonly old Ferguson to not appreciate the romance in all that.

And while the hoi polloi are downing their cooking lager and overpriced balti pies, you can rest assured that I will be scouring the league’s directors’ boxes for those vital snippets of information that will debunk the PR line of the Premiership clubs and illuminate those dark, dank corridors of power where call-girls and Cantonas lurk in equal measure. I will leave no vol-au-vent unturned in pursuit of veracity. Trust in me.

And as for those pre-season predictions – mine are all done and dusted. I’ve put them in a sealed envelope and shall reveal them at the end of the season. You may well be surprised at who I’ve got my £20 on for the championship. Chin chin.

Yours

W.R. Howe (Chairman)