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Alan Swann’s World of Sport: on John Terry, Harry Redknapp & England’s Dubai disaster
World of Sport with Alan Swann.
IF John Terry wasn’t such a self-centred, egotistical, pig-headed individual, he’d have quit the England captaincy when his alleged racial abuse first led to charges.
He could still have protested his innocence while ensuring the interests of the national team, his team-mates and his coach were not affected.
But Terry doesn’t think like that, if he thinks at all.
He appears to believe the England captaincy and its associated trappings are his by right - maybe he believes he can make a few more quid as the official holder of the armband.
As a result England are a mess again leading up to another major championship.
Fabio Capello now looks a well-paid idiot by stupidly giving the captaincy back to Terry after forgiving him for an affair with a team-mate’s partner and for backing him again over the weekend.
Capello might not agree with the decision, but surely silence was a better option than publicly revealing a rift with the people who sign off his ludicrous £6 million salary?
The whole affair has been one gigantic mess.
Terry’s the only one to blame here, no-one else and his London-based apologists should accept it and move on.
TERRY’S removal does have a bad side as we will all be subjected to endless arguments about who should replace him.
It was good of Rio Ferdinand to rule himself out of the running, especially as his inability to run any more will probably rule him out of the Euros in the summer anyway.
The England captaincy is a coin-tossing job.
That’s all it is. Give it to Joe Hart and be done with it, at least he’s a certain starter with a skeleton-free cupboard (so far anyway).
HARRY Redknapp’s trial has been an eye-opener. Not so much for how much money he may or may not have kept from the taxman, but because of his salary revelations.
Did Portsmouth really pay Redknapp over £3 million a year to be their manager?
That’s a mind-boggling sum for a boss whose lengthy career at the highest level has yielded just one fluke FA Cup win and a success in the largely irrelevant Intertoto Cup.
Redknapp’s ability is largely a myth. He assembles attractive sides that don’t win anything. If he’s worth £3 million a year, Sir Alex Ferguson should be on £20 million.
ROBERTO Mancini was strangely quiet about poor refereeing decisions over the weekend.
Did the conspiracy theory he apparently cooked up over the last month die a death the minute Manchester City winger Adam Johnson cheated his way to a spot-kick in the early stages of Saturday’s win over Fulham?
It’s quite sad that a City side with all their talent need to dive to win penalties against a side as poor as Fulham.
HOW on earth did Robin Van Persie and Benoit Assou-Ekotto escape retrospective bans following their recent trials by TV? Apart from the fact that both play for big clubs of course.
Apparently in both cases the referee involved claimed they saw the incident and decided to take no action. If that’s really the case maybe the officials should be the ones now serving three-match bans.
MIND you if Howard Webb is the standard our referees are judged by then lord help us.
The presence of Webb in the biggest Premier League match of the weekend is a banker even though he makes far too many questionable calls.
It must be lovely to know that no matter how many cock-ups - and there were plenty of them at Stamford Bridge on Sunday - your status as the number one official in the country is safe.
ENGLAND’S cricketers have managed to give the best possible argument against a closed-shop selection policy.
I do hope they lose their world number one status to South Africa soon as they were clearly a better side pursuing the top spot than they were once they got there.
To lose so easily to a Pakistani side with just two world class players in Sajeed Akmal and Younis Khan was an embarrassment.
Abdur Rehman is a journeyman left-arm slow bowler who took advantage of some dismal tactics and a complete lack of technique from the English batsmen.
No doubt we will be hearing all about how England will bounce back from this disaster in the numerous player columns that now appear in our papers.
Graeme Swann even has a dvd out about spin bowling. The bit about bowling successfully on spin-friendly pitches should be fascinating.
THE Six Nations rugby union started on Saturday. England were rubbish and boring and yet still beat an error-prone Scotland side.
New coach Stuart Lancaster has made no difference to Martin Johnson then, apart from with the most important aspect of the result.
Swanny’s fanmail: send yours to alan.swann@peterboroughtoday.co.uk
I am an avid reader of your sporting ramblings over many topics, many of which I agree with.
I will rejoice that some of the fees which the BBC pays some of their has-beens will now be reduced as the BBC remembers whose money they are throwing about.
I must say that I also have reservations on Kenny Dalglish’s ability to bring the good times back to Liverpool and think it will end in tears, but am pleased for the supporters that they have a trip to Wembley coming up and hope they take a huge crowd for a very special day out as we in Posh remember so well.
It’s a wonderful day out for all the family, if they can afford it.
As you are always quoting past glories or failures I offer the following facts and wonder if history repeats itself.
The year is 1981: Prince Charles marries. Liverpool are champions of Europe. Australia lost the Ashes. The Pope died.
Fast forward to 2005. Prince Charles marries. Liverpool are champions of Europe. Australia lost the Ashes. The Pope died.
A big coincidence, but as I cannot see Liverpool being Champions of Europe for many years, everything else will take its own pattern.
Ged Jarrett
Werrington
Swanny, when you are away can I stand in for you?
I got a better bite than you do sometimes.
By the way Mr Lang, “Sheik Mansour, wrong club”? Er, really? Adebayor? Half his wages?
Sorry, I guess I was too subtle for you.
Mark Baker
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