Jonny Gould Interviews: Peter Withe Part 4 (of 4)

Here's the concluding part of the Peter Withe Story in which he covers his highly successful coaching career in the Far East, never afraid to take on and complete a faraway football mission.

And he answers this: who was the greatest coach he played for, Ron Saunders or Brian Clough!

As a Villa fan, I'd love your feedback, so drop me a line below and thanks for watching.

Please share if you like the video. Many thanks!

PODCAST: Chelsea fan and comedy writer Ivor Baddiel on the Y Word

As Dean Smith takes the reins, why Aston Villa's in the blood

Birmingham-born Jonny is TV journalist who lives and works in London. He’s a Sky News regular reviewing the papers and talking sport. He was sports editor of Beacon Radio in the late eighties and early nineties, covering a Villa season of (near) glory under Graham Taylor.

He went to Handsworth Grammar School, ate orange chips at the Lightwoods Saloon and was there with Nigel Kennedy to see Chelsea 8 Villa 0 in The Shed.

Recently, he interviewed Peter Withe about his career biography, penned by Simon Goodyear.

He records a regular podcast with fellow Villa Trust director, Howard Hodgson. His favourite season is 80-81 “where nothing went wrong!”; his favourite manager is Ron Saunders and he dreams of this passing move: Paul McGrath to Ian Taylor, who finds Brian Little for Gordon Cowans to Juan Pablo Angel, back to David Platt for a late run to Andy Gray who heads down to Peter Withe (and in off the post!) - with enthusiastic touchline applause from Dalian Atkinson and Gary Shaw. He’d love to tell Archie Hunter, William McGregor (and Grandpa Benno) what their club became!

I’m a very lucky Aston Villa supporter. I’ve seen the League title, a European Cup, many League Cups – and one day the FA Cup will complete the set.

Born during Villa’s steep decline in the sixties and too young to remember it, I emerged as witness to unprecedented glory in the early 80’s. Mind you, I knew heartache too – there were two successive 8^th place finishes in those early years!

Back then, we had a priceless commodity – continuity. Ron Saunders was manager from 1974 to 1982. He had a quiet charisma and an inner certainty schooled in an English work ethic. Many talk of teams playing 4-4-2 back then – but Villa appeared to me 3-5-2 off the ball and 3-2-5 with it, Wasn’t that the way dating back to the fifties too?

My first game was in the Holte with dad, a 4-1 midweek thrashing by Manchester City in 1977. I was too small to see the action – so I concentrated on staring at those iconic floodlights imprinting “AV” images on my closed eyelids!

Dennis Tueart scored a hat-trick – and the Evening Mail reported we were about to sign him for £300,000 - but he preferred New York Cosmos instead! #mistake

I’m a third generation Villan. My grandfather, a professional footballer of note in the twenties (a Championship winner in Vienna by the name of Ben Posaner) came to Birmingham in 1939. From the late 40’s, he owned the typewriter shop directly next door to Aston Railway Station and Lover’s Walk. He used to take a lunchtime pint in the Britannia.

The first team I remember gave birth to the Championship side. Ron replaced players but kept formation the same. It was Burridge, Gidman, Robson, Philips, Nicholl, Mortimer, Deehan, Little, Gray, Cropley, Carrodus. A silverware-winning side and the sign of things to come.

Were the ’77 League Cup winners better than the ’81 Champions? It’s debated by many of us who remember. All I can say is there was considerable upheaval between the two trophy captures and luck played a part as we stayed remarkably injury-free through our league winning season using only 14 players. A record which will never be broken.

If today’s Holte Enders think pressure’s greater on bosses today, think again. In 1979, when Andy Gray was sold to Wolves for an equivalent £80m in today’s money, we just couldn’t score. “Saunders is a w***er” echoed from the skies! He faced the sack, no question.

Also, the newly-built North Stand had created a drainage problem and a muddy pitch, the Bendalls and Doug Ellis were having a live scrap on Gary Newbon’s ATV sports show too.

Echoes of today, eh? That’s what I mean about luck. There was a lot of turmoil in the background.

Then finished-product Peter Withe was brought in from Newcastle to replace Gray’s misfiring replacement, David Geddis. I had the privilege of interviewing Peter for Simon Goodyear's biography.

Gary Shaw, Colin Gibson, Gary Williams and Gordon Cowans came of age and John Gidman was also moved on for big money. He was replaced by Chelsea’s Kenny Swain. We even won the BBC Sportsnight five-a-side title too! Allan Evans and Ken McNaught were already mainstays of an emerging team.

There was nothing wrong with the FOOTBALL as it turned out!

I went to the pop-up Champions League museum before the Wembley Final in 2011 which Aston Villa were, of course part of. It’s with immense pride I recall Rotterdam. The champagne bubbles of success never truly subside and we sit forever among the pantheon names of European football with Madrid, Milan, Munich and Manchester.

This should be the inspiration and catalyst for every season. It just hasn’t been for at least a decade.

There’ve been exciting seasons since. Graham Taylor’s second-placers in 89/90 and Big Ron and Andy Gray’s Premier League runners-up three years later.

Big Ron took full advantage of Liverpool’s jettisoning of top stars like Houghton, Staunton and Saunders and he kept McGrath on the straight and narrow. Dalian, Dwight and Deano marauded upfront – but what Ron and Andy fully understood so clearly was the Villa tradition. That’s why we played with excitement and veuve. The lights were truly on at Villa Park in the 90’s.

I live in London. If I talk to an Arsenal or Chelsea fan like this, they don’t know what I’m talking about.

Fast-forwarding to today: I’m heartbroken at our slide down English football. Our decline is not as apparent as that of say, Leeds or Forest (because we've been saved by Messrs. Sawiris and Edens) – but our chances of winning the title are frankly only marginally better than theirs.

Villa were genuinely level with Arsenal and Liverpool at the start of the Premier League era – but we haven’t shown faith to invest in the way they have. It’s as though the belief that the grand old club Aston Villa, is beyond the memory of all who’ve run it since.

The 42,000 attendance for Dean Smith's first game as our new manager shows why I believe we're still on a par with Everton and Spurs as one of England's foremost clubs.

I see the Premier League as made up of three divisions: the perennial Champions League qualifiers, the wannabes  – and the fodder. Let’s get back to being a wannabe, eh?

We’ve been buoyed by incredible TV cash for twenty years – but where are we? Lost. I think we're about to be found.

Aston Villa needs to connect with its past to understand the potential moving forward. Everyone aged 40 and above knows it – anyone under 40 needs to dust off the history books and imagine it.

The McGregor statue and the lantern are welcome reminders of our truly unique tradition in the world of sport – but we need to be a thriving community as much as a museum - and Dean Smith and Christian Purslow's arrivals are a flag in the sand pointing to better days, just the like one I enjoyed as a 9-year-old in 1976.

This has turned into a prayer for a brighter Aston Villa future – but I hope it’s one we can all say together!

Up The Villa!

Talk to Jonny on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Birmingham Mail Special: Mat Kendrick joins Howard and Jonny's Villa podcast

Mat Kendrick

Welcome to Villa Park, Tim!

There are few better informed on the ins and outs of Aston Villa than the Birmingham Mail's Villa reporter, Mat Kendrick.

Howard and I are delighted Mat could join us for our latest edition of this Special.

And what a time to come on as Tim Sherwood assembles his management team to keep Aston Villa in the Premier League and ahead of another huge game, at home to Stoke City as the countdown to survival continues!

listen to ‘@MatKendrick, @hodgsonhoward and @jonnygould with the latest from #avfc’ on audioBoom

Jonny and Howard Hodgson worry about Aston Villa: Is this great club sleepwalking towards relegation?

If only Villa could summon the spirit of these winners today!

In their latest podcast, Jonny and Howard discuss Villa's seemingly unstoppable slide down the table.

Sure, Villa are still in the FA Cup, signed a useful looking midfielder in Carles Gil and raised many eyebrows, not least from their own teammates for securing Fabian Delph on a long-term deal!

But it's another stinging away defeat at Arsenal which leaves fans and even Villa legend, Andy Gray asking, "How can Paul Lambert motivate the players to go again?" Villa's next opponents, Chelsea.

listen to ‘.@hodgsonhoward and @jonnygould: Sleepwalking towards relegation?’ on audioBoom

Also from Jonny: his interview with Villa legend and legendary TV pundit, Andy Gray

Gould on Al Jazeera: "Only Blatter's mum thinks he's got any credibility now!"

As FIFA bow to overwhelming pressure to publish the Garcia Report, Jonny reacts on Al Jazeera, the Qatari-owned TV network broadcasting from the nation FIFA awarded its most controversial World Cup to.

Jonny believes whatever the uproar, there's no turning back and no chance of a revote - and Rusia and Qatar will stage these competitions. 

Arsenal defensive problem solved!

A club like Arsenal scour the world to find the best in football talent, so who would've Adam and Eved it that the solution to their goalkeeper and centre-back problem lay just a couple of miles from Highbury!

Like two (book) ends.

Here's Mayor of London, Boris Johnson and yours truly in the Outdoor Games Area of TreeHouse School for autistic children in Highgate, North London.

It's a beautifully equipped school with 140 dedicated staff, looking after 80 children upto the age of 18. Believe me, the kids lives are transformed through this form of intensive education.

Ken can't half hit them.

Note the assuredness, sheer majesty of girth and the suits that would grace any Cup Final day! Then the calamity of the defence breached from a set-piece.

There were Arsenal community officers present. I'm sure whispers have reached the manager's office already. They've been conceding like this all season!

Avram Grant, football's most celebrated loser is a Lion Zion Iron!

Handball!

You've got to love Avram Grant. He's a heady cocktail of the dour and doleful. He's lost every big game he's ever been charged with winning. Throw in a sex scandal too and you'd have thought he'd be jeered and ridiculed at every away ground on which he prowls the touchline.

I mean here's man who's been a loser in the finals of the Champions League, the FA Cup and Carling Cup and a Premier League runner-up.

But no. He's celebrated, nay feted!

As his West Ham career falters into gear, Soccermongery reckons he could've bagged an even bigger job on the continent such is his international standing and respect. Losing the Cup Final and finishing rock-bottom with Pompey apparently earned him the right!

So what's his appeal and why after Portsmouth's dog of a season has his stock never been higher?

Well, I'll tell you why. Grant joined Pompey too late. They were already doomed. He had to make do and mend with the squad he inherited. The wave of changes in ownership, financial misgivings and breaches of rules were too strong for the team to counter.

Yet Grant's Portsmouth played with commitment, organisation and vigour - and they won their fair share of matches, even though they crashed and burned in the league.

The FA Cup run showed their spirit proving that you took Grant's team lightly and you'd get beaten. Even in the league, they had their days in the sun. Just ask Wigan, Wolves, Birmingham and Spurs. Memorable wins for Pompey in both competitions.

Grant's rallying call to the Fratton Park faithful about not crushing their spirit even if everything else was taken away, is the stuff of the siege mentality all the big managers specialise in doling out to their players and the press.

I don't know either, mate!

Avram's got a big future - and if he can galvanize the Hammers into playing more spirited football than Gianfranco Zola did, there'll be a good few offers from some interesting leagues for the Israeli to ponder.

Click here for the current Top Story

Soccermongery's all about your feedback, so write away, right away!

Memories of Better Times: The Peter Crouch Robot or Robocrouch!

Do you remember when England dominated games and netted three or four? No, nor do I!

Actually, our run-up to the World Cup Finals was pretty impressive but our best displays were often in mistmatch qualifiers or laid back friendlies.

We've really been shown up in South Africa!

And why's Crouchie been restricted to a last-ditch second game runout - with no sign of Joe Cole at all?

Well, we just wouldn't be able to call ourselves Soccermongers without tipping our Michael Jackson-type hat to Peter Crouch, the International Robot, it's Robocrouch himself! Enjoy responsibly.

Click here for the current Top Story

Here's a man who makes the very most of his physical attributes. A man totally confident and comfortable in his own body.

How else can this extraordinary celebration set be explained.

It might not have earned him a transfer to Tottenham, but it certainly got the Pringles sponsorship team talking!

AUDIO: Capello tight-lipped over team selection

Like Sir Alf Ramsey before him, England boss Fabio Capello keeps the nation and his players guessing about who'll figure in the starting line-up for tonight's game with Algeria in Cape Town.

Capello tight-lipped over team selection

It was a tactic that always kept Sir Alf's squad on their toes - and performing, and ensures that control remains very much in the manager's office (if they win, of course!)

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson, our mayor of London urges fans to master the vuvuzela with some stirring Churchillian words. Statesman or 'Kin State Of That Man? you decide!

And after another World Cup shock this afternoon provided by Serbia's 1-nil win over Germany, maybe England have less to worry about than first thought.

Kiss every trophy available. It's the Football League Championship!

Courtesy of the Football League's new sponsor, npower, I've now added the Football League Championship to my collection of intimate embraces.

It's the one Liverpool created so many great sides for and my own team, Aston Villa won it on seven occasions. Manchester United last won it in 1967 (ha, we've done it more recently, even City have!)

Aaah, the Victorian elegance of it!

When winters really were winters! When a win was worth just two points. When winning the title with 64 points probably would've clinched it most years .... and when finishing third guaranteed promotion to a higher division!

This cup might be awarded to the second tier of the English game these days, but you can't rewrite the majesty of history that surrounds this beautiful old piece of craftsmanship. I'm delighted the Football League still award it. Compared to the modern, nouveau riche lines of the Premier League trophy, this one more than any other personifies where football came from; that great Victorian era of invention and ideas.

End of lecture!

Slingshot Drogba set for the World Cup?

Betting Preview » Blog Archive » Day 5 Lunchtime Update

The World Cup gets interesting today! Didier Drogba may take to the field for the Ivory Coast with his arm in a sling! Given Sven Goran Eriksson's track record of patching up star players and fielding them (remember Wayne Rooney's metatarsal in 2006?), the only thing that can stop the Drog is FIFA disqualifying him!

Andy Clarke's report includes Sven audio.

Play-offs would've stopped English football's greatest story

I overheard a conversation about Nottingham Forest last night. A casual observer asked if Forest had finished third in this season's Championship, why Blackpool, three places and nine points behind them would be in the Premier League instead of them next season?

The Tangerines, who on the last day of the season clinched the final playoff place, beat two teams in a knockout competition at the end of a rigorous campaign. Basically, Blackpool came into form at the right time as Forest got tired. The team who finish sixth often win promotion. When it was explained to the observer why the playoffs existed, "money" was the predictable, but truthful answer given.

Which reminds me. In 1977, Forest also secured third place in the same division to claim their place among the elite. There were no playoffs then. The rest, as they say, is history.

What came next was one of the most extraordinary ascents to the game's summit ever seen.

Brian Clough's men stormed all before them: signing Peter Shilton and Kenny Burns in the close-season, Forest went on to complete an astonishing League Championship and League Cup double followed by a successful defence of the League Cup and the first of two successive European Cups. Trevor Francis became the first million pound player and journeymen like John Robertson, Archie Gemmill and Tony Woodcock became football's biggest stars.

I'm not saying Billy Davies' charges would have done the same thing had they been promoted, but it's highly questionable if the extraordinary events would've unfolded for Cloughie's men had they been forced to play three more games at the end of a tough campaign, and just to earn the promotion they'd already won on merit.

There aren't relegation playoffs anymore as defeat for the vanquished is too painful, the drama too acute. Remember the riots at the Chelsea v Middlesbrough game at Stamford Bridge all those years ago? The conventional wisdom is that playoffs should be about a positive prize - promotion to the higher league. And that tired metaphor about the Premier League's Promised Land.

But given the history of Nottingham Forest, I am not sure about the play-offs at all.

Click here for the current Top Story

Soccermongery's all about your feedback, so write away, right away!

The Nike World Cup advert: the best ever?

Starring Rooney, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Ribéry. Rip roaring!



Also on Soccermongery: why Grant the loser is lauded as a winner. plus:

Soccermongery's Champions League video preview:

Burnley's Fair Play League hopes dashed

As quickly as hopes were raised for Burnley, they were dashed! UEFA's decided to award Fair Play places in Europe to Sweden, Denmark and Finland next term, so ending the relegated Clarets hopes of joining the Euro elite from August. But Soccermongery says the Fair Play League is distinctly unfair - to deserving clubs:

Why should Burnley manager Brian Laws have been incentivised by Europe's governing body to send out his team urging careful challenges in their last game of the Premier League season? Because that's what Laws would've been mindful of as he prepared his Clarets for their last (ever) game in the top flight, at home to Tottenham. A place in Europe via this contorted route was still up for grabs at the time.

It’s not as if they were a particularly clean team anyway. Burnley were just the highest up the Fair Play table who'd not qualified for Europe.

In fact, they finished as low as seventh. Incredibly, the six teams above them didn’t need a back door to Europe like this; they'd already qualified. Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea and Villa among them.

What the Fair Play League shows year after year is that successful teams are usually disciplined enough to play the game the right way, leaving struggling hoofers like Burnley to earn this ridiculous route into the Europa League.

I suppose it might've stopped an exodus of players from Turf Moor following their relegation to the Championship. That and the parachute money, of course. But it’s still a European-style fudge and nonsense.

If UEFA awarded a Europa place to the most improved side in the Premier League, it might help that club to develop further. Stoke or Birmingham would drink to that suggestion.

Redknapp proves Premier League discriminates against English managerial talent

Harry Redknapp's achievement in securing Tottenham's first-ever appearance in the Champions League is every bit as significant as his FA Cup win with Portsmouth two years ago.

It shouldn't be forgotten just how much disarray Spurs were in when Redknapp replaced Juande Ramos literally overnight. They've gone from ‘two points in eight games’ to 70 from 37 inside two seasons. The oddball Wembley defeat to Pompey is the only black mark this campaign.

Spurs’ resurgence under the stewardship of their cockney manager's been astronomical. In a matter of 555 days, the former West Ham winger's turned the club’s fortunes totally on their head, steering them from the clutches of relegation to what will be their highest league finish in 10 years.

Sam Allardyce often complained that he'd have got more of a sniff of the top jobs in the Premier League, if he were called Samuele Allardice (it's in Italics for a reason, folks!) Now, Harry's made Spurs one of the more coveted jobs in English football through force of will - and with an all-British coaching staff.

And 2010 marks the resurgence of the English manager in the world game. Joining Redknapp in raising eyebrows are Fulham's Europa League hero Roy Hodgson and the former wally with the brolly, Steve McClaren, who's just won the Eredivisie with Twente Enschede.

The one-nil win over Manchester City at Eastlands, Tottenham's last rival for that coveted place, shows they have the application and big-match mentality to give the Champions League "a good old go" as Harry might say.

Even by last January's transfer window, Redknapp had assembled a decent squad with a strong-looking bench. Much stronger than their competition in Aston Villa, who picked from their inexperienced but talented youth team, Manchester City, who were still garnering a new team spirit and Liverpool, who under the leadership of Steven Gerrard and Rafa Benitez, fell away under pressure to perform.

Redknapp's flexible and pro-active enough to realise his current squad's not good enough to reach the business end of Europe's elite competition. His wheeler-dealing in the market is well documented - and now he'll be able to attract top players to the club.

But perhaps rather than wholesale changes, Redknapp may only need to tweak the squad, such is the talent and spirit within it. From Crouch to King, from Gomes to Danny Rose, Tottenham have the basis to build on their phenomenal season.

They might be about to embark on their first adventure in Europe at this level, but don't expect Tottenham Hotspur to roll over against the big sides.

Click here: Why Mourinho should think twice before a Premier League return.

When the seagulls follow the trawler: Cantona at United

For all the stars who've graced the Manchester United shirt, Eric Cantona stands alone as the most iconic and charismatic.

Collar up, arched back, straight arms.

Far from the Best, Cantona rather underperformed in the Champions League, never figured for his country when they won the trophies - and only really turned it on in the Premier League and FA Cup.

But his impact domestically was total. Hughes was committed, Keane courageous, Giggs robotically consistent, Rooney talismanic, Ronaldo mercurial. But it's Eric The King who framed the era of Sir Alex Ferguson with his unique brand of swagger, raffishness et victoire.

We'll never see his like again, on or off the field, encapsulated in eleven seconds by that extraordinary news conference painted a pretty picture on his verbal easel.

"When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea".

Ironic that sublime eloquence should be borne of extreme violence. Cantona's Kung Fu kick at Selhurst Park on racist fan, Matthew Simmons was shocking and he was severely punished for it.

With aloof demeanour, arched back and turned up collars, Cantona steered United to the league the year Kevin Keegan's Newcastle should've won it - then to the Double with a goal of spectacular technique against The Spice Boys of Liverpool, white suits and all.

Cup winning strike at Wembley

Two goals spring to mind. The Newcastle-slaying volley at St. James' Park which handed United advantage in the title race and a fantastic chip against Sunderland, where Eric turned to acclaim the adulation from all four corners of Old Trafford by puffing out his shoulders like a tinpot dictator!

Cantona was so disillusioned by his nine-month world football ban that he had to be talked out of quitting for good by Fergie.

The United boss roamed Parisian alleyways on the back of a moped searching for his errant genius. He found him, talked him down and Cantona returned to Old Trafford scoring against Liverpool.

But before United's greatest triumphs - the 1999 treble - Cantona had gone for good, and it was the right decision. In his autobiography, Managing My Life, Sir Alex describes "the thickening process" in Eric's body. The first signs of a middle-age spread. Cantona's motivation had gone. Beach Football and Movie Stardom beckoned.

I watched him a summer later playing Professional Beach Football in Hyde Park. You have to be fit to play on sand - and he really was. There was probably a Championship season left in him. Full, potty crowds would have rolled up to see him - but the stage just wouldn't have been big enough. Cantona quit at the top, a permanent United legend.

That other famous strike in a United shirt.

Cantona opposed the Malcolm Glazer takeover claiming he'd never return even as manager while the Glazers were in charge. But in July 2008 the Sunday Express reported Cantona's second thoughts. A close friend revealed: “Eric does fancy helping out with coaching at a club like Manchester United. He's been enjoying himself in films and being involved in beach soccer but has always wanted to help produce a team in his style and knows that Sir Alex would encourage him".

Despite his vow that he'd never return while the Glazers remained in control of United it appears his stance has mellowed.

United are too big a behemoth to take a chance on Cantona as United's next manager. But don't write off a return to Old Trafford for a man who has a relationship with his fans like few others.

Soccermongery's all about your feedback, so write away, right away!

Also on Soccermongery, check out our Top Story today.

Nil-Nil, Jeff! A guide to the mystery world of live TV football without pictures!

I've reported football for radio and TV for twenty years and without being too arsey, it's a journalistic skill you hone: 


Always keep in mind to broadcast with economy of expression for the remote listener. To do it well takes commitment.

So why does telly use inarticulate, untrained ex-players on Saturdays? No one invited me to play midfield for Arsenal or manage Walsall, so why is Paul Merson any better equipped to do my job? If you've watched these shows, you'll know the answer.

Players use that strange present tense that can't be used in any other context. So Saturday comes around and Jeff shreeeeks something formulaic like:

"You've just heard Merse moooan watching West Ham against Villa... last time we checked in, West Ham missed a spot-kick but have Villa made them ruuue that (growls here) early chance, Paul?"...

..."...they haven't yet, Jeff!", anti-climaxes Merse. "Ashley Young gets it halfway, skins Matty Upson, it falls for Umbongalore who has a crack, Jeff, but Rob Green does well... turns it away for a corner; nil-nil, Jeff".

Of course, ex-player's "media careers"are pigeon-holed into a narrow range of tasks. There's not one ex-pro that could hold that live show together like the exceptionally live Jeff Stelling. Believe me, I did the same show: ITV's Football First. Four hours of non-stop updates, my brain agog with how many since Agogo scored and when Huddersfield last won at home.

And by the way, there's no recorded sighting of a commentator who used to be a player either. You get a guest summariser, that's only so the brilliant and thorough Alan Parry can have a glass of water!

I guess I resent the knock on the studio door by ex-players saying "I'm 36, I'll have some of that", without taking it seriously and doing the yards, the homework, learning the broadcast skills-set.

"We played the game, we know what we're talking about!", an Andy Gray-style rambling which divides the world up into two categories: "football people" and the rest of humanity.

It's a disdain for his fanbase as though we're watching him to be put right because we couldn't possibly understand having not been a pro.

Almost geraldratneresque, Andy. No wonder, he got the bullet. Pure hubris: pride came before the fall.

My message to ex-players. You're not necessarily blessed with extra knowledge! I bet you couldn't organise a live show in a brewery.

Let me tell you, Andy Gray: I've watched football, reported football and played football (with enthusiasm if not technical brilliance) long enough (by the way, I'm actually descended from "football people" too. Are you? Is it hereditary?) and therefore, your qualifications over mine must be tenuous at best.

Having said all of that, there are honourable examples of players who did make the transition:

I always admired Bob Wilson's attempt at on-air orthodoxy. He was functional on 1980 Football Focus, but he did resemble a broadcaster and he deserved his job.

Jimmy Hill too, an intelligent man who genuinely leveraged his "football people" knowledge into opinion and comment when MOTD was a single shot in front of tan wallpaper. But he never let it spill over into the shows raison d'etre.

It took Gary Lineker ages before they turned him into on-air quality; even now he's a one-trick pony. You know that iron statue of Saddam with the outstretched arm they tore down when he was overthrown? well, that's Gary on-air! He's not asked to do complicated - but he's fine.

Nope, they're not listening to me. Andy Townsend's fronting ITV, Mark Bright frankspencer's his way across droney local telly and Garth Crooks frowns through The Red Button like he's talking Iraq - not Stoke.

The trend's here to stay.

So I'm cleaning my boots and I'm going to get myself a professional game. Oh, I'll do the work alright. I'll go to the gym, shoot with my left foot for hours, give and go - and try to perfect the glancing header.

I'll find a game at my level too.

Now, who are Birmingham City playing Wednesday night?

Also on Soccermongery: Carragher's "bottler" talkSPORT moment (podcast) and Massive debts run by the big 4 will see Change We Can Believe In!

Thierry Le Cunt Henry, the handball cheat!

Ah, Wikipedia: the democratic doyenne of world enlightenment and knowledge. An Open Source tool giving everyone the ability to update encyclopedia entries immediately. But sometimes, accurate information gives way to emotional outrage.

Thierry Henry's not popular after twice handballing France to victory over the Republic of Ireland to secure a place in the World Cup Finals in South Africa.

Here's his Wikipedia entry. His mum won't be proud of him  :(

Soccermongery's all about your feedback, so write away, right away!

Dynamo Kiev's Death Match

By JAMES-GUY JACOBS.

Football doesn't tend to translate well onto the big screen. There have been several ineffective attempts to do so ranging from The Arsenal Stadium Mystery (1939) to the laughable Mean Machine (2001), starring Vinnie Jones.

A widely anticipated exception to this rule is The Damned United from 2009. This stars the consumate actor, Michael Sheen who played David Frost in Frost/Nixon and Tony Blair in The Queen (2006). It relates the tale of Brian Clough's 44 day reign as manager of Leeds United in 1974 and is based on David Peace's seminal novel of the same name.

Perhaps the most remarkable football film ever made was Escape to Victory (1981). This featured a highly unlikely cast including Michael Caine, Sylvester Stallone, Pele, Bobby Moore and Ossie "Tottingham" Ardiles. The plot of the film seemed equally implausible.

It went as follows: In World War II, a group of Nazi officers devise a propaganda event in which an all star Nazi team play a team composed of Allied Prisoners of War in a football game. The Prisoners agree, beat the Nazis against all the odds and then use the game as a means of escape from the camp.

Pure nonsense, right?

Wrong. The story was actually based on one of the most extraordinary football matches of all time and was comprehensively detailed in Andy Dougan's compelling book (Amazon): Dynamo: Triumph and Tragedy in Nazi-Occupied Kiev

To learn about what actually happened, we need to travel back to the Soviet Union in the late 1930s.

In this era and location, football started to become very popular, especially in Ukraine. The region's strongest team of this time was Dynamo Kyiv, part of the Dynamo sports society that was funded by the trade unions, the police and the Red Army. In Soviet Russia, football was a state-sponsored activity.

In 1938, Dynamo Kyiv came fourth in the national league, scoring seventy-six goals, but then performed poorly in 1939 and 1940.

The 1941 season was never completed, as Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. Several Dynamo Kyiv players joined the military and went off to fight. As the Germans approached Kiev, the others who had stayed behind helped out with civil defence in the city. The initial success of the German Army allowed it to capture Kiev, one of the Soviet Union's major cities, from the Red Army. Several of the Dynamo Kyiv players who had survived the onslaught then found themselves prisoners of war in concentration camps.

In 1942, Dynamo's keeper, Mykola Trusevych, returned to the city and began searching all over Kiev for his former team mates. Over several traumatic weeks, he was able to form a new club, F C Start, which comprised of eight players from Dynamo and three players from Lokomotiv Kiev. During 1942, FC Start played several matches with teams of soldiers of occupying garrisons, and won them all.

However, this was not entirely positive. The German administration grew aware that FC Start victories might inspire Ukrainian inhabitants and decrease the morale of Axis troops.

Consequently, the German Luftwaffe team, Flakelf, set up a match with F C Start on 9 August, 1942 at Zenit stadium. An SS officer was appointed as referee, and FC Start were aware that he would be biased against them. Although anonymous sources warned FC Start of severe punishment if they did not lose the game to the Germans, the team still decided to play as always. They also refused to give a Nazi salute to their opponents before the match.

Just as the the FC Start players expected, the Nazi referee ignored Flakelf fouls. The German team quickly targeted the goalkeeper, Trusevych who, after a sustained campaign of physical challenges, was kicked in the head by a Flakelf forward and left groggy. While Trusevych was recovering, Flakelf went one goal up.

The referee continued to ignore FC Start appeals against their opponents' violence. The Flakelf team went on with their war of intimidation using every dirty tactic in the book. Despite this, FC Start scored with a long shot from a free kick by the former Dynamo striker, Ivan Kuzmenko. Then, the former Dynamo winger, Makar Honcharenko, against the run of play, dribbled the ball around almost the entire Flakelf defence and tapped it into in the German net to make the score 2-1.

By half-time, FC Start had scored another goal. Each side then scored twice in the second half. Towards the end of the match, with FC Start in an almost unbeatable position at 5-3, Oleksiy Klimenko, a defender, got the ball, beat the entire German rearguard and walked around the German goalkeeper. Then, instead of letting it cross the goal line, he turned around and kicked the ball back towards the centre circle. At this point, the SS referee blew the final whistle before the 90 minutes were up.

The consequences were dire for the F C Start side. Shortly after the match, all the players were arrested and accused of being Soviet spies. They were tortured and either executed immediately or sent to harsh labour camps. Only three of the eleven survived the war and were responsible for the popularisation of the story in Soviet culture.

The match itself was later branded "The Death Match" and inspired both Soviet and Hungarian cinematic tributes, as well Ossie, Sly and Sir Michael's 1981 effort. Now not alot of people know that!

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