Black Hole in Alan Hansen's education

Why are we forced to watch Alan Hansen on our screens as a Match Of The Day pundit?

Kick It Out, Kick Him Out!

I can't bear him anymore: to me, he represents the blunt, outdated instrument the BBC has become in these post Credit Crunch years. Not for profit; not for us either.

I'm of a certain vintage so I remember him as a player, but millions of under-40's don't. Is there someone else Auntie could find with a more contemporaneous spin on the game? Point of information: Hansen retired from football before the Premier League years.

Yes, he won nine league titles with Liverpool, but he wasn't considered good enough to be part of Scotland's World Cup squads either in 1982 and 1986. He was a good club player in a brilliant team. A sort of 80's Steve Bruce.

Lazy and complacent, Hansen's long-institutionalised body language screams of the waged and entitled. I mean, what does he do in between Match Of The Days to justify his vast £1.5m salary a year? It looks like very little to me.

But he stooped to a new low when discussing the hot topic of racism in the game: he outed himself as an equally culpable ignoranamus that our Beautiful Game is populated with at the moment.

‘If you look at 25 or 30 years ago it was probably in a bad way - not as bad as some of the other nations on the Continent - but certainly there is always, always room for improvement.’ said the 56-year-old. Starting in the Match Of The Day production offices after the show, I say.

Lee Dixon, on set with him, visibly squirmed as Hansen added, ‘I think there’s a lot of coloured players in all the major teams and there are lots of coloured players who are probably the best in the Premier League.

Hansen and Lawro chew the footy fat.

"It's a generational thing", I'm told. "Older people I know would use the coloured word". Maybe.

But here is a so-called professional broadcaster, someone who operates in a metropolitan world of all peoples. Has he not embraced any of the zeitgeist of what's acceptable?

He's specialised in the nothing special for years: the BBC is a non-profit-making company; Sky Sports is - and that's no more clearly demonstrated in the differences between the quality of the pundits they use on their respective outputs.

For all Andy Gray's faults, he was a hard-working, incisive pundit, schooled by TV executives to feed us football insight we weren't aware of before. Jamie Redknapp and Gary Neville are as credible and interesting as anyone on sports telly these days.

Hansen's gone from asset to liability in record time. While Hansen's doubtless got some columns of support; (you can't have been on-air for that long without any), I can't imagine any justification for renewal of his contract on anything like the terms he enjoys at the moment.

And I'd prefer him gone.  

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A Highland Fling double header

Regular Soccermongery readers know how I love to experience the lore of other football nations to see how their fans, players and stadia fit together.

..and if you know your history! Celtic fans before kickoff.

And there's few lands this sassenach has greater respect for than Scotland. When football was proclaimed to be 'coming home' at Euro 96, the very assumption seemed one-eyed.

No doubt England is 'a' home of football. The Sheffield Rules and the Football Association are indeed foundation stones. But it was the Football League and my beloved Aston Villa that was literally built on the pioneering skills and drive of Scots. Archie Hunter, George Ramsay and William McGregor are basically the forbears of the football industry. They did it from Villa's boardroom, touchline and playing fields.


And so it was with a keen eye to history, I went along with my pal and fellow journo Iain Ramage to not one, but two games. Talk about making the most of a Saturday afternoon!

Terry Butcher's team play for him.

First destination: the Tulloch Caledonian Stadium for Inverness Caledonian Thistle against Celtic. Hype sprang eternal from the local press. Fresh memories of a 3-2 Caley win the season before coupled with Celtic's Premier Lag to Rangers put a determination in the step of the home team.

And a well organised Caley proved a match for the visitors even growing in stature as the game progressed. That was until Greg Tansey was sent off for what boss Terry Butcher called "assault by fingernail". A midfield challenge with Georgios Samaras ended Caley's chances as Celtic eventually broke the ten men's resolve - but not until the hour mark.

Celtic's sell-out end sung with vigour all game even finding time to taunt Terry Butcher for being both English and outclassed by Maradona in Mexico. To me, those taunts sound like back-handed compliments. Inducted into the Scottish Football Hall Of Fame earlier this month, the ex-Rangers star must reflect with quiet satisfaction at Celtic's attention. After all, it was 25 years ago.

Still, one day Scotland will be good enough to play Argentina in the second round of a World Cup - well, possibly.

Good game!

It was disappointing to see the Caley contingent punctuated by empty seats but walking out of the stadium to see a beautiful stretch of water, forest and hills certainly wasn't. There aren't too many more beautiful settings for top division football in the whole world.

After a minor battle to get out of the car park, it was six miles down the road to our next game, a Highland League encounter between leading lights Nairn County and Lossiemouth at Station Park. With no preconceptions of what to expect, I must say I was totally bowled over by the experience.

Walking into the ground, I saw about thirty heads above the perimeter wall. I imagined a modest uncovered terrace about ten rows deep. Turning the corner, to see a mound of turf was a bit of a surprise. The row of heads stood at the back of the hill for the best view. Truly a Spion Kop!

It's such an intimate ground. Fans and players, keepers and management interact. There's nowhere to run and hide at this level. You can hear everything. For Lossiemouth, read potty mouth!

As the visitors left back took a throw, a kid in the stand shouted, "you need a haircut!". The mop top, two hours from a Saturday night out just nodded in agreement.

Special mention for Andy Neill and Connor Gethins, who looks a real talent. I haven't watched enough football north of the border to make a judgement on how high he could play, but surely there's a Scottish League club who could use the ex-Peterhead striker's services again.

Honoured to talk to Les Fridge on the pitch post-match

We sat in the main stand and watched ebb and flow to a three-all climax, although opportunist Lossiemouth took their chances when County should've wrapped it up at 2-nil and 3-2.

The Highland League is played with commitment, pace and fitness. There's quite a lot of chasing the long ball.

Donald, the club photographer saw me take a photo of Nairn boss Les Fridge and offered me my own private audience with him at the final whistle. I was on the pitch talking football with the boss! That doesn't happen at Villa.

The ground is beautifully maintained and every club official wears a Nairn tie to add to the air of pride and professionalism at the club.

"Haste ye back", an expression I heard a few times during my afternoon. I really hope to very soon.

Also: Soccermongery visits Israel's number one derby game.

Pictures: Iain Ramage.

One-nil to the England!

England followed up a win over the world and European Champions on Saturday with a win by the same scoreline against Sweden.

Breaking a duck in beating the Swedes for the first time since 1968 is obviously a positive although again, the manner of victory shows we're lucky even to be fourth favourites to win Euro 2012. What does that say about the parlous state of French and Italian football at the moment?

England's autumnal era has everything to do with Fabio Capello's decision to step down at the end of next summer having given two years notice of his intentions. That, coupled with the lack of desire among our millionaire professionals to actually pull on the national shirt is a devastating double hit to our hopes.

The best that Fabio can do is to make young, hungry players the fulcrum of his squad and get Sergeant Stuart Pearce to motivate them for each game. To that end, Phil Jones, Jack Wilshere and Jack Rodwell could be so important.

England's win a contradiction in terms

It was England's first win over a reigning world champion since Argentina were humbled at Wembley in 1980. It also ended a run of three straight defeats against the Armada in which we'd not scored at all.

And yet it was probably the first demonstrative acknowledgement that we're simply no match for the likes of Germany, Holland and the Spanish to win Euro 2012.

Because England's win was 0% inspiration 100% perspiration. Not that tracking back and winning every ball isn't without merit - it is. But it's not enough in itself to win tournaments.

Scott Parker broke it up in midfield, Joleon Lescott was alert to everything and Glen Johnson marauded when called upon.

Friendlies are often a difficult monitor of progress. Apart from not knowing how seriously the opposition are taking it (and Spain may well have played with more urgency had it been competitive), the sheer amount of substitutions breaks up the drill and formations worked up by the starting eleven.

Then again we have strength in depth: Fabio Capello could have easily picked a quite plausible alternative team. Who knows where the inspiration might come from in the future? We have Jones, Rodwell, Wilshere, Welbeck and Walcott to invest our dreams in.

On a completely different level, Spain have their problems. They came into the game without a win in four and luck deserted them in that fashion. On this display, they hardly look worthy favourites to win in Poland and Ukraine.

So it's Sweden next at Wembley and another chance for England to win, build confidence and break a duck of incessant draws against the Scandinavians.