mikeserieys.co.uk

I have recently pioneered the use of the word ‘weak’ to mean ‘catastrophically bad’. It is spreading. I will document this:

Roy Hodgson: “The situation at the club is weak at the moment.”

YAY.

Few people will remember Steve McClaren’s reign as England manager with fondness. After an unconvincing qualifying campaign, England will not be taking part in the finals of the European Championships for the first time since 1984.

The man has been beaten pillar to post for his selections, his demeanour, his umbrella, but most of all his results. Statistically, he ranks as England’s worst ever full-time manager - and a far cry from the efficient but dull team put out by Sven-Göran Eriksson.

After his inevitable sacking, I am not mourning his departure. I personally was never convinced that he was the right man, and still to this day feel that Sam Allardyce was the right choice for the job.

Just as history is judging Eriksson well, I think that McClaren’s reign is going to be remembered for a few positive things.

Despite the image of McClaren being the easy choice, the unthreatening candidate who wouldn’t ruffle suits at the FA, the man had both the nerve and the nous to make tough decisions, and history must note that in several of these were triumphs.

Eriksson was a slave to loyalty. He stuck with the likes of Gerrard, Lampard, Seaman and Beckham for longer than most of us would have liked. McClaren didn’t do this. His brave opening gambit was to drop Beckham, a decision few would disagree was the right one at the time. After a third successive below-par major tournament, the writing was on the wall for Beckham, and the new man did the right thing. Even though Beckham was brought back in, the hunger and passion he showed was like the Beckham of old.

It wasn’t just Beckham either. Lampard was dropped. Robinson. In came the perennially overlooked Gareth Barry, and even the maligned Emile Heskey - both of whom turned in impressive performances.

McClaren’s downfall was somewhat Thatcher-esque in its roots. Both had been buoyed by their successes in their strongest fields, and took it a step too far, confident they could once again prove their critics wrong. For Thatcher it was the Poll Tax. For McClaren, it was playing Scott Carson against Croatia.

Robinson didn’t merit selection against Croatia. His form for England and Tottenham had been on a downward spiral for months, and the only reason for selecting him would have been continuity. Available in the England squad was David James, an honest senior pro who has put most of his calamities behind him. Carson though represented the future. In exceptional form for Villa all season long, McClaren surely reasoned that this game would be a tough, but appropriate introduction to competitive international football - England did, after all, only require a draw.

I totally understand why he made that decision, and in his place, I think I would have done the same. The hypocrisy which has emanated from fans and the press ever since on this subject has been dishonest and fatuous - I know almost nobody who wanted to see Robinson playing against Croatia.

I felt sorry for Carson when everything fell around him in that match. I felt sorry that McClaren was going to be remembered for that selection, and especially that it would be remembered as the wrong selection. It was the right selection, but one that just went badly wrong.

The man was let down by poor performances from most of his key players throughout the qualifying campaign. Rooney forgot how to score goals for most of McClaren’s reign, Lampard and Gerrard almost always showed nothing except overwhelming ineptitude, Robinson forgot how to tend goal, and so on.

I do think that with a better manager at the helm, England would still have qualified for the finals next summer. McClaren is partially to blame for this. But his players are the ones at fault for most of the failure. Even though the Carson selection went wrong, it wasn’t his fault that the likes of Bridge, Lampard, Gerrard, Campbell, Lescott and Richards played like Under 16 rugby players for most of the Croatia game.

As for the next manager? As far as I’m concerned, if the man has the nerve to make the kind of decisions McClaren made, allied with a bit more tactical nous and the bit of luck every manager needs, then I’ll be happy.

I try and avoid simple links to YouTube videos where possible. This might just justify it, however.

I normally pay no attention to the likes of The X Factor, Pop Idol, or whatever other programmes like this exist, except in the opening weeks when it comes to watching some of the appalling dross that auditions. That is entertainment.

A French take on this, M6’s Nouvelle Star, has quite possibly ruined my disdain/appreciation (delete as applicable) for this genre for good. I have no idea when this was (for all I know this dates from when I was living in France) but 21-year-old Joseph from Sête is responsible for this. How? With this.

RSS aficionados, the video is embedded above. Click the link to see it, or visit the actual entry, you horrible, horrible people.

I don’t have a clue what the final song is, but it appears to be a modern adaptation of Numbers by Kraftwerk, the song with the absolute funkiest beat in the history of the modern world.

RSS aficionados, a clip of this song is embedded above. If you didn’t visit the site before, please do so now, otherwise you have wasted part of your life reading an entry you won’t fully appreciate. That would be a shame.

This guy is amazing. As the little judge said in a far more authoritative tone than I ever could: ‘Respecte’.

This was supposed to be a fun weekend. It was to comprise a 183 mile journey from Newcastle to Newcastle (which does, in a weird kind of way, make perfect sense), a football match, and seeing Chris for the first time in a year.

Having not blogged much in the last couple of months, I have neglected noting that I passed my driving test, and inherited a car - an entirely suitable 2.0i Vauxhall Cavalier - from my aunty. This has been good. The typical bullshit about freedom aside, it has been nice to finally take myself from A to B, to join the collective known as ‘the motorist’, and to generally not have to rely on Virgin Trains.

Sadly, this journey ended at Sandbach services. More specifially, at a wall-like structure at Sandbach services, a mere 12.6 miles from home.

The day hadn’t gone entirely brilliantly to that point already. I’d slept through my first alarm, which is pretty typical, and woken up half an hour later than the time I actually intended to set out. Oh well. Quick bath, cup of black coffee to wake myself up, get the stuff in the car and get out.

The fast dual carriageway to the motorway went fine, and pulled onto the motorway. Once in the traffic, I noted that Sandbach services were the first for a long while, and as I was probably going to need fuel before reaching Newcastle, I’d pull in to get it over with.

So, once off the motorway, I applied the brake properly, and got speed well down as one obviously has to do. I saw a car park, and thought: “Ooh, there’s a car park. I’ll move over to the right and pull into that.” After starting to move right, I saw two things: a sign saying “HGVS ONLY”, and one of these aforementioned vechicles reversing towards me.

Right. Choices here would be:

• Brake.
• Brake, and if it’s safe enough to do so, pull left to go to the car only car park.
• Try to brake and miss the pedal, pull left, and drive into a raised flowerbed, embedding the lower front right hand side of the car into the brickwork.

No prizes for guessing which I did. (Not least because I actually told you this above.)

So, this was clearly bad. Having checked that I was not dead, I went to get out of the car. The door did not open. I unlocked the door, which I had locked as a general precaution. I then opened the door, which would not open properly. “Great!!!”, I thought, and slid my slender body out of the miniscule gap. The car was minorly buggered.

With the wheel arch quite firmly embedded into the wheel, I returned to the car and managed to guide it to the car park. Being the mature 24-year-old you all know I am, I did the only sensible thing I could: I called mummy and daddy to ask for help. Thankfully they obliged, with daddy’s expertise and toolbox helping far more than me and my wrench could. After he played with it for a bit, he decided to drive it home, with mummy driving me home in their car. This went quite well, except for the fact that the car only went straight when the steering wheel was held at about a 20º angle.

So, all in all, the weekend was due to include a good day and night with a mate, a football match, and a load of PES to entertain me. Ultimately, I ended up losing my car for a good period - and possibly even permanently if the damage is going to cost more to fix than the car is actually worth, missing the match, and losing a small chunk from one of my front teeth.

The moral of the story here: if you’re going to Sandbach services, when you get in, note the division between the entry for the car park and the HGV park. If you note this, do not drive into it.

Probably a good job I’m within walking distance of work and shops, really.

How was everyone else’s weekend?

It has become a tradition to do a pre-season prediction table for football leagues. There are advantages and disadvantages to this. It is diverting. It focusses the mind on the upcoming season. But it makes one quite liable to look like an utter plank.

Macatumbas has already done so, so it seems only fair for me to do the same.

1. Chelsea
2. Manchester United
3. Liverpool
4. Tottenham
5. Arsenal
6. Manchester City
7. Everton
8. Newcastle
9. Aston Villa
10. Portsmouth
11. West Ham
12. Blackburn
13. Middlesbrough
14. Bolton
15. Small Heath Alliance
16. Sunderland
17. Fulham
18. Reading
19. Derby
20. Wigan

This is an incredibly difficult table to write. Lots of clubs have strengthened massively over the summer - notably Liverpool, West Ham, Portsmouth and Manchester City. Is this going to be enough to bring them above their rivals? Not sure. On paper, West Ham and Portsmouth’s signings are better than Newcastle’s. I just can’t see them finishing above Newcastle. Villa haven’t done as much as I might like so far this summer, but with the way last season ended I can see a typically O’Neill-esque season of solid league form with a good cup run coming.

Things I’m looking forward to seeing this season

• Whether Sven can hack it. I think he and City are going to have a great season, and providing their owner doesn’t get deported and executed, are going to be a serious threat to the big four very soon.
• Just who Villa end up signing up before the window.
• Whether Setanta Sports was a waste of £8 a month.
• Bernard Cribbins resigning from Bongo FC after Carson Yeung forces him to play Geoffrey Macatumbas Priest.
• Darren Bent either becoming the new Sergei Rebrov, or a genuine international partner for Rooney.

Things I’m not looking forward to seeing this season

• More foreign takeovers. They’re becoming necessary to be able to compete. But they don’t reflect a good state of affairs.
• Leeds United playing. The administration at that club is an absolute disgrace.
• Wigan. They’re going to be shocking.
• West Ham’s existence.
• Chelsea winning again. They really are a hideous club with almost no redeemable features.

One afternoon about a fortnight ago, I was on the walk back from work to Newcastle bus station. This was not an uncommon occurrence. On walking down the pedestrianised road down towards the bus station, I rounded a bunch of annoying teenagers and continued along towards the gloomy terminal.

I looked my normal dashing self: tall, quite obviously gorgeously handsome, dressed in my best Asda shirt and tie and with hair that just oozed class. I remember distinctly thinking that looking like this, I could not fail to have women swooning at me.

Then she looked towards me. She stood about 5′10″. Brunette. Nice nose. Kind of face I like. Lovely figure with bumps in all the right places. And that smile. As my northern friend Tim might say, I instantly started dreaming of marrying her.

These thoughts were quickly overridden by a sudden internal exclamation, which was something along the lines of “SHE’S WALKING TOWARDS ME”. I liked this. So, my earphones, despite playing Acid Eiffel, were yanked out, and hidden behind my collar. As this was clearly destiny, I didn’t want to mask her, even with the sublimest example of progressive acid techno ever made.

We were just a few yards apart. Our eyes met. She smiled at me. I smiled at her. I wanted her to speak first, just to hear her voice. She did speak: “Excuse me…” in an American, possibly Southern accent. Lovely.

I stopped, and the wind did too. It stopped running through her shoulder length hair, allowing it to settle. Forget the idea that this was possibly destiny. It WAS destiny. The wind allowed her collar to settle too. We now had the perfect occasion to acquaint ourselves.

On her collar, a badge appeared. “Great”, I thought, “someone principled”. I was hoping for a music slogan such as “Acid House Rules OK” or a cool, irrelevant political one like “Free Nelson Mandela.” It was neither of these.

It instead read: “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”.

This frustrated me immensely.

I am still single.

Around eighteen months ago, England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson announced that he was to leave his position after the upcoming World Cup. After a drawn-out selection process, Middlesbrough boss Steve McClaren was appointed, to the dismay of many.

Right now though, I don’t think that England would be best served by sacking Steve McClaren. He wasn’t who I would have chosen, but he now has the job. Some so-called fans feel that it would be best for England to lose in order that McClaren get sacked.

Which begs the question: if this were to happen, who would come in? And would they be any better?

This question is more complex than most would think. Many of the big names linked with the England job last time around were attracted to leading England, one of the biggest names in world football, to a major tournament. With little or no prospect of qualifying, there is little likelihood of top drawer managers - for example Marcello Lippi - taking the job on.

In reality, four last summers’ credible candidates are no longer available to England. It is well-known that there were five interviewees for the England position: McClaren, Luis Felipe Scolari, Sam Allardyce, Martin O’Neill and Alan Curbishley. There is not a chance in hell that any of these men would leave their current jobs for England. Scolari is on course to take Portugal to another major tournament, Allardyce has finally been given the big job he richly deserves, while O’Neill and Curbishley are in the midst of expensive overhauls of their current clubs.

Given that England would stand no chance of qualifying without a win tomorrow, no manager currently in employment would take this job on. It also stands to reason that any interested manager would have to be passionate about the cause of English football - by definition this rounds it down to anyone who is either English, or has worked or played in England.

Here is my shortlist of credible candidates:

• Neil Warnock
• Chris Coleman
• Jean Tigana
• Gianluca Vialli
• Stuart Pearce
• Paul Jewell
• Gérard Houllier
• Attilio Lombardo & Tomas Brolin

To be complete about this, there are some managers with no history in England who should be considered. While the job is currently undesirable, the likes of Alberto Zaccheroni are worthy candidates. I remain unconvinced that any manager would effectively put their reputation at stake in a qualifying competition in which they would stand little chance of progression.

Of my shortlist, some of them may raise eyebrows. This, though, is the key issue - even contemplating Vialli or Wanker as credible candidates outlines precisely how dismal the current pool would be for England.

That said, Jewell or Houllier would in my mind be interesting choices. I remain unconvinced though that either would be a serious improvement over McClaren.

Jewell is undoubtedly talented, but I feel he is still more suited to guiding his team to battle against stronger opponents. If his next job is for a larger club - bigger than Wigan and Bradford anyway - and he can lead them to a couple of seasons of consistent achievement, he would be my choice then. But not before.

Houllier is one of those names whose history denotes success. At Liverpool, he won seven trophies (five major), in two seasons at Lyon he won two titles. Yet I always think of Houllier’s teams as being slightly dull, and ultimately unsuccessful - of Liverpool’s generally poor league form compared to their cup record, of Lyon’s inability to transfer their undoubted talent into seriously challenging for the European Cup.

The maxim that the England job is a poisoned chalice has become a cliché with ubiquity. The choice has to be the right one. I wish there was an obvious, uncontroversial appointment to replace McClaren waiting in the wings should his team fail to win tomorrow. But there isn’t.

I don’t want to see Pearce, Warnock or Tigana managing England next week. Truthfully, I don’t think even McClaren’s biggest critics would either. But I would be interested in seeing a name like Scolari or even Mourinho take over in 2008, which will become a real possibility if McClaren steers the team to the European Championships.

Anyone who really cares about the England team should be praying for a win in Estonia tomorrow. With the pool of candidates available to replace McClaren, a loss tomorrow would do more damage than his reign could ever do.

Appointing the wrong man is a mistake. Replacing the wrong man with another wrong man is almost criminal. To wish such for such an occurrence is sheer ignorance.

…the old theme music from the Tour de France. Which was, as an interesting electronic beat met with strong guitar lead tune quite obviously would be, written by Pete Shelley.

Introductions to 1980s television programmes aside, I am currently at a little bit of an impasse in life. In that, although I actually have The Short Term tied up, The Even Shorter Term is proving to be A Bit Of A Drag. I’m going back to my employer of last summer via the temp agency again, with a possible view to tying something permanent up there. No, it isn’t a job I can see myself doing for all of my life. What it represents in the short term is some cash in the bank, and in the long term, experience with a good company. (Large British bank who will remain nameless on this blog.)

Unfortunately, I’m in limbo at the moment while the agency processes my application. I’m not privy to exactly how this process works, but suffice to say they’re probing my history in intimate detail to glean exactly who I am. Not that I worked there last summer or anything, oh no. It is cynical of me to say this, as the actual staff at the agency I’m sure aren’t to blame for this. Just the system. Logically, therefore, I blame John Prescott.

Aside from making ill-judged accusations towards inappropriately renumerated public officials, it has also led me to consider the impending likelihood that I will be staying in or around Newcastle-under-Lyme for a good while to come. This is a mixed bag. I like Newcastle, it’s a really pretty market town that although small in size actually exhibits a few characteristics of a much bigger one - the town centre has a multiscreen cinema, unlike Wolverhampton, it has a featureless yet incredibly cheap and therefore great JD Wetherspoon pub, and it’s close enough to Stoke should I ever miss grime.

But it’s certainly a far cry from living in Birmingham, as I had thoroughly expected myself to be doing post graduation. Providing I actually pass my damned driving test, North Staffs is reasonably well connected as regards roads (ie you can get on the M6 to get the hell out of here), and when I have my annual jaunt to London to photograph glass prongs and annoy a strange sexless child the train is nearly always direct. Always so, in fact, if you ignore Milton Keynes, which seems like quite a fair thing to do.

So this might just be an odd time, so without further ado I hand this over to New Order’s lead singer Bernard Sumner to sum this general confusion up.

Sister Ray said:
“Oh, you mean to much to me,
Cos I love you,
Cos your name begins with B”
I said “That’s not a very good reason”
“That’s not a very good reason”

Sums it all (NB: absolutely nothing) up nicely (NB: terribly).

It may be seen as a little bit of cheating that I do a follow-up of a Premiership preview after the season is actually over. I will address this criticism by directly criticising my own predictions from before the season started.

My predictions merely consisted of listing a projected league table, leaving little room for mitigation in trying to explain some of my, let’s put it mildly, weak predictions. Still, I’m going to try.

It only seems fair to split this up into three types of prediction.

The Good

• Getting the identity of top four correct. Yes, a Syrian hamster could have managed this too, but at least I didn’t fail this most basic of tests.
• Noting the poor seasons to be experienced by Man City, Fulham and WIgan.
• Getting two of the three UEFA Cup qualifiers correct.
• Not getting carried away with pre-season optimism and predicting a solid mid-table finish for Aston Villa.
• Noting that the “Liverpool are second favourites for the title” thing from pre-season was tosh. It’s hard to remember, but there really was this feeling back in the summer.

The Bad

• Man United were the best team this season. But a lot of their title was to do with Chelsea underperforming compared to the past two seasons. The fact that United won the title with a lower points total than either of Chelsea’s recent titles confirms this. Still, a mistake on my part.
• Again, few could have predicted the whole West Ham situation, but still, it’s a mistake.
• Charlton. My mitigating circumstance: I’d never heard of Les Reed.

The “What was I thinking?”

• Newcastle? Fifth? Dear oh dear.
• Reading did a little better than 20th. Well done to them. I still think their time in the top flight isn’t going to last long, but it’s still longer than I said it’d be.
• Having not fallen for the Liverpool thing, I fell hook line and sinker for the “Bolton are in trouble” this season thing. A prediction of 16th looks ridiculous now. How they fare without Allardyce though is another question - 16th might just look more like it next year.

Overall, I’d give my prediction table 6/10 for noting general trends correctly, but for failing to note many things of note with any real precision.

Next season, a few of us should do a pre-season prediction table so we can all laugh at each others’ predictions.

On my way back from the shop this evening, I was beckoned over by two guys about my age. Dressed in very sharp suits, both with name badges and record bags over their shoulders, I sensed that an attempt at a conversion was about to occur.

When they got closer and started talking, this was confirmed to me: they were representatives of the Church of Latter-Day Saints. (Interestingly, no mention of the word “Mormonism” was made. They clearly know what a turn-off that name is.)

I was actually secretly upset, because I was hoping they were Scientologists - I’d like to have a chat with some of them just to try and understand them. But anyway, Mormons it was, and thought it might be entertaining.

Operation “Convert Mike to Mormonism” commenced. As I am a kind and lovely individual, I mostly told the truth: that I am a christened Roman Catholic, that I do believe that religion often (but not always) conveys a decent moral code on people that they would not obtain otherwise, and so on.

This perhaps was a mistake. On uttering the Roman Catholic line, both of their eyes lit up - they clearly saw me as a prime target. Hmm, I thought, perhaps this was a mistake. Oh well, let’s see how this goes.

I did actually want to be a little bit rude if possible, but equally both of them were incredibly polite, and I just couldn’t. So I’d just give a few slightly cynical answers.

How would you react if we said that our church was the only true church, and that our Gospel was the only true Gospel?
I think all churches say that. I’m sure you’re sincere in your beliefs, but if you went into the mosque down the road, I think they’d just laugh at you because it isn’t their Gospel. It isn’t mine either.

Do you believe religion mainly stems from tradition?
Yes. I wouldn’t be a christened Roman Catholic unless I’d been brought into it by my family.

So do you think that everything that people pray for gets granted by God?
No. If you look at say the tsunami in 2005, there are people in this world who might have wished it to happen. But my God wouldn’t have granted it, and I don’t think yours would either. Things often just happen.

To be fair though, their sales pitch was quite slick. The chatty one was American, with the quieter, more thoughtful one a German, and they did come across as nice people. Not people I wished to follow into their religion, but I didn’t resent them for talking to me.

Things got just a little bit creepy though when they gave me their booklet - normal sales pitch, religious outline etc. I promised them I would read it later - and I actually have, keeping up my policy of telling no explicit lies. I couldn’t keep this up for long though. Principally because of the next comment.

“We’d like to come and see you again to discuss this with you. When would be a good time?”

Right. Here I wanted an answer which was polite but forceful, and preferably not a lie. In telling them that I was leaving Stoke forever on Tuesday never to return, I obtained two of these three. You might just be able to guess which one I missed out on.

I felt that this might just have been the end. But not quite. Then came the bombshell:

“Do you need any help with moving out?”

There’s two ways of considering the meaning of this question. One, of course, is of two nice guys of good moral standing offering a hand to someone in need. The other is that they find out where I am living now, where I would in future be living, and I would never ever get rid of Mormons from my house for as long as I lived there (were I actually moving house).

It was the latter that I subscribed to, and I just said that I had plenty of help.

On shaking hands, we parted company, and I was left to consider what had just happened.

I’ve always spoken out against religious recruiting. I am happy to be stopped on the street like I was this evening and have a brief conversation with such people - it was polite civilised discourse. That bit was all good.

But there is then the downside: the request to come and visit again, the offer of help etc. This isn’t discourse. This is pressure. I am quite sure that if I had not lied about being here for a while longer, they would have done a lot to make this visit happen again, to the point where I’d just have said yes to get away from them. I don’t like this: if I were genuinely interested in Mormonism, it should be MY choice to see them again. Their brochure has their number on, after all, the religion is well-documented enough for me to research (especially with a university library just a few doors away.) The pressure thing just reflected badly on them.

The dangers of getting caught up in a web of a group you don’t know much about can be devastating. Anyone at the Institute at a similar time to me will absolutely testify to this. I’m not for a moment suggesting that Mormonism is a deeply evil force - merely one I don’t particularly agree with - but this kind of high pressure sales technique is simply wrong.

Perhaps if this kind of preaching did not put so much pressure on the person being preached to, more people would be inclined to listen to what is being said. But if anyone who shows the politeness to listen is put under a salesman-style pressure to do as they ask, it’s only going to put most people off.