For reasons presumably to do with the team’s recurrent lack of success,
opposites always attract the Football Association when they come to replace
the England manager, so we go from Steve “buddy-buddy” McClaren to the
martinet that is Fabio Capello. The appointment was not so much a sea change
as Groundhog Day, the contrasts having started when the first England
manager, the academic Walter Winterbottom, gave way to the
ultra-professional Alf Ramsey. Don Revie, of the copious dossiers and spies
in the camp, and his successor, “Uncle” Ron Greenwood, were chalk and
cheese, as were the matey Terry Venables and Glenn Hoddle.
Hoddle, the nonconformist minister, was replaced by Kevin “one-of-the-boys”
Keegan, and when he threw in the towel the FA went for their first aloof
foreigner, Sven-Göran Eriksson. And so it went on, from “Call me Steve”
McClaren to the Spartan regime of “I’m the Boss” Capello. In reality, the
Italian’s rules of conduct amount to not much more than standard practice
elsewhere. It seems austere only because the England camp, with its
entourage of WAGS, mates, relatives and agents, had become liberty hall.
Under Capello, players are addressed by their proper names, the use of
mobile phones is restricted, there is a dress code and everybody eats and
leaves the table together. Anybody who has played under Arsène Wenger or
Rafa Benitez will regard this as the norm, but Capello’s style and the
behaviour of the class of 2008 makes for an interesting comparison with
their predecessors.
Ramsey, appointed in 1963, was the first England manager to enjoy real
authority. The architect of 1966 is widely seen as the archetypal
authoritarian, but while it is true that he did not suffer fools, he was a
pragmatist on and off the field. He let his players call him Alf, and they
were allowed latitude. There was a curfew, normally 11pm, but it was
routinely broken by Bobby Moore, Jimmy Greaves and others. On one occasion,
when England were playing Portugal in Lisbon, these two, along with Bobby
Charlton, Gordon Banks and Ray Wilson, went out drinking and returned to the
hotel well after midnight. Back in their rooms, they found their passports
on their beds.
The warning was clear, nothing needed to be said. All the players involved
took part in the match, which England won 4-3. Moore, who could drink any of
the others under the table, was fond of these nocturnal excursions and was
indulged in them by Ramsey, who made it his business to know all his
players’ movements. England’s late, lamented World Cup-winning captain told
me that on one such occasion, when he had sneaked out to see Ella Fitzgerald
in concert, he returned to find a note on his pillow bearing the manager’s
signature and the times, successively crossed out, 11.05, 11.35, 12.05 and
12.15. The room checks had been made, as usual, by trainer Harold
Shepherdson.
After a brief interregnum when Joe Mercer was caretaker for seven matches,
Ramsey was replaced by Revie. Recruited from Leeds, with whom he had won the
league twice, “The Don” was a moderniser who took attention to detail to the
extreme. Some deemed Capello’s preliminary squad of 30 top heavy but upon
Revie’s appointment, in July 1974, he organised a meeting of 80 players.
Revie never made up his mind about those original choices, and chopped and
changed with bewildering regularity. The basis of his appeal was patriotism
and he adopted Land of Hope and Glory as England’s anthem. He was ridiculed
by the players behind his back for introducing bingo and carpet bowls for
team bonding. Equally unpopular was his insistence that they retire to their
rooms by 10pm. The boredom was such that some resorted to sleeping tablets.
Like Capello, Revie tried to outlaw card games for money but, as ever, where
there was a will there was a way, and Emlyn Hughes lost a small fortune on
one trip, when his sluggishness in settling his debts led to a temporary
falling out with Roy McFarland. Of the infamous dossiers in which Revie
supplied each player with a detailed breakdown of the opposition, Trevor
Brooking said: “We were in the position of having to worry about the
opposition and it may have proved psychologically harmful. Reading your
immediate opponent had a great left foot and could do this and that did not
inspire confidence.”
This most acquisitive of York-shiremen also insisted the squad wear tracksuits
whenever possible, leading to questions about his links with the suppliers,
Admiral. Revie walked out on England to manage the United Arab Emirates in
1977, when Greenwood took over. The FA chairman, Sir Harold Thompson, said
there was a need to “bring some dignity” back to the job, and Grenwood did
that, creating a more relaxed atmosphere. He told the players to express
themselves rather than adhere to a rigid pattern of play, but his talented
squad underachieved.
If that sounds familiar, how about the reasons Greenwood gave for his
contentious reluctance to pick Glenn Hoddle? “Glenn’s ability was
prodigious,” he said. “On the ball he was a delight, his control of
Brazilian quality. He was a living, breathing denial of the charge that
British football cannot produce players with great technical skill. Yet I
did not think he was properly fit. There were periods in a game when he
would duck out. His shoulders would slump and he seemed short of breath. A
player needs staying power to keep looking for an effective position.
Often, too, Hoddle seemed obsessed by the long ball. Sometimes these passes
looked better than they were.”
Recognise anybody? David Beckham, perhaps? Greenwood retired after the 1982
World Cup in Spain. Enter Bobby Robson, with his amusing malapropisms and
absent-minded professor routine. “Hello, Bobby,” he said to Bryan Robson
once on emerging from a lift, to be told by his chuckling captain: “No boss,
me Bryan, you Bobby.”
Robson thought he ran a tight ship, but did nothing of the sort. During Mexico
1986, late-night drinking games in the hotel bar having ended in broken
glass and staff complaints, Robson called the press together to explain he
was taking action. A curfew was being imposed. “Quite right, too, Bobby. For
what time?” “Midnight.” “Yeah, that’ll really teach ’em.” Robson was also
England’s most successful manager of the modern era, taking an attractive
and effective team to the semi-finals of Italia 90, where they lost to the
Germans on penalties. After that, Graham Taylor’s tenure was a major
disappointment. Chosen ahead of Howard Kendall in part because of a
perceived expertise in handling the media, Taylor made such a poor fist of
that aspect of the job, as well as the playing side, that he had to engage a
PR, David Teesdale, who somehow contrived to aggravate the situation. In the
belief that press conferences were too long, Teesdale placed an egg timer in
front of his client, and was left red-faced when the next day’s tabloid
headlines screamed: “Time running out for Taylor.”
After the failure to qualify for the 1994 World Cup, Taylor was replaced by
Venables, who is highly regarded by just about every England player who
played for him. He treated players as adults, and expected them to behave
sensibly. Venables’s team distinguished themselves at Euro 96, but off the
field they did the opposite in the infamous dentist’s chair incident at a
Hong Kong nightclub and on the Cathay Pacific flight home, when damage was
done to a TV screen during high jinks that also saw Dennis Wise locked in an
overhead luggage compartment. Venables asked for the culprits to come
forward. When nobody did, he said: “Right, then we will take collective
responsibility.”
Tony Adams, captain at the time, recalled: “That became our buzz-phrase and
actually brought the squad together.”
Hoddle took charge in 1996, after Venables had been refused a new contract,
and will be remembered for all the wrong reasons – his religious beliefs and
reliance on faith healer Eileen Drewery. It has passed into folklore that
when she laid hands on Ray Parlour he asked for a short back and sides. Less
well publicised was her dismissive response when Ian Walker asked her to
help his sick wife.
Hoddle was a thoughtful, progressive coach, but not as clever as he thought
and his high-handed methods did not go down well. On one occasion before the
1998 World Cup in France, he humiliated Beckham, in front of the entire
squad, by questioning his ability to master a skills drill in training.
Yet Hoddle’s attention to detail was second to none. He brought in Wenger’s
dietician from Arsenal, who introduced the squad to the food supplement
Creatine, and blood-tested the players to determine who needed which
vitamins. Hoddle won 60.71% of his matches - second only to Ramsey’s 61.06%
– but had to go after offensive remarks about the disabled. Enter Keegan,
who could hardly have been less strict, scientific or tactically astute.
He would join in the banter, the card schools, the training games and the
after-hours entertainment. Although hugely popular, his naivety cost England
at Euro 2000 and he quit, close to tears, after a 1-0 defeat against Germany
in the last international played at the old Wembley stadium.
The FA replaced him with Eriksson, who brought order to the chaos, but became
the classic “Nearly Man”. The Swede’s solid teams were quarter-finalists at
the 2002 and 2006 World Cups and also at Euro 2004, which was respectable.
It was not his results, however, but his lifestyle and pursuit of lucrative
alternative employment that undermined him. Most damaging of all was his
acceptance of the celebrity cult.
Beckham was endlessly indulged. The captain became an automatic selection, fit
or not, breeding resentment, and by the time Eriksson left in July 2006,
there was a belief that it was harder to get out of the team than it was to
get in.
McClaren, mistakenly promoted to replace his boss, exacerbated Eriksson’s
worst traits without emulating his success in qualifying for the big
tournaments. The abiding memory of McClaren will be of him sheltering under
an umbrella at Wembley as the roof fell in. And so to Capello. The Italians
have always been big on respect and he clearly commands that. It is a good
start.
Forget the golf and knuckle down in the new regime
FABIO’S RULES
1 Players should wear smart clothes on trips, with blue shirts. Short
socks are forbidden
2 Midnight curfew with no-one allowed out at night 48 hours before a
game
3 Any problems to be raised with the coach by the captain only. Other
players are not allowed to discuss issues
4 All players must eat together and they must be on time
5 Capello is the last man to board the team bus
6 Mobile phones prohibited in the dressing room, on team bus and around
the communal areas
7 Play with ‘honour’ for the shirt in every game
8 Training sessions last a minimum of two hours and players must take
pride in every session
Brookings remarks on revie were enlightening.
The dossier was revolutionary, and is now standard practice, Leeds won everything
Brooking won nothing, except when a ball hit him on the head.
His success with Keegan was brief to say the least.
Greenwood?Started brilliantly, regrettably England never looked the same, after we lost a game to Austria, as Greenwood lost his way.
Upto that point we looked almost world beaters for a time.
Wilkins was 18, Barnes was 18 Coppell was young and Keegan became the player he was because of those kids who were around him.
After coming up with a team pattern, 4 2 4 which could also play 4 4 2 or 4 5 1 and selecting players who proved they could adapt, he dropped Barnes after Austria and we lost our shape and our way.Barnes was never the same player again.
I remember when Revie picked those 80 players, we were 13, we were arguing about the players who had been left out.
Hoddle only became a great player after moving to Monaco
nicholas ramsey, london, england