English Football-An Apology

The purpose of this blog is to apologise, on behalf of the English, to anyone else in the world that watched England's World Cup campaign expecting to see a game of football.

Last December (just after the World Cup draw) British newspaper comments such as "England handed easy path to Quarter Finals" and "Even before the Draw I fancied England for the Cup" might have inadvertently given the impression that England just had to turn up to collect the trophy.

Group games against the USA (best known for girlie rugby with padding and rounders), Algeria (98% sand) and Slovenia (so small their squad equated to 85% of the male population of the country) were to be a mere warm up for a football masterclass, preferably against Germany, in the final.

Oh dear oh dear, where did it all go wrong? Not only did the wheels fall off, we appear to have left them back home. The pinnacle of England's group stage campaign was the 6th minute goal against USA in the first match, it was downhill after that! The trough came in the same game, a US equaliser awarded when the England goalkeeper contrived to spoon a soft shot to Harvey the Imaginary Rabbit, who sadly was standing behind the goal line at the time.

A goalless draw against Algeria in Cape Town (so boring a new generation of Vortrekkers headed for the interior to avoid the English) and a lucky win against Slovenia led to the last 16 sudden death stage.

Of course Plan A was to have won the Group and avoid Germany, Plan B was to come second and thrash Germany anyway. Plan C was implemented instead, a 4-1 thrashing by Germany that dumped us out the competition. Diehard fans could point to a disallowed England goal (the ball was so far over the line that it was clocked by a speed camera on an autobahn north of Berlin) that would have made the score 2-2. In reality Germany played football whilst (in the words of one South African newspaper commentator) England players strolled around "filing their nails".

Of course the writing was on the wall even before the competition. Months back England's heroic captain was giving a new meaning to the word "teamwork" by getting caught with his pants down bedding the wives and girlfriends of his fellow players. His replacement and England's best (actually only) defender lasted a couple of days in South Africa before a training ground injury forced him to return home. The irony was that an England striker who has never knowingly tackled anyone in 12 years of Premiership football inflicted the injury!

Fortunately the English media soon found a substitute hero, an English referee was in charge of the Final. Thirteen yellow cards, one red card and 8 players lashed before the mast soon had the English back at the top of the global football pecking order.

Phew it had been a close one. At one point it couldn't have been worse if we'd entered 11 one legged men in an arse kicking contest, in the end we controlled the Final from start to finish! People outside the UK might have noticed that Spain won the Cup and played some good football to get there, but that really was a sideshow.

So what prospects now for English football? Simple, we will waltz our way through the Euro 2012 qualifiers and lift that trophy by thrashing Germany in the Final. We then pop over to Brazil to collect the 2014 World Cup, and if the rest of the world won't let us win that time then we'll take our ball back, after all we invented the game!

I started with the apologies so I'll end with the thanks. Grateful thanks are due to France, who managed to outdo the English in terms of footballing farce and embarrassment, both on and off the field. If they could have stayed in South Africa slightly longer England could have slipped home unnoticed!

Serious thanks are due to Stuart and Trudi in Joburg, who not only put us in touch with an excellent LandRover mechanic but also shared the pain of watching England's matches. Thanks for all the hospitality; we'll be back as soon as our livers have dried out!

Erna and Andre and family in Nelspruit, thanks for checking the car over, thanks for the accommodation, the hospitality and thanks for a great weekend trip to Marloth and Kruger. The 6 wild dogs hunting near the Crocodile River were a magical moment, as were the 3 lions and 2 cheetahs. We'll be back, after all you did promise us a caracal sighting!

Isaac & Liesel, thanks for having the faith (or stupidity!) to leave us looking after the farm whilst you are on holiday. You will get it back as you left it, fingers crossed!

Last but not least thanks to Ralph Snr for funding new Landrover tyres in preparation for our forthcoming trip north to Zambia, and to Visa for generously paying for the Landrover shocks, bushes, service etc!