One of the most popular posts I’ve ever put up here was the Newcastle United Pie Chart of Blame and, although popularity is all relative in this rarely visited corner of the interweb, I’m seizing upon the Three Lions’ inept performance in South Africa to present the England Pie Chart of Blame.

Why did England crash so spectacularly out of the 2010 World Cup? There are many factors, individuals and organisations involved, but thankfully the Pie Chart of Blame simplifies a very complicated answer.

Now let me say right up front that international football is not nearly as important as club football. Come on, England jetting home is hardly your side getting knocked out of the Carling Cup is it? So the England Pie Chart of Blame may not necessarily be as seriously considered as the Newcastle United one. Anyway, that said, let’s begin the international blame game…

ITV HD. England desperately needed to get off to a good start at the World Cup, for example with Steven Gerrard scoring in the fourth minute in the opener against the USA. Sadly, if you were watching on ITV, that never happened, as the broadcaster inexplicably cut to an ad break at the crucial moment. A bafflingly bad error, even worse than the BBC’s decision to hire ultra-fast-talking naughty-phone-ringing Emmanuel Adebayor as a pundit.

The Vuvuzela. How to make football more entertaining? I know! Let’s accompany it with a constant, thoroughly annoying drone, like having a wasp stuck in each ear. The novelty plastic trumpet has made watching the games a chore, and surely must have affected the England players’ ears and thus sense of balance. Note to those intending to take vuvuzelas to English grounds next season: you will be less welcome than Michael Barrymore at a pool party.

UK Tabloids. They build ‘em up, they knock ‘em down. White van drivers (and indeed less stereotypical sections of the British public) lap it up, creating a brainless, unfounded sense of optimism, followed by a furious, self-perpetuated backlash. The truth is that a not very good England team did not very good. The media built them into something they weren’t, creating inevitable disappointment. See also that ‘do it for Bobby’ Carlsberg ad.

James Corden. I’ve somehow managed to successfully avoid hearing his World Cup single, but I do know that the only thing that could have made watching 90 minute of England failing to win any worse was following it with 30 minutes of James Corden failing to be funny.

Cheryl Cole. It’s simple – England were good when Heaton’s finest was one of the WAGs, and rubbish after she left ‘love rat Ashley’. Come on, Cheryl, couldn’t you have overlooked your husband’s indiscretions for the good of the country just this one time? (And, granted, all of the previous times?) To be fair, Wayne Bridge’s ex-missus probably had something to do with the whole sorry ‘affair’ as well.

The Germans. No need to mention the war. Or beach towels. Or even penalties. This time the ruddy Hun went and had the gall to be substantially better than us at OUR national game. And to get the benefit of a dodgy goal-line decision, just like we did when we won that World Cup we always harp on at them about. Talking of which…

FIFA. The ball was over the line! FIFA’s refusal to adopt goal-line technology robbed Frank Lampard of a pointless consolation goal. Of course, the disallowed goal was pretty much the only thing that put any fire into the England players’ bellies during the 90 minutes. If it had been allowed they might have played on with even less purpose. Which would not have been much purpose at all.

The FA. For an amateur organisation they seem to get paid an awful lot of money. Any fool knows that English football has been mismanaged for decades. The whole Capello contract saga was ridiculous, but to present any manager with a new contract on the eve of a major tournament is a ludicrous proposition, and will cost them dearly when they hand Fabio his P45.

Fabio Capello. Combats England’s lack of available talent by constructing a robust 4-5-1 system for the qualifiers. Then, for no apparent reason, goes 4-4-2 for the finals. He failed to instil confidence or ideas, made some baffling selection decisions, and refused to change things when they went wrong. Also, there were those pictures of him in his Speedos. Arrivederci Fabio.

The Players. Overpaid and under-enthusiastic. Maybe they would have played better if the FA hadn’t already arranged for their match fees to be donated to charity. The truth is that England doesn’t have as many world class players as it thinks it does. Many of those who shine in the Premier League flopped on the international stage. Several of them have done so for years. Prepare the tar and feathers for the ‘golden generation’. For three lions, read three words: ‘Not Good Enough’.

So that’s England’s World Cup over. Now we can sit back and enjoy the rest of the tournament unfettered by the spectre of disappointing underachievement. Then we’ll be back to proper home grown domestic football. And everything will be back to normal. Except for that bloke sitting next to you with a bloody vuvuzela. And there’s Frank Lampard! He was rubbish in the World Cup! BOOOOOOOOOOO!

Football

I’ve no idea why Toy Story 3 doesn’t open until 23 July here in the UK, more than a month after the likes of China, Russia and Kazakhstan, but I was lucky enough to see it at the weekend in the fantastic Regal E-Walk movie “theater” in Times Square, New York, complete with medium Coke and popcorn that require two hands each to carry, and – ahem – 3D glasses. Yep, Toy Story 3 is presented in “Real 3D”. But fear not! The movie is a triumph, and, remarkably, Pixar actually seem to have cracked the 3D conundrum. Toy Story 3 may be the world’s first genuinely good 3D movie.

Having (sensibly) waited ten years to follow-up Toy Story 2, the creators now have a neat premise – Andy is 17 and off to college, and the toys, unplayed with for years, are bagged up for the attic. Unhappy with this prospect, they instead conspire to be donated to a kiddies’ daycare centre, which they imagine to be an idyll of happy, playful children. In fact, the daycare centre turns out to be something of a nightmare, and the toys plan an escape to return to their owner.

All of the key characters return, and there are also plenty of new ones, including Lotso the less-than-cuddly bear (Ned Beatty), Curb’s Jeff Garlin as Buttercup the Unicorn, and a hilarious turn from Michael Keaton as a camp-as-Christmas Ken doll.

The end titles (worth staying for) credit around 20 people with the story, and the collaborative process seems to have paid off. It’s sharp, lean and funny, even to a cynical bugger like me.

At 103 minutes, Toy Story 3 flies by and – in a rare occurrence for for a summer blockbuster – actually leaves the audience wanting more. If it’s not quite as good as 1 or 2, that’s only because the first two movies were so fantastic. Chapter 3 is preceded by a typically great Pixar short – Night & Day – so make sure you’re in your seat early.

I’ve previously blogged that 3D is an unwelcome distraction, but in Toy Story 3 that never becomes the case. It’s used subtly and effectively – there is no pointing and poking at the screen, no throwing things at the audience. Instead it’s a subtle effect that simply adds a little depth to the image.

Unlike in screenings of Avatar, not once did I notice anyone removing their 3D glasses in order to assess the 3D effect. The movie is never less than immersive, and I, for one, forgot I was wearing the glasses. (Also, the glasses serve as a useful disguise if you happen to get something in your eye during the moving finale…)

Mark Kermode has videoblogged on the subject, wondering whether watching Toy Story 3 would be every bit as involving in 2D. My opinion is that it would still be a fantastic and immersive movie, but I have to admit that in this case the 3D does seem to add something.

Of course, this is animation, and totally different from live action movies. I still cringe at the thought of 3D becoming the standard for every major film release. But, in the case of Toy Story 3, Pixar has proved that, used cleverly and in the context of a great film, 3D can actually be a positive thing in movies. I, for one, never expected that.

Film

Feature written ahead of the previous World Cup in 2006.

A is for Armageddon
Argentinean keeper Carlos Roa saved penalties from Paul Ince and David Batty to knock England out of the 1998 World Cup. But the teetotal vegetarian, nicknamed “the Lettuce”, quit football after the tournament in anticipation of an impending Armageddon, announcing that the world would end on 31 December 1999. Roa distanced himself from that claim somewhere around 1 January 2000.

B is for Barefoot
India qualified for the 1950 World Cup finals by default after qualifying group rivals Burma, the Philippines, and Indonesia all withdrew. But the Indians never made it to the tournament – they were banned by FIFA from participating after refusing to play in anything other than bare feet. India have yet to qualify for a World Cup in boots…

Full story published in Loaded, July 2006. I wrote several features for Loaded prior to the launch of this website.

Football Loaded

We ain’t no hooligans,
This ain’t a football song,
Three lions on our Mars,
I know we can’t go wrong.

And there, in 30 seconds of televisual madness, John Barnes manages to both hit a new career low and defile the greatest football record ever made.

Quite an achievement for a man whose playing career ended with lumbering embarrassment at Newcastle and relegation at Charlton, and whose managerial career with Celtic (‘Super Caley go ballistic’ etc) and Tranmere must surely rank as one of the least successful of all time.

Barnes never exactly pulled up any trees playing for his country either, and some might say his original rap on World in Motion was the best thing he ever did in an England shirt. It would be hard to argue with that opinion.

Because World In Motion by New Order, some say EnglandNewOrder, is indisputably the best football record ever made. You can keep your Three Lions, and your Back Home, and your All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit.

It is the best football record ever made because: a) It is really very good; and b) It helped change the face of English football – and some might say football in general – forever.

Cast your mind back to the end of the 89/90 football season. English football was virtually unrecognisable to the bells and whistles phenomenon it is today. Liverpool won the Barclays First Division, but they didn’t get into Europe. English clubs had been banned from European competition for five years, and Liverpool for six. The shadow of hooliganism still hung over the game.

It was only a year on from Hillsborough, and the memories of that disaster remained fresh in the mind. Racism was prevalent on the terraces, and football was hardly an attractive place to take the family.

And on the pitch things were fairly uninspiring. The PFA and football writers’ players of the year were David Platt and that man John Barnes, and there was very little foreign talent around.

Not that you would get much of a chance to watch it. Armchair fans were restricted to the occasional Big Match and lamentable highlights shows on ITV.

Overall, English football was in a pretty miserable state. There was absolutely no reason to think that the national team would have any success at the World Cup that summer in Italy. There was very little optimism.

And then came World In Motion. New Order, fresh from the success of the Ibiza-infused Technique, teamed up with Keith Allen, Dad of Lily, to record the track. Also roped in were Barnes and various team-mates including Paul Gascoigne and Peter Beardsley, both of whom, legend has it, recorded versions of the rap that never made it onto the final track. Throw in some Kenneth Wolstenholme samples, and the end result was something quite special.

The genius of World In Motion is that, as the rap admits, it ain’t a football song. Yes, there is talk of creating space and beating your man, but really it’s bigger than that. ‘Love’s got the world in motion,’ the chorus proclaims. Love, not football. It’s only at the end, as it swells to a climax, that the song throws in, ‘We’re playing for England, En-ger-land!’, and by then you’ve been drawn in and can hardly help singing along.

World In Motion helped create belief in a national team that arrived at Italia 90 with little to no chance. Peter Hook has said that the song ‘enhanced patriotism’, and that’s true. These were the days before every other car flew a cross of St George, and just about the most commitment anyone gave to showing their support for England was to collect World Cup coins or Panini stickers.

It’s obviously an exaggeration to say that World In Motion propelled England into the semi finals, but it certainly helped. It encouraged us to go out and buy England shirts, have a couple of beers, throw our arms around our mates and holler, ‘En-ger-land’. It encouraged us to love the game again.

What happened next is securely stored in the memory of any football fan. Sir Bobby’s genius, Lineker’s goals, Waddle’s penalty, Gazza’s tears. And that was that. English football was never the same again.

Within a couple of years we had the Premier League and wall-to-wall TV coverage. We had an influx of new talent, sponsors and money. There were new stadiums and kits and haircuts and multi-coloured boots. Not all of the changes were positive, of course, but overall the game became a bigger and better thing.

And World In Motion was the starting point. Had it not created a surge of pride and goodwill that propelled the England team into the semi finals of Italia 90 who knows where our national game would have ended up? We might still be watching the bloody Big Match. And that would be no good at all.

So now it’s 20 years on, and it’s World Cup 2010, and England have no chance of winning the thing. Or do they? If they hold and give and do it at the right time, anything is surely possible.

New Order – World In Motion (Spotify)

Football, Music