bradley headstone
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Posted: September 10th 2008
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It’s indicative of the low ebb that our national sides are displaying at the moment that capturing the headlines are a former international who decided he didn’t want to play for England and a Welsh international who decided he didn’t then did then didn’t want to play for Wales.
It’s not surprising that Jamie Carragher is in the news, he’s got a book to sell and raking over old ‘scandal’ is one way of ensuring press for your words. What is surprising is that Jamie Carragher has got a book out at all! Again indicative of these times that an average footballer, somewhat lacking in personality (and bass), should consider his story worth telling.
While I find a lot about Carragher to ridicule, you can’t deny that he’s fashioned himself a decent career. In the top ten English centre backs currently playing and by sheer force of will has held together a, frankly ropey, Liverpool outfit for a number of years now. But let’s not forget that for years he was known to most in football as ‘you know, the one who isn’t Steve Harkness!’
Lacking the pace and touch of a decent full back, he gravitated inside and found his niche. What could’ve been a career as an ex-Liverpool player falling through the leagues is instead a medal winning pro respected by most in the game…but worth a book?
The lucrative tasters have concentrated on the salacious and contentious, so lots of the prankster from the spice boys (by prank I mean whipping out little Jamie whenever the opportunity arose) and plenty of the laddish humour that Liverpool is famed for.
Ok, that last bit is hard to find, unless you take the headline ‘I knew people who given one word would’ve done Neill over’ as an example of the famed scouse wit. This refers to the Australian defender Lucas Neill, who broke Carragher’s leg in what I remember as a 50/50 challenge. Maybe I’m mistaken, but alluding to the Liverpool gangster scene, whether you’ve the connections or not is not funny in any currency.
Truth is you feel that much of Carragher’s appeal to the publisher is his friendship with Steven Gerrard, Sancho Panza to Don Quixote or Gary Neville to David Beckham if you will. Like Neville, he merely appears glittery when in close proximity to the ‘special’ one, though in fairness to Neville he does have a genuine claim to being the best player in his position.
Not so Carragher, with the best will in the world, what he has isn’t enough at international level, if it was John Terry really would be World Class. He didn’t like hearing the truth, he really was the sixth or seventh best central defender at England’s command and so he did what every second rate player and individual seems to do now, announced his retirement.
I’ve said it before on these pages, but you have to earn the right to make such an announcement. Make a real contribution to the cause. If Beckham, Michael Owen or even the aforementioned Gary Neville were to say right, enough is enough I’m retiring, we’d say thanks very much. Carragher’s announcement is frankly the same as Stuart Downing announcing he’d be giving up international football, some tumbleweed followed by an embarrassed cough and quick change of subject.
So changing the subject, Paul Parry…who said ‘who?’ that’s not funny. Parry must be a hidden talent waiting to break into the Premiership from the relatively calmer waters of Cardiff City. He must be because having fallen out with John Toshack, which to be fair doesn’t seem difficult, deigned to wear the red shirt again in order to ‘springboard his career in the Premiership’. This newfound rapprochement lasted a matter of hours, as he was an unused sub against Azerbaijan.
It was clearly frustrating, but I’d have thought a pre-requisite to becoming a name player in the prem is a sense of the bigger picture. There are some games that enhance your reputation if you miss them. This scrambled win seems like one of them and Parry had been promised a striking role in the next fixture.
All to no avail, Parry has gone; one suspects for good and will no doubt earn a decent living in the Championship. In the meantime, and this is in no way a stone cold certainty, the prickly Toshack appears to be building a young, talented squad that might trouble some of the bigger nations in years to come. One hopes Parry doesn’t come to rue his decision.
Now, what about Lee McCulloch…