How far behind have we fallen with the national team......

rooney is an amazing footballer

Not sure if I agree with this. He is a very good footballer. He isn't "world class" as people are slowly finding out. He did have the potential to be "world class" when he burst on to the scene but hasn't developed in my opinion.

When compared to Messi, Ronaldo - those boys are different class.

 

Came closer than any of the so called Golden Generation did.

 

I used to play on the street when I was a nip, but it was safe to do so. I lived on Darton West council estate. Every morning the electric milk float would come round. A few times a week we'd see the rag and bone man, but he was on a horse and cart. Me dad was the local coal merchant, so he'd do a couple of rounds a week and we'd all jump on the back of his lorry. The bin men came once a week and in the summer we'd get an ice cream van now and then. As far as traffic goes, that was it. It wasn't a case of having to look out for traffic, there simply wasn't any. As far as I recall only two households on the whole estate had cars. Only one had a phone!

Skip forward 30 odd years and I live on a different Barnsley council estate, although the majority of houses are now privately owned. After years of resisting it, I've recently bought a car, so now we're a two car family. Next door has four cars and they don't even have a drive! Every house on the street has at least one car, often two. Added to that is the constant stream of delivery vans whizzing about as we all order our stuff over the internet.

I don't think for a minute our parents were being irresponsible letting us play out on the street as there simply wasn't anything to hurt us, but if I were a parent now I wouldn't let my kids play there as I don't think it's safe. There's a really good chance they'll get knocked down. Even if they manage to avoid getting run over, the balls they play with would be constantly hitting parked cars and the grief they'd get for doing so wouldn't be worth it.

We still have organised games in our village on the local rec from young kids right up to adults, so it's not like football has completely gone away. But that's a game at the weekends and training once a week. It's not like playing football all day ever day like we used to. It's no surprise to me that we're no longer getting the talent coming through and I wouldn't necessarily blame the kids for that.

Our rec is nearly always full of kids, but I don't think I've ever seen them have an impromptu game of football. We've got a skate park in there and they're all on their scooters/bikes/skateboards playing on that. I guess that is much more appealing for kids these days.

As an aside, it wasn't cars that we had to look out for when we were kids, it was packs of dogs! People would go to work in the morning, kick their dogs out and the mutts would band together and run feral all day attacking kids. There was dog **** everywhere. It's easy to reminisce about the past and think how great it was, but in this respect it's much better now that people actually look after their pets and pick up their ****.

Sorry for boring you.

 

You don't remember Fowler, Cole and Wright being prolific? Our definitions must be different then.

 

It's a fair point, although as said all those supposedly brilliant players won precisely nothing, but to say Rooney would be a bench warmer? Can't agree there. He would get in any England team I've ever seen.

 

"He would get in any England team I've ever seen."

Would you have picked him ahead of either Shearer or Sheringham during Euro '96? Assuming he was the right age at the time. Remember the 4-1 destruction of Holland? Those two ripped the Dutch a new arsehole. It's very rare an England team destroys world class opposition like we did that night and our two strikers looked as good as any in the world.

 

Fair enough if that's what you meant. Not many in history have been though. England are just **** on the international stage.