Squad Rotation The current obsession with ‘so-called’ squad rotation leaves me nauseous with despair. Back in the glorious 70’s we had eleven regular players and the obligatory supersub who could do a reasonable bodge job in any position on the park. We may have all valued the role of sub but none of us actually wanted to be one. The relentless and savage stick we dished out to the hapless No 12 each week barely made his life worth living. But that’s football. If you can’t take the merciless grilling get out of the boot room, as the old football saying goes. I would go to any lengths to keep my place in the team. I once even poisoned two ‘up and coming’ youth players who threatened to usurp my throne. As they were both rushed to hospital I framed the sub and secured the up front berth for the rest of the season. It was all about a little thing called pride
Friendlies I fondly remember being brutally pinned to the turf by the legendary London born left-back Lenny Gutt during his testimonial match back in 1971. Twisting my arm unnaturally high up my back and treading heavily on my legs he bent down and whispered through a ghastly smile, “There’s no such thing as friendlies.” I can laugh about it now but at the time I was in appalling agony and a valuable lesson was learned. When Lenny came up to me at the end of the game and offered his hand in friendship I instinctively grabbed him by the throat and started an ugly fracas. The glut of ‘so-called’ friendlies in the modern game merely allows the overpaid peacocks of today to put in an even more gutless display than usual. Pre-season practice matches are pathetic enough but international friendlies simply aren’t worth the paper they are printed on. All football is sacred and should be played at breakneck speed with reckless bravado .
I found myself nodding in agreement to nine of the ten points. The only one that I'm ambivalent with is the away goal rule and only for the reason mentioned in the article - it's always been a part of football.
