Six Great Football Competitions

So, I was sitting at home last night watching the Champions League match between OM and Liverpool, and the thought finally came to me. Who cares about this? Seriously. Who gives a damn about it? The Champions League is now so debased, so much of a mis-match that Liverpool, the fourth placed team in England (by fairly common assent) , can stroll through the group phases, winning matches as if they are pre-season friendlies. Never mind the fact that they put in two of the worst performances I've ever seen in this competition (proving at a stroke why the big clubs like this mini-group format so much - it removes so much of the element of chance), OM were so wretched last night that one got the feeling that even ITV, having spent a good half an hour hyping the match up as a "do or die night for heroes", were slightly embabrrassed at how easy it was for them yet again.

One wonders how long, in a global community with multi-channel digital access, how long UEFA, the big clubs and the televisions companies will be able to continue to pass off this charade as "premium entertainment". It's not football as most of us understand it. It's not a competition. This year's group stage has been a drawn out series of grindingly tedious Harlem Globetrotters exhibition matches. One could be forgiven that the "surprise" results have occurred have been deliberately placed to startle the viewing audience into waking up. They might as well have done, for all the difference that they've made to who has gone through. Sky Sports are so desperate that they're trying to hype up tonight's Sevilla-Arsenal match as being "The Battle For Top Place In The Group". Lord, give me strength. In view of the fact that, as in the Premier League, there is no competition in the Champions League any more, here are six genuinely great football competitions.

1. Copa Libertadores: Vast, sprawling and mad, La Copa Libertadores is, of course, the South American equivalent of the Champions League, and it has everything that you'd want the Champions League to have. You'd expect Brazil and Argentina to have dominated it, but it's worth pointing out that eleven different countries have provided winners to it. Boca have won it four times in the last seven years but other recent winners have included Olimpia of Paraguay, Once Caldas of Colombia and Colo Colo of Chile. It starts in January and runs until June, and promises to be as great as ever this year.

2. The Championship: Forget about the Premier League. If you want a tight, competitive league in which anyone can beat anybody else and in which more than half of the teams in the division are likely to be in with at least the whiff of a chance of getting promoted, The Championship is the only place to look. The myth that there is a gap between it and the bottom of the Premier League is slowly debunked (it's Derby's stupid fault if they choose not to spend any of the money that they get from promotion and spend the wholse of the next twelve months as national laughing stocks), with a number of Premier League clubs having been relegated and not finding it as easy as they thought they would. Just ask Sheffield United about that. All this and, at the end of the season, it hosts its own cup final when the play-off final finishes off the domestic season.

3. The Isthmian League: Somehow, it's easier to laugh at football leagues when you call them by their sponsors' names, so we'll eschew the word "Ryman" in favour of the league's official name. The Isthmian League was a gateway to the Conference until 2004 but, since the restructuring of non-league football and the introduction of the Conference North and Conference South, it has slipped oneplace down the pecking order. It is, therefore, perhaps surprising that the 2007/08 season finds it in rude health. The three divisions (Premier Division, Division One North and Division One South) are all highly competitive, crowds are up and it is jam-packed with clubs that were once big in non-league circles and are fighting their way back such as Chelmsford City and Dartford, as well as those that have be re-born (AFC Wimbledon, Maidstone United, AFC Hornchurch and Enfield Town), and grand old names from the game's amateur past such as Dulwich Hamlet, Tooting & Mitcham United and Hendon.

4. La Coupe De France: The French equivalent has one feature that the FA Cup would do well to adopt. No seeding. Everyone is drawn in together and, with a bit of luck, clubs from the nether regions of French football can enjoy a run to the latter stages of the competition. The final, played at the Stade de France, is an annual sell-out of 80,000 people - unlike the messy, distended end to the season that we have in England, it acts as a fitting end-piece to their domestic season.

5. The Bundesliga: The Bundesliga is the most accessbile top division football in Europe. Not only do the German authorities have a refreshingly progressive attitude to safe standing (most German clubs that play in Europe have terracing for their league matches which they then convert to seating for European matches), but ticket prices show up the Premier League as the rip-off that it is. The recent World Cup updated many of Germany's older stadia, and the crowds are as big as anywhere else in Europe. Also, Germany is the only other country in Europe with anything like the strength in depth that English football has - once famous names such as Borussia Monchengladbach, Carl Jeiss Jena, 1FC Kaiserslautern, 1FC Koln, FC St Pauli and 1860 Munchen currently grace the second division of the Bundesliga.

6. The World Cup: Forget all the hype that the press tries to force down your throat. The World Cup is where the real international action is.

If In Doubt, Write A List (Part 2)

Well, we managed something of a discussion on here last night and today, and following on from that, here are the next three in this very brief series. As per part one, these are my favourite players, and not the ones that I rate as the best of all time. And, to save any arguments, none of tonight's selection are Welsh or former Liverpool players (I jest, of course). Now, on with the show!

1. Socrates (Brazil): Well, a 6'4" heavy drinker who smoked forty a day and trained as a doctor (hence, of course, the nickname) was always going to be something of a shoo-in, wasn't he? The debate over whether the 1982 Brazilian team was better than the 1970 one is probably for another time and place (and it usually comes down to whether one was ten years old during the 1970 or 1982 World Cup), but the case for the 1982 vintage is a strong one. Of course, they demolished New Zealand (who wouldn't have done?), but they also murdered a decent Scotland team, saw off the USSR, and comfortably beat Argentina before losing to Italy in possibly the greatest World Cup match of all time. In 1986, perhaps past his peak, he still took the time to score against Spain and Poland before Brazil went out against France in the quarter-finals.

In the 1980s, we didn't see much of foreign football on the television, and this wasn't far short of what we saw of Socrates. He had one decent season at Fiorentina in Italy, but the tail end of his career was blighted by a restlessness that saw him go from club to club before retiring in 1989 and returning to medicine. His performances on the rare occasions that we saw him were so alien that he might as well as have come from a different planet. We're often told that "football is a simple game", but have made such brilliance look so effortless as Socrates. He drank, smoked, had a fantastic beard, and captained Brazil with as much style as anyone in the history of their game. Oh, and he even turned up in the English non-league game, when we was lured to Yorkshire to play one match for Garforth Town in the North East Counties League at the age of fifty. Twenty-two years after that World Cup in Spain, the ground sold out in hours. What a man.

Socrates vs the USSR in 1982

Socrates' Greatest Hits

2. Allan Cockram - St Albans City: In non-league football, you'll be unsurprised to hear, there aren't many flair players. You'll get the occasional great goalscorer, and the scene is over-flowing with colourful characters, but better players tend to get dragged to a higher level. Every once in a while, though, one slips through the net, and Allan Cockram was one such player. Having started out as a professional with Spurs, Bristol Rovers and Brentford, before dropping down to Farnborough Town and, eventually, St Albans City. His like had not been seen at a moribund Clarence Park for a number of years, and for those of us that gotten used to the likes of the hatchet-faced Bob Dowie (Iain's uglier brother) and the supremely hapless Alan Paradise (I've never seen a player with less hap), well, they might as well have dropped Diego Maradona onto the pitch in front of us. There was plenty wrong with Cockram – he couldn't tackle for toffee and seemed to occasionally lose interest if he wasn't getting much of the ball, but this was thoroughly out-weighed by his passing, shooting and free-kicks that seemed to be on a parallel with anything seen on “Match Of The Day”.

It couldn't last, of course. Brentford came calling again, and coughed up £40,000 (I think – I'm doing this all from memory) for his services. In 1989, he played for The Bees in an FA Cup Quarter-Final at Anfield against Liverpool (and almost 100 in total) before leaving for brief spells at Reading and Farnborough Town (again), before surprisingly resurfacing at Clarence Park in 1992. He is still remembered with some affection by Brentford supporters. He enjoyed an Indian Summer with St Albans, starring in the midfield of a team that nearly won a place in the Conference (which they wouldn't have been able to take), and taking over as manager. Cockram's St Albans team was attacking to the point of recklessness (they scored 96 and conceded 81 in 1994-95), and ridiculous results became part of our staple diet. The highlights of the season included: an 11-1 win against Hillingdon Borough in the FA Cup and an 8-3 win against Kingstonian in the league. They scored at least four goals in nineteen matches in all competitions, and conceded four on eight occasions. There were seven goals in a match on twelve occasions. Also, this was the season that the Isthmian League allowed itself to be used for a FIFA experiment on kick-ins to replace throw-ins, but Cockram led a small group of managers that refused to implement it (they were, in all matches, voluntary), and played brilliant, exasperating football. He loses brownie points for chasing the dollar to briefly-enriched Chertsey Town, but left soon after and is now out of football altogether. I can think of a few good reasons why he should have been invited back to Clarence Park as manager in recent years.

Allan Cockram's Brentford team in 1984

3. Steve Bull - Wolverhampton Wanderers: Just in case you were thinking that it was all fancy dans. Wouldn't all clubs love to have had a Steve Bull figure in recent times? Discarded by West Bromwich Albion for £50,000 in 1986 to their bitter Midlands rivals, Bull would go on to break more or less every record in the book, and showed unshakeable loyalty in a relatively unfashionable club in an era when footballers were starting to first learn the happiness that a bulging wallet could bring. Consider, if you will, some of these figures: 306 career goals in 13 years, 52 goals in the 1987-88 season alone (and a further 50 the following season), 18 hat-tricks, 13 England caps and 4 goals (he also hit the post for England against Holland at Italia 90). Amazing stuff. In December 1999, he was awarded an MBE - not far off unheard-of for a player that only ever played a handful of games in the top division of English football. And the thing about Bull is this: he was a complete throw-back. With never-changing cropped hair and a thick Black Country accent, he was regarded by some (including Graham Taylor, who never picked him for England and repeatedly tried to sell him against his wishes while he was the Wolves manager) as merely an unsophisticated thug, but this couldn't have been further from the truth. He was just quicker-witted, faster and stronger than everybody else, had a right foot which seemed to have received an iron implant and was excellent in the air, as well.

In the end, though, it all comes down to my opening question. These days, only the big clubs, who can offer the financial package to match the aspirations of the players, can allow said players the luxury of letting emotion into their career moves (or lack thereof). Steve Bull may just turn out to be the last of the old style "professionals", and we should all mourn their passing.

The Only Steve Bull Compilation on YouTube

If In Doubt, Write A List

It's Monday night, and Spurs are celebrating their 125th anniversary by proving how far they've fallen since the glory, glory years through the medium of getting beaten at home by Aston Villa (the question now is whether Spurs will be able entice Jorge Ramos or Jose Mourinho to sort through the rubble of the last few weeks - my guess is "no", and they'll end up with Steve Coppell if he gets the sack from Reading). Over the last few weeks, though, I have been thinking about footballers. I've said on here before that I don't really notice whether a shortage of authentic left-footed players seriously affects England's chances of winning or whatever (it doesn't stop me expressing an opinion though, of course), but I do (like everyone else) notice players. So here (in three bite-sized portions) are my ten favourites of all time.

Note that I use the word "favourite" rather than "best". I don't believe that it is really possible to say with any authority whether Pele was better than Maradona, or whether Gerd Muller was better than Bobby Charlton or whatever, but we're all entitled to have favourites. Looking down my little list, I note that there is a preponderance of "flair" players and non-league players in it (proving conclusively that I am indeed a "pretentiously anti-elitist, Conference/non-league football loving cunt" - not that I would ever have denied such an insightful statement). You can probably draw other conclusions from it, too. I'll leave that up to you. Anyway, here's the first three - the rest will follow later in the week (providing I don't forget, which is something that isn't beyond me by any means).

1. John Jacobs (Enfield): Nowadays, I'm fairly certain that there is a goalkeeper manufacturing plant somewhere, which churns out 6'4" tall behemoths to a template designed by a board consisting of Sepp Blatter, Jimmy Greaves and TV Chef Rustie Lee. Back in the day, though goalkeepers came in all shapes and sizes. Paul Cooper knocked on the door of a place in the England squad (and was arguably only kept out because England had, in all honesty, a surfeit in top-class goalkeepers in the likes of Peter Shilton, Ray Clemence, Joe Corrigan and Phil Parkes). Down in the Alliance Premier League, Enfield had John Jacobs. From memory, Jacobs stood barely 5'7" tall, but made up for what he lacked in height with extraordinary agility. He turned up at Southbury Road at the start of the 1980s, a period that coincided with the most spectacularly successful period in the club's history. He was present in goal for the 1982 FA Trophy Final, and was the regular goalkeeper choice the next season as they won the Alliance Premier League championship. My favourite Jacobs moment (and anyone seeking to correct my booze-addled brain on this can feel free) came from the semi-final of the 1985 FA Trophy against Wealdstone. Wealdstone had already won the first leg 2-0 at Southbury Road, so most Enfield supporters made the short trip across Middlesex with fairly heavy hearts. Wealdstone were too good to let that sort of lead slip at home. Enfield took an early lead but had been unable to build on it. In the final minutes, Wealdstone striker broke clean through on goal, whereupon Jacobs ran out of his goal and launched himself at Cordice in the style of Bruce Lee, almost kicking his head clean off. He was, of course, sent off and Wealdstone went to Wembley, but it was a strangely satisfying moment. He was transferred to Dagenham that summer, to be replaced by the superior (and more orthodox) Andy Pape. On the last day of the 1985/86 season, he scored directly from a drop kick for The Daggers to keep them in the Conference and relegate Wycombe Wanderers instead.

2. Michel Platini (Juventus & France): I'm just too young to really be able appreciate Michel Platini in his first incarnation at St Etienne, but Platini might just be my favourite professional footballer of all time. He played with such grace, and such elan. The 1980s were the first time that foreign club football was ever shown in any depth at all on the television (and this was largely limited to grainy goal round-ups from Italy on "Football Focus"), and Platini featured heavily. He wasn't merely a player, either. He was a leader, too. Any right-minded individual would have thought that he surely would have peaked at the 1982 World Cup, when he took a brilliant French team to within a whisker of the final. In 1984, though, he single-handedly won France the European Championships, scoring an astonishing nine goals in just five matches, including the winner in the semi-final against Portugal and the opening goal in the final. He also gains brownie points from me for, as the president of UEFA, overseeing the brave decision to award the 2012 European Championships to Ukraine and Poland. I could probably forgive him anything for that night in Marseille in 1984. Here's a compilation of some of his best moments.

3. Ian Rush (Liverpool & Wales): I don't know if I'm alone in this belief, but was Ian Rush one of the most under-rated of the last thirty years? I think he might have been. Maybe it was because his success came during the darkest period in the history of English football. It could have been because he was Welsh (this isn't meant as a provocative statement - there's every chance that Gary Lineker wouldn't have played half as much for England if Rush had been English, and it also meant that he never played in the finals of an international tournament). Perhaps there was just something too anonymous about him (fair enough, he was tall and had a moustache, but the only thing that anyone can remember him saying was his comment - possibly apocryphal - that living in Italy was like living in a different country). For a couple of years in the early-to-mid 1980s, though, Ian Rush was awesome. He first sprang to most people's attention when he bagged four goals in a televised 5-0 Liverpool win at Goodison Park in 1982, and for about three years that was it. Every time he played, he scored and (famously) every time he scored, Liverpool won. He seemed to have been computer-generated - tailor-made to dovetail with Kenny Dalglish. He was good enough for Liverpool to play a series of relatively mediocre players such as Craig Johnstone up front with him. He was the Ultimate Striker. I recall a live match against Aston Villa at Villa Park in about 1984 when he scored a magnificent hat-trick on a pitch so frozen that it looked like it was concrete that had been painted green and brown. After his disastrous sojourn in Italy, he was never quite the same. He managed over a hundred goals after his return to Liverpool, but was slowly being superceded by the likes of John Aldridge and Peter Beardsley (and his post-Liverpool career at Leeds and Newcastle was ill-advised, to say the least. For three or four years, though, the was the man, and that's coming from someone that really hated Liverpool. Here's a YouTube look at his Liverpool career.

Part two of this to follow tomorrow morning.

Edit: Wow. Spurs came back to draw 4-4 against Aston Villa. I still think Jol's living on borrowed time, though.