The fairly dismal performances of the home nations in their recent World Cup qualifying campaigns has rightly brought the subject of domestic sporting talent to the forefront. For those of you who don’t follow football, last month went something like this: Scotland got gubbed by Serbia, England were lucky to draw against Montenegro (neighbours of Serbia), Wales lost to Croatia (also neighbours of Serbia) and Northern Ireland lost 2-0 to Israel, who aren’t anywhere near Serbia but aren’t exactly renowned for their footballing achievements either. Arguably, Israel shouldn’t even be in a European qualifying group - they’re allowed into Eurovision partly on the grounds that anyone idiotic enough to want to participate deserves the humiliation of getting no points from Norway. However, geographically, Israel is more Middle Eastern than Eastern Europe. The whole thing seems a bit unfair, especially for Northern Ireland’s away supporters, who will have to make an epic journey to Tel Aviv in October to watch their team lose the forthcoming away fixture.
Several conclusions can be drawn from this sorry affair. Firstly, we clearly aren’t very good at football any more. Secondly, the former Yugoslav states seem to be fantastic at it. Thirdly, Israel should bugger off and allow poor old Norn Eire to be crap closer to home. However, there is also an over-riding question about why our various home nations aren’t capable of producing a decent team of footballers between them. With regard to this latter point, I have a theory – we can blame our sedentary lifestyles, or specifically those of our offspring.
When I were a lad, summer evenings were spent on the green outside my house, with freeform 20-a-side football matches where I never really knew who was on my team and who wasn’t. It didn’t matter. The winning wasn’t all that important – it was the taking part that felt good, even when I got put in goal and my total ineptitude was revealed for the inevitable gaggle of teenage girls to laugh at. At least I was trying, and when I decided to become an armchair football fan instead, my peers continued with their endless jumpers-for-goalposts games. But when was the last time you saw a group of children playing football in the park? Or in someone’s back garden? Or anywhere other than in front of their PS3s?
In a previous blog, I criticised schools for the apparent decline in standards of reading and writing, and the roulette wheel of blame has landed here again. I’m sorry, but who thought non-competitive sports days were a good idea? Surely preventing the weak and feeble from being branded losers is far more dangerous than preventing the strong and athletic from excelling at possibly the only thing they’re naturally talented at? Real life is hard, brutal and completely unfair, and bringing kids up to believe that they're all winners is setting them up for one hell of a shock when they start dating/applying for jobs/bidding on eBay/playing sports for real.
It’s also unsurprising that kids spend their morning breaks huddled over their BlackBerries when all the playing fields have been sold off to housebuilders. And then there's the please-don't-sue-us culture of excusals and exemptions. Back in my day, PE classes consisted of dangling pathetically from monkey bars and being yelled at for not attempting a flying angel over the vaulting horse with enough enthusiasm, whereas nowadays students can insist that their astigmatism excuses them from picking up a beanbag. I freely admit that I hated enforced exercise when I was a callow youth, but it instilled a degree of physical fitness that has endured to this day, allowing me to run for a train without wishing I was playing a train-catching app instead.
It appears that as each generation gets fatter, lazier and more inclined to order a Domino’s than make its own pizza dough, its spawn learns by example and does likewise. It’s a worrying development, which can only end in the scenario portrayed in the film WALL-E, where humans have become immobile spherical gannets. In the meantime, we’re going to get increasingly appalling at sport, including the national game of football, and that means the days of Souness, Dalgleish and Hansen will become as nostalgic and irrelevant as the days of Stock, Aitken and Waterman. We’re shit and we know we are. And I fear we’re going to get progressively worse, as every new generation of Facebook-addicted bedroom-dwelling teenagers tries to out-sloth its sofa-ridden parents downstairs.
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