yeah, but will it win any football matches?

I suppose it depends what you consider as ‘English’.

Jack Wilshire, little English Bulldog, terrier-type Arsenal (so we should check for rabies) philosopher, summed it up rather succinctly when he stated that ‘only English people is English and to play for England ya gorra be English. Innit.’ Or words to that effect.

And he implied that only those born within this sceptered isle should be available for selection to the England football team.

Which is never really what this country is all about. We are multi-cultural, we have immigrants from everywhere, we have a rich and varied cultural blend and thus a team full of Johnny Cockneys would not really adequately represent this nation.

Personally, I don’t care where players were born, in terms of availability for England selection but more where they live now. Is someone from Yorkshire really English? From Chester? Norwich??? From Berkshire?? Is that even IN England?

So Adnan Januzaj (who no-one had ever heard of before he played on Saturday and scored 2 goals for Manchester United) is apparently eligible to play for my country. He was born in Kosovo, has Turkish-Albanian parents and the only two words he can speak in English are ‘Range’ and ‘Rover’.

But let’s look at it from a different perspective. If you need an extension building on your house, who do you call? Billy Bricklayer from Dagenham who’ll turn up three weeks late, then go off on his holidays, take 14 tea breaks a day and leave you with a pile of rubble after the works have all collapsed? Or Petr the Pole who is industrious, hard-working and does a top quality job for half the price?

If players are good we should not burden ourselves unnecessarily on minor details and technicalities. In case no-one had noticed, the England football team ain’t that bloody good.

The rugby team worked this out years ago. Which is why half the British Lions tour team which was so successful in Australia are from South Africa, Samoa and Fiji. Not that anyone would doubt the Englishness of Manu Tuilagi. Not to his face, anyway.

Our cricket team, so brilliant in the Ashes tests, is also prepared to stretch borders to increase the potential player pool. So why not football?

We should consult Tommy Robinson. The ex-head of the English Defence League. Not the one who sang ‘glad to be gay’. Or maybe its the same one? Who knows?? Anyway, Tommy has resigned his ‘prestigious’ post as top nazi in the land because of his former organisation’s ‘tendency towards right wing violence’. Like, Doh. A bit like Hitler resigning as German chancellor because it was a bit too Aryan. But Tommy had views about who is English and who is not and, now he’s left that group of vile thugs, should be consulted.

Lionel Messi should be kept prisoner here for 5 years. Then he could play for us.

You have to think outside the box. Rather than diving into it like a dying fucking swan.

 

Happy thursday

 

A xxxx