BRIAN GLANVILLE
writes for worldsoccer.com each week.
FIT FOR PURPOSE?
27/06/07
Pecunia non olit, said the Romans. Money doesn’t smell. Which may or may not console and justify Manchester City in their shameful and abject selling and selling out to the appalling Thaksin Shinawatra.
The only inept excuse they could offer was that his supposed corruption, and massive pilfering of public funds, had not been proved in court, and that the charges had been made by the military uprising which deposed him. Reportedly a couple of million pounds or so had been frozen by the police in Thailand which still seemingly has left him with quite enough to buy City and promise high spending on transfers. But, alas, there is far, far more to it than that.
As President or whatever of Thailand, Amnesty International’s reports indicate that he installed a regime of terror: “Credible reports of police ill treating and torturing suspects in pre-trial detentions to extract confessions. “Prisoners – on seemingly political grounds – beaten to death and tortured with red hot coals.” The killing and disappearance of 16 Opposition figures. The slaughter by police of thousands of minor drug dealers. “A climate of impunity that allows human rights violations to continue.” 500 muslims killed in a year.
Fit for purpose? What ineffable crimes must any would be Premiership club owner commit not to be? We already have what might almost be defined as a Rogues’ Gallery of owners. No names, no pack drill, no libel suits; but nothing remotely as outrageous as this. Will the FA act? Will the Premiership? Is there not the slightest stir of conscience among City fans, who seem prepared to shrug off such crimes as merely committed on what Kipling might call lesser breeds without the Law? As for the City directors, they have shown a cynicism which appals and astonishes. Money may not smell, but in this case it surely stinks.
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Has Thierry Henry cynically abandoned a sinking ship? Or, to put the boot on the other foot, have Barcelona run a risk in paying a huge if not exceptional fee for a player who now appears physically at risk, after the sciatica and groin problems which blighted his final season at Arsenal?
Henry himself must surely know that he is taking a risk in going to Nou Camp, where famous strikers are already so numerous, and the pressures in the Catalan city make London’s football seem almost a peaceful backwater? On the face of it, however, it looks as if the crucial factor in Henry leaving a club to which he had emotionally pledged allegiance, after his unhappy display in the 2006 European Cup Final, was the going of David Dein.
Increasingly, it seems that the Arsenal board were foolish to force him out. True, he had disagreed with the building of the handsome new stadium round the corner on a rubbish dump, preferring the locale of Kings Cross or even Wembley Stadium. True, he had wanted to do business with the rich American entrepreneur, Stan Kroenke, which elicited from the Chairman, Peter Hill Wood, a trumpet solo of patriotism and deep disdain for the American upstart. Only for Hill Wood – alas, a marginalised figure now, despite the tremendous tradition of the Hill Woods at Highbury, since the 1920s – to consume humble pie just months later, when he agreed to fly to the States to talk to Kroenke.
If Henry goes, can Wenger be far behind? That was something else which troubled Henry after the ousting of Dein, his friend and father of the best man at his wedding. It was, of course, Dein who brought Wenger to the club, and Wenger now can go pretty well where he likes, when his contract runs out after a year. What incentive then would there be for the gifted, precocious young Cesc Fabregas to stay, given his adulation of Henry and respect for Wenger?
Strange to hear Arsenal are thinking of re-enlisting the talented but rebellious Nicolas Anelka, who behaved so badly in his time at Highbury, though he did score many goals. Egged on by an aggressive pair of agent brothers, he was forever complaining. That the Dutchmen Overmars and Bergkamp wouldn’t pass him the ball. That the press emphasised a good performance by the Gunners when he wasn’t playing, then didn’t give him credit for a fine performance, when he did. He cost Arsenal nothing, when they spirited him away from an infuriated Paris Saint Germain later throwing them a derisory half a million pounds out of the goodness of their heart. Then selling him to Real Madrid for well over £20 million.
For myself, I wonder just what part, at a conscious or even pre conscious level, the move from Highbury to the Emirates may have played in Henry’s decision to leave. Working on the official Arsenal Stadium History, I went to their London Colney Training Centre to interview him, when he told me, “There’s something about the whole stadium when you’re there. Something happens to me. I hear moments of games, something that happens in my mind. When I walk, it’s just strange. I feel like I remember some games that I played, some stuff that I did. Some good moments, some bad. It’s difficult to describe. You have no one in the stadium, but I can still hear some stuff in my head. I know it’s not the most modern stadium ever, but there’s something you can’t describe, you need to play. It’s always something special about Highbury.”
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How sad, the death of Derek Dougan. I had the happiness of knowing him and watching him score goals for years.
Strangely, in the days before he died, I discovered a copy of his autobiography with a warm dedication on the crowded table of my working room. Had he been just a little more experienced, at 20 years old, he might have been the centre forward to have given the attack of the gallant Northern Ireland attack in the 1958 Swedish World Cup the edge it needed. But he had only one game, the first against the Czechs, after which he was dropped and Ireland had nobody to replace him.
Controversy would pursue him. Not least at Blackburn Rovers where he sensationally demanded a transfer on the eve of the FA Cup Final against Wolves, an action he would later regret. His direct opponent Bill Slater marvelled at the impression that the Doog wasn’t even trying, but Doogan himself would later insist that a pulled muscle had yet to heal. At Aston Villa he pre-empted a later trend by playing with a shaven head. Later in his years with Wolves he and the manager Bill McGarry became bitter enemies; when Dougan smashed up his whole face and endured several delicate operations, McGarry did not even visit him in hospital.
Not all the younger Wolves players responded to Dougan, who hardly hid his light under a bushel. But when for some years he became Chairman of the Professional Footballers’ Association, he worked hard and effectively to improve footballers’ lot.
Much later, when Wolves were in steep decline and taken over by a couple of obscure businessmen, he became their chief executive but could not stop the vertiginous slide. At his best, he was a formidable striker, using his great height to prevail in the air and with his long, lean legs, ever adroit on the ground.
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