The new manager was given a taste of what he can expect should England screw up at Euro 2012 with mocking headlines about an occasional failure to roll his Rs. Like it matters
Ho hum. Here we go again. Another England manager promising to give it his all and hoping for the best while the frustrations and limitations of the job remain unchanged: too many foreigners, not enough time with the squad, too much football, club calls, withdrawals, and so on.
Roy Hodgson comes across as a normal, rational member of the human race so he starts at a disadvantage. Ideally anyone running the England team should have a streak of masochism in his makeup. It also helps if he is a bit eccentric. One of Hodgson's predecessors was known to his squad as "Mad Eyes" and was by no means the least successful holder of the post.
Within hours of his appointment Hodgson had been given a taste of what he could expect should England screw up in the European Championship. Normally the critics, gathering like Les Tricoteuses, the hags who knitted away at the foot of guillotine, give an incoming manager a decent time to settle in. Hodgson, however, was straightaway faced with headlines mocking an occasional failure to roll his Rs.
Like it matters. Alf Ramsey's misplaced aspirates made him sound like Eliza Doolittle, Ron Greenwood was apt to say "revelant" when he meant relevant and Bobby Robson warned his players to stay out of the sun because of the dangers from "ultra-ray violets". Yet each left the England team in a better state than he found it.
This year will see the 50th anniversary of Ramsey's appointment to succeed Walter Winterbottom as England manager in 1962 although he did not actually take over until 1963. There are few comparisons with the present situation. For a start Hodgson is 64, Ramsey was 42.
As a player Ramsey was capped 32 times by England but Hodgson did not play one first-team match for his only league club, Crystal Palace.
Then again Ramsey's managerial experience amounted to eight years at Ipswich whereas Hodgson has managed 18 teams at club and international level since 1976. Hodgson, moreover, is fluent in several languages while Ramsey had trouble with one, his own.
The Football Association insists that Hodgson was the only man it wanted but that was not the case with Ramsey. Originally the FA was keen on Burnley's Jimmy Adamson, who had been Winterbottom's assistant for the 1962 World Cup, but Adamson was not interested.
This time the claims of the Tottenham manager, Harry Redknapp, the popular choice for media and public alike, were ignored but in 1962 the FA approached Bill Nicholson, who had won the Double with Spurs the previous year. Nicholson, however, was not interested either so Ramsey was given the task of winning the World Cup on home soil in 1966, his ultimate triumph proving a curse to his successors for whom the bar of expectation has been raised to unreasonable levels ever since.
Such similarities that do exist between Hodgson and Ramsey largely concern the ability of each to achieve success with modest resources, Ramsey winning a league championship with Ipswich, Hodgson producing any number of fair-to-middling sides and achieving Premier League respectability with Fulham and West Bromwich Albion.
By coincidence Ramsey's first match with England was a European Nations Cup qualifier against France in 1963 and Hodgson's first competitive game will also be against the French at Euro 2012. Ramsey was not fully in charge at that point and the team was still picked by an FA selection committee. On a cold night in Paris Ron Springett, the England goalkeeper, had a mare and France won 5-2. Hodgson can be reasonably confident of avoiding a repetition. He has Joe Hart in goal.
But whereas Ramsey then roused the nation with a triumphant summer tour which saw Czechoslovakia beaten 4-2, East Germany 2-1 and Switzerland 8-1, with Bobby Moore captain for the first time, Hodgson, like several England managers before him, will be asked to improve on a wretched record in European Championships with tired players, weaknesses in several areas and this time with the most likely match-winner, Wayne Rooney, suspended for the first two games.
At Craven Cottage and The Hawthorns keeping teams in the Premier League were notable achievements by Hodgson. At Euro 2012 getting England through to the knockout stage at such short notice might quieten the Redknapp lobby, but rest assured that "Kiev Chickens" is already on the headline menu.
At least Hodgson should not end up as a back-page vegetable, Graham Taylor's fate in the 1992 tournament. But as England will be renewing hostilities with the Swedes "Turnip Two" should not be ruled out entirely. Read More
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