MAY'S WEEK

I was going to start by posing the simple question: "Why are we so awful at everything" But I didn't want you to think it was a competition and start sending in their answers on a postcard. I don't think the Echo is insured for strain injuries to postmen.

We have to wake up and smell the coffee in this country. Despite the fact our domestic champions have proved themselves the best in Europe, the sad fact is that we're not very good.

We delude ourselves. We are the emperor wandering round naked but admiring his new set of clothes, even if it does need ironing.

We con ourselves that the Premiership is the best league in the world. It isn't. One club in it is out-standing, a couple of bridesmaids pull each other's hair out for the bouquet and the rest are mere guests condescendingly invited to the wedding to flesh out the pictures.

To be brutally honest, Manchester United are tops in Europe despite, not because of, the English players in their ranks.

United have been successful because they have blended several nations better than NATO. Please tell me if you don't think their most effective players this season haven't been Danish, Dutch, Irish, Norwegian, Trinidadian and even Welsh (don't worry, I'll come on to them later, and I haven't forgotten the Sweaties either).

We think we're good but we ain't. Years ago, the thought of playing England at Wembley would have filled the Swedes with such dread that they would have been hastily pointing out that they were neutral in the war. The European nation with the biggest programme of recy-cling human waste to fertilise crops (which is why you should never eat salad in Sweden) would have been able to nourish a year's supply of barley and carrots on the prospect of playing England.

Instead they come and play us off the park. Sweden, for the love of Mike.

We're talking Volvos, Ace of Bass and Ikea furniture. Sweden haven't been scary since the days the populace wore hard hats with cow horns out the side.

Bulgaria. Where is it What does a Bulgarian do What does it eat

What I know about Bulgaria you could hide behind a stick insect's leg. But what I do know is that England could not beat ten Bulgarians on Wednesday night.

That's ten Bulgarians, if you missed it first time, or rather Hristo Stoichkov and ten others. Stoichkov runs the show in Bulgaria. They let him becuase he used to be good and he shares with Romania's Georghe Hagi the virtue of being the only two male footballers in the world to dis-play the symptoms of PMT.

For all I know, the Ten Bulgars might have been the only footballers in the country, wearing the only set of kit. But they looked half decent in it and they could play.

Because what constantly amazes me as I watch professional football week in, week out is how many players are one-footed.

I must declare an interest here. For years, people who only kick with their left-foot have been singled out as one-footed. Liam Brady, Norman Hunter, Micky Thomas, Eddie Gray were all lefties but nobody mentions how many right-footed players come off the pitch at the end of the game with a pristine left boot.

How many of them throw one half of a pair away every season because it hasn't been used We accept it but we damn well shouldn't. A one-footed player is only half a player.

If I could only type with one hand I'm sure the editor would pull me up. He'd have me back for extra training after work to make me practise with my weaker hand.

We're told David Beckham's dedication sees him prise himself away from Posh and Brooks to put in extra hours on the training field. To practice what Fine player that he is, Beckham is one-footed. His left foot is for stand-ing on and he will be reincarnated as a flamingo. But he's not alone. Just about every England player is one-footed, almost to the point of embarrassment.

Sol Campbell, the Neville brothers, David Batty, I have seen hermit crabs on a beach escaping seagulls make less convoluted sideways movements than this bunch do in trying to work the ball on to their one good foot.

Long John Silver and Douglas Bader were more two-footed than any number of England players. I'm old enough to remember those coaching manuals which taught you how to Be A Footballer from a book. The pictures were in black and white, the models wore boots over their ankles the goalkeepers wore ratting caps and roll-neck woollen jumpers grannie had knitted and the pictures were posed as if they were mannequins.

But risible as they may now seem to modern day football theorists all these old books stresed the importance of being able to kick a ball with both feet. It's damn well basic and that's why the technique of the vast majority of English players is way behind Johnny Foreigner.

On that basis, it doesn't matter who you stick in charge of the England team. Medieval alchemists failed to turn base metals into gold and I'm afraid the England football team have just become a research centre which has so far failed to crack the code which will enable silk purses to be manufactured from porkers' lugs.

In such a circumstance the England manager is about as much use as a handbrake on a canoe. He's on a hiding to nothing the moment he dons the tracksuit because we expect him to work miracles with Play Doh.

It doesn't help that the Taffs and the Jocks are even worse. I take no pleasure from the plight of Scotland and Wales. Scotland can't even beat a bunch of kipper-fisher-men while Wales are to football what Vanessa Feltz is to sensible dieting.

The last time they qualified for the World Cup they had to club their clothes coupons to buy the kit.

All this, don't forget, a week after England couldn't even qualify for the cricket World Cup Super Six on their own patch. It's rubbish, isn't it

You realise now, of course, that having said all this, England will beat Poland in September and sail into the Euro Championship finals. All will be forgotten.

England will stuff the words down the throats of the dismal johnnies and nay-sayers by winning the European Championships.

Yeah right, as sure as I am writing this while taking my fish for a walk riding a white bicycle.

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.