Liverpool FC and a history of fashion disasters

Liverpool  - a city that is not only home to  one of  football’s  most decorated clubs but also to The Beatles, one of the style  icons of the twentieth century. Once upon a time it was also the European city of culture. However, as the following pics show, football and style clearly haven’t mixed. Liverpool FC is guilty of some of the worst fashion crimes ever in sport…

Away kit 1989

Check out this monstrosity from the 80s. The ludicrously short shorts are especially worrying.

Goalkeeper Kit 1995-1997

I  know that goalie kits during the 1990s were particularly awful (remember Aston Villa?!) but this has got to be up  there. Can only hope it put off lots of oppositon strikers…

FA Cup Final 1996

It didn't get much better pre-match either. Who can forget the infamous cream suits that the Spice Boys  wore to the Cup Final. What were they thinking?!

Goalkeeper kit 1999-2000

Francis Jeffers was so offended by this kit that he entered a fit of rage and chose to pick a fight with  Sander Westerveld.

FA Cup Final 2012

A Wembley Cup Final remains one of the most prestigious events a football manager can attend with members of the royal family often being in attendance. As a result, most managers tend to rock up in their best suits (see Robert di Matteo in the middle). Not Kenny Dalglish though, who thought it appropriate to turn up in waterproofs and tracksuit.  I think he’s finally realised his mistake here.

Brendan Rodgers 2013

There aren’t many people that can pull off a black suit, black shirt and black tie. Usually they’re tough, big and menacing. I’m thinking nightclub bouncers or the Italian Mafiosi. I doubt Brendan Rodgers  fits any of  those categories… Fortunately, a player’s arm blocks out some of the  image.

Away Kit 2013-14 (1)

Even Liverpool  players aren’t impressed  by this kit which more resembles a Christmas jumper.

Away Kit 2013-14 (2)

When players aren’t wearing the kit above they’ll wear this number instead, which clearly has taken inspiration from the seat covers on the London tube.

Is it time to for Bell and Trott to swap places in the England battingorder?

Quick single, a photo by Treflyn on Flickr.

The form of England’s opening three batsmen has been particularly worrying so far this summer. At the time of writing (prior to the fifth Ashes test), Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott hold series averages of 27.25 and 24.25 respectively with Joe Root’s average of 37.14 being severely skewed by a fortune filled innings at Lords (which he nevertheless capitalised on very well). Add to that an out-of-form Matt Prior, a Kevin Pietersen who clearly isn’t match sharp, and Jonny Bairstow’s mixed series, and the batting lining up is looking especially fragile right now.

Various commentators and pundits have had their say about who should be dropped and who should be brought in. For me, I’d be reluctant to change the personnel. I think the current batting line-up is actually quite strong and with another Ashes series only a couple of months away, there’s not enough time to blood in new players. Instead, I think a change in the batting order might do the trick and I’d be inclined to swap Bell and Trott round.

The poor starts from the top three have put huge amounts of pressure on Kevin Pietersen. He’s had to play more contained innings than normal and that’s stopped him from imposing himself on the Australian bowlers as much as he normally would do. Besides, KP is a dreadful starter at the best of times so coming in with England say 20-2 can’t help with the nerves, especially when he’s already short of match practice. By putting an in-form Bell in at 3 (where he has had some success before), it will hopefully mean that England have a few more runs on the board before Pietersen comes in. KP will then have more freedom to play his natural game which in turn should help England clock up more runs than they have been doing recently.

However, I also think England could really benefit from having Trott coming in at 5 as well. Since Paul Collingwood’s retirement following the 10/11 Ashes series, the England middle order has been badly lacking in balance. Various players have been tried out in Collingwood’s middle order slot including Eoin Morgan, Ravi Bopara and Jonny Bairstow. Unlike Collingwood, all are predominantly attack-minded batsmen who like to score runs quickly. This isn’t necessarily a problem as long there’s somebody else in the middle order who’s comfortable either occupying the crease or batting out time. The rest of England’s middle order consists of the likes of Pietersen, Bairstow and Prior – players that naturally like to play shots. For that reason I thought Joe Root was the perfect choice at no. 6, able to provide a solid defensive unit as and when required. Indeed, he had shown great form in that position before being promoted up the order.

By putting Jonathan Trott in Bell’s current slot at 5, some kind of balance could be restored to the England middle order once more. Furthermore, it would give Bairstow an experienced player to bat with which obviously wouldn’t be the case if Root was moved back down the order.

Now, hopefully Cook and Trott will score bags of runs at the Oval this week and this discussion will become completely unnecessary. Nevertheless, if their poor runs of form continue, a tweak of the batting order should certainly be considered.

Rubbish football chairmen – how not to run a business

Have they gone?, a photo by jazzebbess on Flickr.

As much as I love football, I seem to spend a lot of time moaning about it. With the season having just finished I thought it was therefore appropriate for me to have my last moan of the season. In this article I look at some of the worst decisions made by football chairman in recent years. It’s amazing to think that most of these individuals got their jobs because they apparently had business acumen…

Peter Risdale (Leeds United and Cardiff City)

In 1997, Peter Risdale became Chairman of his hometown clubs Leeds United and during his tenure helped Leeds reach the semi-finals of both the UEFA Cup and the Champions League. He also provided the financial backing that enabled Leeds to buy high profile players such as Rio Ferdinand, Robbie Fowler, and Robbie Keane. However, this short-term success was achieved off the back of some pretty disastrous financial planning. Under Risdale, Leeds borrowed £60m against future gate receipts, assuming that the club would continue to qualify for the Champions League and gain all the financial riches associated with it. As soon as Leeds failed to qualify for the Champions League problems began. Star players had to be sold to pay off the debt, contributing to their relegation from the Premiership and even more financial losses. By the time Risdale stepped down from his position, Leeds were £78 million in debt (despite selling £52 million worth of players).

The story doesn’t end here though. In October 2006, Risdale become Chairman of Cardiff City but under his stewardship the club faced five winding-up orders from the taxman. He eventually sold the club to a Malaysian consortium in 2010 with the club being £66 million in debt at the time. Risdale’s now the Chairman of Preston North End. Third time lucky? We can only hope…

Gillett and Hicks (Liverpool)

In February 2007, George Gillett and Tom Hicks bought Liverpool F.C. with their main priorities being to bring silverware back to the club, and to build a new stadium for the club in nearby Stanley Park. The pair were meant to usher in a new period of growth for the club without the excesses and debt associated with the Leeds United-Risdale debacle a few years earlier. However, Gillett and Hicks seemed to do everything they could do to destabilise the club. Owing to financing issues, the promised stadium was never built; and the pair became engaged in high profile public spats with Chief Executive, Rick Parry, and manager, Rafa Benitez. The pair also saddled the club with considerable debt, primarily resulting from the failure of Gillett and Hicks to meet interest payments on the loans taken out as part of their leveraged buy-out of the club. Indeed, by the time that Liverpool was eventually sold to the Fenway Sports Group in 2010 (a move Hicks tried to block) the club had debts worth £200 million.

The Venky’s (Blackburn Rovers)

In November 2010, the Indian based Venky’s poultry conglomerate bought a 99.9% stake in Blackburn Rovers. One of their first moves was sacking manager Sam Allardyce even though the team were 13th in Premier League and comfortably clear of the relegation zone. They replaced an experienced and reliable manager with Steve Kean, a member of the Blackburn backroom staff who had little previous managerial experience. It was no surprise that the club was relegated from the Premiership at the end of the 2011/12 season. However, the Venky’s have come into their own this season (2012/13) having sacked three different mangers in the space of 12 months – a feat not even Roman Abramovich has yet achieved. Unsurprisingly then, Blackburn finished the 2012/13 season 17th in the Championship, a far cry from where the club was at the time of the Venky’s takeover.

The Venky’s are also noted for some other eccentricities including their inability to wear well-fitting suits (despite being very rich businessmen), promising to buy the likes of Raul, Van Nistelrooy and Ronaldinho, and forcing senior coaching staff to attend meetings in India at short notice.

Freddy Shepherd (Newcastle United)

It’s a tough job being a football chairman. Fans and managers will always come asking for more money but as some of these examples have shown, splashing the cash can itself cause real problems. However, there are things you can do to help yourself such as making sure you don’t alienate your customers and your key staff. This is where Freddy Shepherd failed spectacularly. During a ‘fake skeikh’ exposé from the News of the World, Shepherd was caught mocking Newcastle fans for spending lots of money on merchandise, described Newcastle female supporters as “dogs” and mocked Alan Shearer by calling him the “Mary Poppins of football.” Unsurprisingly, Shepherd soon resigned shortly after the story broke. Within six months however, he had voted himself back onto the board. Charming indeed.

Is the football world behaving more and more like the banking sector?

Debt word cloud, a photo by attorneyrobertflavell on Flickr.

English club football is currently in the middle of a major boom with clubs generally performing well in European competitions, consistently attracting the world’s biggest stars, and being able to sell itself as a modern and relevant brand on an international scale. The same was once said of the UK banking sector although as has been well documented, in recent years the sector has seen a very rapid fall from grace. However, as I attempt to show in this article, the English football industry is now being run in a very similar manner to the banking sector – something which could have serious implications for the football world going forward.

One of the main parallels that can be drawn between the top English football clubs and the major UK banks is that both seem to be run not in the interests of their owners but in the interests of their star employees, an issue picked up recently by James Moore in the i newspaper. Earlier this year RBS provided a bonus pot of £607m despite making a loss of £5.2bn. In a similar vein we’re seeing West Ham United posting a loss of £18.6m (albeit in the 2011 financial year) yet still paying £90k a week to Andy Carroll.

I’m not here to pass judgement on what footballers and bankers earn – ultimately if they’re able to command and secure that kind of wage then fair play to them. What worries me more is that star performers in the football world are being paid astronomical wages even in cases where they are losing their clubs tremendous amounts of money (e.g. through poor performances). This clearly can’t be sustainable in the long run. After all, the banking crisis has taught us that even the best regarded and highest paid workers can become complacent and rack up huge losses for their bosses.

Certainly I think there is reason to be concerned at the current state of football finances. The loss-making football club is now sadly becoming the norm. For instance, Fulham, an established Premier League club made a pre-tax loss of £5.4 million in 2011 and held debts totalling some £46 million. Even Liverpool, one of football’s biggest brands, held debts of £192 million in 2011. The banking crisis has shown that an industry can only handle widespread losses and debts for so long before serious problems emerge. After all, famous names like RBS (who incidentally are now backers to Liverpool and Fulham) needed state aid to survive while others like Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns simply went to the wall.

Hopefully, the football world will get its house in order before several of the major clubs begin to come under serious threat. There are two things that should ultimately stop English football from imploding in same way the banking sector did. Firstly, football clubs aren’t deemed too big to fail and won’t receive state bail outs – ultimately they know they have to sort themselves out or face the consequences.

Secondly, to some extent the problem has been identified early and measures are in place to address it. Most notably, UEFA will be introducing the financial fair play regulations which will aim to bring wage expenditure levels down to more sustainable levels. Clubs in theory will be rewarded for sound financial management rather than generating success through unsustainable spending levels. That essentially means though that we’re relying on Michel Platini to save English football. Worrying thought isn’t it…?

Could John Terry really be the next Chelsea manager?

John Terry, a photo by kkola917 on Flickr.

As has been widely reported in the football world, Chelsea will be looking for a new manager come the end of the season. Some bookmakers and football pundits have mentioned John Terry as a potential candidate albeit partly in jest. The more I think about it though, the more I begin to think that the absurd may just happen…

Ultimately I think there are four main factors that are likely to be at play.

1) The Chelsea job isn’t as attractive now as it has been in the past

For years the Chelsea job was one of the most coveted in European football. After all, they were one of the biggest spenders in Europe, regularly challenged for silverware both domestically and in Europe, and had a squad containing some of the best payers in the world. Now though, Chelsea is regularly outspent by PSG and Manchester City, is no-longer guaranteed Champions League football, and has an ageing squad that ultimately requires a major overhaul. Given all that, the Chelsea job really isn’t as attractive as it was even 2-3 seasons ago.

Ultimately, Chelsea can no longer attract the calibre of manager that they once could, meaning that they’ll almost certainly have to the give the job to a young and relatively inexperienced manager. Appointing Terry as manager suddenly starts to feel a lot less outrageous.

2) Abramovich’s desire to make an appointment popular with the fans

Over the past season, the Chelsea board have made several decisions that have angered many Chelsea fans. First of all there was the sacking of fan’s favourite Roberto di Matteo, then there was the appointment of Rafa Benitez, and adding to all this has been the perceived unwillingness to provide Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole with new contracts.

Abramovich may feel under pressure to go on a charm offensive with the Chelsea fans and is possibly why ex-legends such as Gus Poyet and Gianfranco Zola are being so heavily linked with the Chelsea job. However, John Terry would most certainly be the appointment that would play most to the hearts of Chelsea fans. If Abramovich decides that he needs to improve his own image, then appointing John Terry becomes a very logical choice.

3) Abramovich’s relationship with managers

Over the ten years that Abramovich has been in control of Chelsea, the club has had ten different managers. That is a very high turnover under anyone’s definition. Chelsea are very much becoming like Real Madrid (or a less extreme Blackburn Rovers)in that managers can only really expect their appointments to be very short term, regardless of their reputation. This will undoubtedly put many managers off the job, especially as it’s obvious that it’s going to take at least 2-3 seasons to rebuild the currently ageing squad.

Abramovich may therefore have little choice but to make an internal appointment and with his relationship with Terry having seemingly improved in recent months, picking the skipper as manager may not be so far-fetched.

4) The John Terry camp

All the rumours about John Terry becoming the next Chelsea manager could end if Terry himself declared that he had no interest in the job. However, it seems that the John Terry camp is doing nothing of the sort. They seem to be doing everything in their power to make Terry appear more authoritative and the real leader of Chelsea. You only have to think of his lobbying for a Frank Lampard contract extension and his remarks in a recent interview where he stated “I would do anything for Chelsea. We all want to win things and we must give these fans something to cheer and fight for.”

Perhaps I’m reading too much into it but this instinctively has the feel of someone of someone trying to bolster their position within the club – maybe the Terry camp is preparing for a shot at the top job?

At this stage, John Terry clearly isn’t a front-runner for the job this summer. In my opinion, Mourinho or Poyet are the two most likely candidates but there’s a real possibility that Chelsea may fail to land neither. If the Man City job becomes available then the Special One may opt for that for instead while Poyet may want to stick with Brighton if they secure promotion at the end of the season. If those two are out then Terry may suddenly be the only man that fits all the criteria that Abramovich is likely to look for in his new manager…

Is it time to give free school meals students a free breakfast too?

Healthy Breakfast, a photo by chrisdonia on Flickr.

A few weeks ago I was discussing the subject of free school meals with a colleague who has good knowledge of school and education policy. In particular, we were discussing proposals from Blackpool Council to provide all primary school students with free breakfasts, regardless of their family income. We landed up discussing the merits of rolling the policy out nationwide with him even suggesting that children eligible for free school meals (FSM) should be given three free meals at school. While I wasn’t able to agree with him to that degree, I did feel that giving FSM eligible students both breakfast and lunch had some mileage. I’ve therefore decided to run with the idea for this article.

There are well stated educational benefits associated with ensuring that children are well-nourished. Children with balanced and nutritional diets tend to demonstrate improved attention, discipline, and self-esteem (see for example this Institute for Education report). Further research has also begun to suggest that having a nutritious breakfast in particular can be hugely beneficial to an individual’s school performance (see for instance this Livestrong article which I’m assuming is far less deceitful than the organisation’s founder…)

Currently though, those on FSM only receive one meal at school (usually lunch) which may well mean that the outputs and outcomes from the provision of free meals are not being fully maximised. In particular, if for whatever reason children are receiving either no breakfast or poor quality meals in the morning, then a free nutritious lunch may only have minimal impact. Given all this, it strikes me as being sensible to give those on FSM two decent meals a day rather than just the one.

Inevitably, there are cost implications associated with increasing the number of meals provided through the FSM programme. However, I still believe it could be affordable as it need not represent an excessive additional cost burden.

Speaking admittedly only from personal experience, breakfast is the cheapest meal of the day both if bought ready made on the high street, or if made at home. Cereals, breads, yoghurts, and fruits are all relatively cheap foodstuffs and there will of course be savings for schools from bulk buying. Indeed, were school canteens to offer breakfasts to non-FSM students at cost price, some of the outlay could be recouped. With the savings associated with bulk buying, parents might find it cheaper to have their kids fed at school than at home. The addition of some paying customers could make the extension of FSM more financially viable.

Furthermore, one of the problems associated with delivering Jamie Oliver style school lunches has been that many schools have lacked the cooking equipment and facilities to produce meals on site, entailing higher costs through the installation of new facilities or having meals made off site. However, putting together what could largely be cold meals is altogether more straightforward. Water urns could still allow hot parts to meals though hot drinks and porridge etc.

Now obviously, I’ve not properly costed any of this but my instinct tells me that giving FSM students a free breakfast could be cost-effective and hugely beneficial. I certainly hope that it’s an idea that becomes far more prominent and given greater thought.

Has the time come to scrap Top Gear again?

jeremy clarkson, a photo by thebenjsc_ on Flickr.

Over the Christmas holidays I found myself killing the odd spare hour or two by watching old episodes of Top Gear on Dave. All very enjoyable and initially put me in the mood for the start of the new series this month. However, my opinion’s changing and the more I think about it, the more I’m starting to think that it might be time to retire Top Gear in its current format completely.

It’s worth stating at the outset that I’ve been a huge Top Gear fan over the years. It’s provided me with countless hours of entertainment on Sunday evenings and as you've probably gathered already, I've been known to regularly watch repeats on Dave. Furthermore, for all the criticism I level at the programme in this article, I’ll still be watching the new series this year. However, Top Gear has in recent series become far too formulaic, predictable, and repetitive which beggars the question, is it still worth having new series of it?

One of the things I’ve always loved about Top Gear is that it’s always looked to be daring with its stunts and has always tried to come up and new and imaginative features. What other programme for instance would look to turn a mini into a space shuttle, drive around Alabama in a car emblazoned with ‘Hillary for President’, or try and create a convertible people carrier. The problem now is that the Top Gear team seem to be running out of ideas and new things to try out. Being daring now seems to involve dropping things from helicopters every other episode, or launching misguided rants against Mexicans. It’s all becoming more than a little repetitive, so much so that Top Gear is becoming as predictable as the plot of your generic Hugh Grant rom-com.

One of the other things that always made the show stand out was the chemistry and banter between the three presenters. Now though, the jokes between seem far more contrived and are repeated time and time again. Most episodes will poke fun at Hammond’s height, May’s slow driving and pedantry, and Clarkson’s love of power tools. It was all pretty funny in the first few series but the same jokes have essentially been used in every episode for the last ten years and are starting to wear thin. All very reminiscent of what happened to Shooting Stars (okay, that’s maybe a little harsh – nothing can be as painful as the last series of Shooting Stars…)

Hardcore fans will maintain that a bad episode of Top Gear is still better than most other things on TV right now and I must admit it’s difficult to argue against this. However, it’s clear that Top Gear’s been declining in quality in recent years and I think there’s something to be said in retiring the current version of the show while it still has credibility. Top Gear USA has shown that the format still works - it’s possible that a new set of presenters might just reinvigorate the UK show and make it feel less dated.

Will the BBC tweak Top Gear? I doubt it. After all, the BBC rakes money in by selling Top Gear rights internationally. Shouldn’t complain too much though – if all else fails, I still have Dave…