More of the same...

The appalling commercial abuse of the 'beautiful game' reared its ugly head once again this week, with the unveiling of England's new kits for this summer's World Cup in Brazil.

The new World Cup first kit

Two things incensed me enough to reach for the laptop and blog again. First the price. Apparently the new shirt is going to retail at £90. Yes, £90. That is nothing short of disgraceful. One footballer, QPR's Joey Barton, commented on his twitter page: "£90 for the new England shirt is taking the mickey out of the fans. When will it stop? Appalling. Football again allows commercialism to eat away at its soul. Something has got to give."

Quite right. Shadow Sports Minister Clive Efford was also quoted as attacking not only the price but the frequency with which kits are changed nowadays, which is the second thing I find unacceptable.

The new World Cup second kit

The latest (until now) England kit was unveiled only last May. That means it has lasted less than a year. That's just seven England football games. When it was launched (Nike had taken over the contract from Umbro) I naively assumed what they had come up with would at least see us through to the World Cup.

The kits that lasted less than a year

As I sat bemusing the shoddy state of football nowadays I was reminded of some comments made by Bob Wilson, the former Arsenal goalkeeper, who hosted the Saturday lunchtime Football Focus programme on BBC1 for twenty-odd years. Bob, who I think trained as a schoolteacher before taking up football, was always an articulate man who made sensible comments worth listening to.

I remember one occasion him bemoaning the fact that many teams now (this was probably in the 80s or, at a push, early 90s) changed their kits every three years or so. It would, he pointed out, put a burden on parents, whose footballing-loving offspring naturally wanted their favourite team's latest kit.

Every three years or so. Look at what happens now. It is, indeed, an indication of the awful creeping commercialism that, as Barton put it, is eating away at the soul of the game. What would Bob make of the scandalous state of kit changes today?

Nobody is listening...

Ever had a feeling of 'deja-vu'? You might, if you've been reading this blog.

Last weekend, FA Cup fifth round tie: Everton v Swansea, at Everton's Goodison Park.

Right. Everton, as every football fan knows, play in royal blue. Swansea, as most football fans will know, play in white. Fine. So, why do Swansea run out in their 'away' kit, which, for this year at least, comprises dark blue (almost purple) shirts with garish sections of yellow on them, and yellow shorts?

Yes, we've visited this rant before, when Spurs played Inter-Milan in a European tie. It can only be for commercial reasons. There aren't that many sides who play in white (which would necessitate a change of strip by the away team) so it must be that Swansea have to take every opportunity to play in their away kit, to please their sponsors - and particularly if the game is being shown live on ITV, of course.

Trouble is, those dark blue shirts (even with the hideous yellow section across the shoulder), surely constituted more of a 'colour clash' with Everton's royal blue than their standard all-white kit would have done.

If I was the referee for that game I would have gone into the dressing room and said: "Sorry, in my eyes this is too much of a clash - put your proper first kit on".

Frustration, frustration...

There are many things in modern life that serve to frustrate, annoy, and even exasperate.

One that regularly features in people's complaints is 'Call Centres'. In fact, to be more specific, the frustrating electronic bureaucracy one has to battle through whenever trying to sort something out on the phone.

As you might imagine (given that I am writing about it!) I have an example ready to hand.

Today I rang the company (for politeness they shall remain nameless) with which my daughter has a mobile phone contract. Now that she is earning she wants to take over the account.

I duly retrieved the paperwork from my filing cabinet. I then phoned. After what seemed an eternity of navigating through endless "if you want this, dial this" type options (Oh, for the days of a switchboard reply with a human being immediately at the other end!) I finally got to speak to a member of staff.

I confirmed the phone number. I gave my address. He asked for my previous address. Now, the paperwork WHICH I HAD IN FRONT OF ME clearly stated my present address. As a matter of random interest, it actually listed my two previous addresses (I moved twice in a couple of years). This means SOMEONE HAD, AT SOME POINT, TAKEN DOWN MY DETAILS CORRECTLY.

Yet, the unhelpful individual on the other end insisted that the address he had on the system didn't match. I pointed out the information on my paperwork was correct and that, therefore, the problem/fault was his ... or, rather, not his personally, but that of someone 'at his end'.

Banging my head against a brick wall would have seemed rewarding and worthwhile compared with the usefulness of this frustrating, time-consuming conversation. I am not blaming him personally, and I'm sure someone will point out that people like him have to endure the ire of grumpy people like me on the other end. He doesn't deserve that, but that's not the point.

In this case the problem was theirs, not mine - and yet, I now have to sort it out by going down to a local telephone centre and presenting two items of personal identification. I still don't know how easy it will then be to have the account transferred to my daughter. I am dreading more frustration.

We've lost an awful lot in this technological age.

There's nothing on!

"Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without the double-edition Radio Times!" How often have I said that in the past, or had others say it to me?

It has certainly been part of my Christmas traditions, for as long as I can remember, to buy the special Christmas edition as soon as it hits the news-stands. (For those of us who can remember further back, there was a time when you had to buy the Radio Times and the TV Times, as the former only published BBC TV and radio programmes; the latter covered ITV)

So it was, in the usual spirit of Christmas tradition, that I bought this year's edition.

But, I have to say, it was probably the worst investment of £3.20 I made this past festive season.

To borrow from Terry Wogan: "Is it me?" It just seems that Christmas TV isn't what it used to be. Perhaps the growth in quantity (of channels, that is) is directly proportional to the decline in quality. Perhaps the DVD/catch-up-TV-on-the-internet age has just dulled the excitement of a special film or Christmas TV special.

In the past part of the fun of buying the double-edition was glancing through and spotting well in advance the programmes or films you wanted to watch (or to record on VHS if you knew you wouldn't be in to see it). I recall my mum used to circle those things she most wanted to see.

Now each day takes up three double pages: terrestrial TV, then the freeview channels, and then the satellite channels. Even though I have no need for the third section (not having satellite) wading through everything else now becomes a major exercise. In some cases there is precious little detail because of the lack of space.

I'm not a Luddite: I watch DVDs, I watch stuff on the freeview channels (especially the excellent ITV3) and I occasionally watch stuff on the internet.

All the same, I can't help feeling we have lost something of the sparkle of TV at Christmas.

Feet ... you have two of them

In my twenties I was never anything more than an average Sunday league park footballer. I could claim I was obviously missed by the talent scouts ... but people wouldn't take that seriously.

But ... I could kick a football with both of the feet God has given me. Of course I had a 'stronger' foot (my right) with which I took penalties. But if, in a passage of play, it suited to pass with my left foot (or even shoot with it) I was competent to do so.

Professional footballers (and especially those who represent their country) who can only kick the ball with one foot have always irritated me. More importantly, though, I believe they will always be a liability at some point, either from an attacking or defensive point of view.

And yet pundits, sports writers and - crucially - coaches seem to ignore this. In the less forgiving world of an individual sport (like, say, tennis) if a player had an obvious weakness to their game the coaches would work on it to improve it. Does that not happen with football?

Take Leighton Baines, the left-back. I'm sure most pundits and sports writers would generally speak well of him when playing for England as he did last night (in the World Cup qualifier against Poland).

Baines is good when England are moving forward at pace. He is strong and tenacious, and has a more than decent cross on him (witness England's first goal). If he is facing the opponent's corner-flag he is fine.

But if the play slows down and Baines is turned (so that he has his back to the sideline) he immediately becomes a liability to the forward momentum of an attack.

Why? Because every time he gets the ball in a position like that he passes back to one of the central defenders. The reason he does this is because he is only willing to play the ball with his left foot. Even when a diagonal ball infield (to a midfielder or striker) with his right foot would be the better ball. When a diagonal ball infield would keep the passage of play flowing. Watch him the next time he plays.

England are often criticized for their inability to break teams down. One of the reasons for this is we don't move the ball around the pitch quick enough.

And Baines' steadfast refusal to play the ball inside with his right foot is one reason why that doesn't happen (there are others, of course).

Coaches need to do their job properly. They should have him out on the training park and tell him he can only play the ball with his right foot until he is competent to do so. If a Sunday league park footballer can do it so can he.

Tasteless design

Honestly! Where on earth do football kit manufacturers get their designers from these days?

I am torn between concluding that, perhaps, many of them are using six-year-olds who like colouring things in at random; or that they are employing people who are permanently on mind-altering drugs.

Take, as an example, this year's offering from Liverpool of an away kit and a third kit (it's not enough, it seems, these days to have one 'away' kit; you have to exploit the punters' wallets by coming out with two). The 'first' away kit looks like a white shirt that someone has spilt oil on ... and then cut themselves. The so-called 'third' kit (left) looks like a child has drawn shapes on a piece of paper and coloured them in with whatever shade of pencil they could get their hands on. The tops of the socks don't even match. I am not the first to describe the whole thing as hideous.

If I were the manager of a football team I would have it written into my contract that I would have the final say on what kit my players were actually going to wear when representing the club.

And if anyone came up with tasteless disasters like this I would tell them to go back to the drawing board and come up with something simpler.

How on earth are we winning?

Is it just me?

Is anyone else beginning to wonder how on earth England are 2-0 ahead in the current Ashes series?

Our batting, particularly from the top four, has been nothing short of woeful. As I write, we are 56-3 in the second innings of the fourth test. That's eight innings out of eight in which we have made a poor start.

I guess our success in the first two tests can be put down to a combination of good bowling and poor batting on the part of the Aussies. In the second test, for example, we were 20-odd for 3 in the first innings and 30-odd for three in the second ... and yet still went on to win the match by a huge margin.

We rode our luck in the third test, when the rain interruptions helped us secure the draw that guaranteed the retention of the Ashes (as holders we only need to draw the five-test series). We will have to so some to avoid defeat in the current test.

Whatever the outcome of this game, it's time to change things. Ian Bell has batted well at five, and our tail as 'wagged a bit' with the bat: It's the top four who have let us down. They are the guys who are meant to build an innings. It's a blessing to have someone like Broad, who can come in at eight or nine and regularly score 20-30 runs. However, it would be nice if he came in with 400 on the board - not 200. England have yet to make 400 in this series: another statistic that seems remarkable, given our 2-0 lead.

Root and Trott are at the heart of the problem, although even captain Alaistair Cook has been below his best. We need a fresh approach for the final test.