Are England too thick to win anything?
Date published: Monday 11th July 2016 9:44
Before I start, I have to say something. Never having met a top-flight English footballer since running into Middlesbrough defender John Craggs in my local chippy in 1974, I have no idea if any of what youâre about to read is true or accurate. Itâs one manâs view. He may be totally wrong or deluded. To me, it rings true, but then it might just be confirming my existing prejudices. But I do think itâs very interesting, and it does make some sense. So with that caveat in mind, I shall begin.
Recently I met a man that I know â in the course of his profession for the last 15 years â comes into regular contact with Premier League players most days of each week. Over a few drinks, he told me that in his view, English-born footballers were âalmost always the most stupidâ of any he met.
When I asked him what he actually meant by stupid, he said: âLetâs just say theyâre very educationally undernourished. I wouldnât be surprised if their average reading age was about 10 or 11. Some read with their finger on the page, like a kid. Most of them are likeable and are nice lads, but you wouldnât want most of them on your pub quiz team. Itâs hard to talk to them about anything other than football, because they rarely know much about anything else and it always amazes me how intellectually incurious some are. They have no idea about current affairs at all. Some wouldnât know who the leader of the opposition was, in fact they wouldnât know what that term âleader of the oppositionâ even referred to.
âI know someone who worked at a top-flight club, heâd been to a Monet exhibition and mentioned this in passing one day, and one English player thought he meant it was an exhibition of money! Heâd never heard of the painter. Apparently, a couple of his European teammates were astonished at this, took the mick, which made the English lad really defensive and it opened up a bit of a rift from then on. Thatâs probably an extreme situation but it is indicative of a big strand of English football culture.â
He went on to say how the internal culture of English football sometimes seems to celebrate stupidity. âItâs like being stupid is cool, reading books and improving yourself intellectually is sneered at from an early age. Theyâd pay lip service to education in public, but thatâs all it is. There is a pervasive culture of anti-intellectualism amongst English players that there isnât amongst European players â or not the ones that come here, anyway.â
He pointed out that this was a self-perpetuating condition because anyone with any intellect or sensitivity would likely have drifted out of the game quite early, feeling like it was âa culturally hostile place and they donât want to put up with bullies and idiots who think humiliating practical jokes are funny; that sort of thing. We seem to specialise in producing grown men who often behave like silly boys well into their late 20s. When you come into it from the ârealâ world, it still feels quite like school, with a player hiding anotherâs shoes, or putting dog muck in his sock; that sort of thing.â
He said there were a few genuinely smart English players, and named a couple heâd met or known, but said they had consciously suppressed their intelligence and âpretended to be as thick as the rest of themâ in order to get on, saying that âsome British managers donât even like intelligent players because theyâre more likely to question their authorityâ.
âWhen theyâve retired, they tend to be the ones that make good pundits, because they donât have to pretend theyâre stupid anymore. But for years theyâd had to keep their head down and play dumb. A player once told me that he lied about what heâd been doing on a day off, saying heâd watched a trashy movie or something, when really heâd been reading the Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe, which is just a mainstream novel, itâs not exactly Will Self. But that was too âposhâ for âthe ladsâ. Can you imagine being in a workplace where you have to be dishonest, for fear of being thought clever and then ridiculed for it? And by clever, I donât mean really brainy, all I mean is just mainstream intelligent. Honestly, if you were reading the Telegraph, a significant amount of them would think you were like a university professor.â
He went on to contrast this to the European players he came into contact with. âTo a much greater extent, they just do stuff like regular people. Reading books, cooking, going for walks in the country, go to a gallery or museum, some will even go to the theatre. Not high-brow stuff, but they are just much more well-rounded, culturally. Not all of them, obviously, there are some knuckleheads, but far fewer as a percentage. Maybe the really thick ones stay at home.
âIâm not being snobbish about these lads. I like them. Theyâre often fun to be around and tend to be very generous with their time and money. They earn a lot and can live like they want to live. Fair enough. And they are really talented. Thereâs no doubt about that. But if youâre looking for reasons why England fail at tournaments, you need to look at this problem first. A lot of them donât have the intellect to understand in-game tactics. They tend to like just having one thing to do. Theyâre good at doing what theyâre told. Good at not thinking, in effect. Thatâs an asset to a club manager who has the overseas lads to be creative and do the brainy stuff. Club managers love a few who will run through a brick wall, rather than spot that you can just go around it, and the English lads are often great at that.
âBut as we saw again this summer, their in-game management talent seems almost non-existent. Thatâs where being intelligent matters. They do realise when itâs all going wrong, itâs just that they donât know what to do about it. Then they panic, know theyâre making a fool of themselves on a big stage, totally bottle it and as a result, lose the ability to even do the basics well.â
He mentioned several England players in the Iceland game as classic examples of this. âThe irony is, they are really good footballers, obviously they are. The problem isnât with their football talent, itâs with their minds. They just have this gaping void where their brains should be and that means they canât work out anything, when things go wrong. Theyâve been brought up to believe bravado beats brains from an early age, and sometimes that is a good asset in a player. But not when you have 23 of them all together at a tournament; itâs a recipe for disaster. Weâre not mentally fragile, weâre just easily confused when under pressure and canât work stuff out. I know that sounds harsh, and Iâm not saying it makes them bad people, because it clearly doesnât. But itâs still true and it does affect the teamâs performance.â
He quoted what Jens Lehmann had said a couple of weeks ago. âHe said something which the Germans take for granted, âeven on the pitch you must always be thinkingâ. Our lads donât do that. In fact, Iâd go as far as to say many canât do that. Thatâs not something a manager can fix because not thinking much is 100% of who and what they are. Itâs what made them successful to this point.
âSports psychologists should be able to help, but for some reason, they just bounce off most of the English lads. Maybe they donât take it seriously. It seems to goes in one ear and out the other. Some of them have learned to say the right things, to make it appear that theyâre on board with it, but itâs usually all a front. Mostly, theyâre default is fundamentally anti-intellectual and they sometimes mistrust anyone with learning, because those people always had the whip hand over them from an early age, so itâs a defensive âtheyâre not one of usâ mentality they have towards clever people. They probably donât even realise this themselves, but itâs very commonplace. Yet if anyone was to suggest this to them, all theyâd do is point to their money as justification for how they are. And, I suppose, theyâre right. Losing at tournaments doesnât seem to affect their earning powers and the way they are has made them very rich, so why would you even try to change?â
I asked him for a snappy quote for a headline to sum this all up.
âEngland: too thick to win.â
So there you have it. Is there anything in what he says? Is he right? Are we too thick to win? Is lack of basic intellect a hindrance for the national side, when push comes to shove? Do we rate bravado over brains in this country? Does big money make learning irrelevant? âThe best skill you can have is your brain,â said Thierry Henry about Didier Deschamps this weekend.
It might be an unfair comparison but if you read Harry Kaneâs words on Brexit against Giorgio Chielliniâs as reported here, itâs not hard to feel there must be something in it.
I think these are questions worth asking. And if it is in any measure true, perhaps the way ahead is to have a manager who can only play one way and who knows he has to keep it simple, stupid. Weâve tried cultured managers from Bobby Robson to Fabio Capello to Roy Hodgson. Clever sophisticates, all.
In so many areas of society right now, idiocy is the most valued currency. Idiocy is winning. Even intelligent people are dressing up as stupid and pretending learning is to be mistrusted. So maybe the FA should follow suit and just put a big stupid in charge.
John Nicholson