We've got every right as fans to pour scorn on Cashley

David Mellor
15 Oct 2008

According to a Football Association spokesman, it was "crazy" for England fans to boo Ashley Cole after his howler gave away a goal at Wembley last Saturday. I say it's crazy for some puffed-up mouthpiece insulated from reality at Soho Square to expect anything different.

Cole is not popular and he only has himself to blame for that. The way he left Arsenal made many supporters think, to recall a famous American jibe, that he had all the qualities of a dog except loyalty.

This arrogant so-and-so truly entered the fans' Hall of Infamy when he airily dismissed an offer from Arsenal of £55,000 a week as "taking the piss".

Not just on the phone, mind you, but in a book. How brazen is that? So 'Cashley' will never get the benefit of anyone's doubts and, you know, he doesn't deserve to.

We fans pay our money and we take our choice about who to cheer and who to jeer. That's our right and it's about time that the FA came to terms with it.

Cheers have to be earned, not imposed by FA apparatchiks. Far better for them then, instead of ticking us off, to take Cole to one side and suggest he does something to rectify his awful reputation, though that clearly can't be changed overnight.

Tonight, a Cole-free England take on Belarus in Minsk in what could be a tough game.

It is disappointing how shapeless England looked in the first half on Saturday against Kazakhstan. Fabio Capello is said not to be bothered by reputations but he obviously is.

Otherwise, why did he play Steven Gerrard, who is struggling to put in a decent performance for England? He should warm the bench tonight.

It is also troubling how much England miss John Terry. Of course the captain is immense but central defenders will regularly be injured or suspended.

So it is deeply depressing that a team with England's supposed depth of resources can't do better than Matthew Upson as a stand-in. He was a fish out of water on Saturday and will have to do better tonight against a much more nimble Belarus attack.

With Emile Heskey good at everything except scoring goals, England are still a surprisingly limited outfit, despite all the confidence Capello has instilled.

Behind all the bravado, he knows that a draw tonight would not be a bad result and, anything better, a real bonus.

* The FA prattle on about Respect, so how about showing some to the fans. Referee Stuart Attwell made a truly grotesque error in allowing a goal that blatantly never was in last month's Watford-Reading game. A lengthy period of obscurity would have been appropriate given the outrage supporters rightly felt about something that couldn't be written off as one of those things that happen. Instead, the FA have nominated him for the FIFA list, supposedly the preserve of top international referees. Respect? Don't make me laugh.

Tour must ignore Armstrong and put clean claim to the test

Bernhard Kohl surprised everyone by finishing third in this year's Tour de France and, as a result, pocketed a lucrative new contract with one of the top cycling teams.

Now we know the reason; the Austrian journeyman was a doper, using a new blood booster, CERA, once regarded as untraceable. Congratulations to the French authorities for returning to old samples as new tests become available. It can't be easy, given the prestige of the Tour de France, to keep on proving how bent the race is but all credit to them. 

Lance Armstrong, the seven-times Tour winner whose career has been shadowed by controversy as to whether he used drugs, was offered the chance to have his past samples checked with the new techniques — he refused.

Cynics will say, no surprises there. Perhaps the only cause for astonishment is, given their laudable ruthlessness in getting to the truth, the French scientists didn't just do the test anyway.

They should have, as this is now more than just an academic issue, since Armstrong has announced his return to competition and is hoping to compete in the Tour next year.

Turf out gridiron gang

Last autumn's decisive England game against Croatia was not made any easier by the dreadful state of the Wembley pitch because of damage caused by an American Football game.

That should have put an end to the FA's willingness to prostitute our national stadium in this way, but not a bit of it. The NFL is back next week.

I thought the turf was cutting up far too readily during the Kazakhstan match. Heaven knows what it will look like after the Yanks have finished with it.

My fear for unhappy Valley

When the late Tony Banks and I launched the Football Task Force a decade ago, The Valley was the obvious choice because everything we wanted to promote in football seemed to be practised at Charlton. Since then things have changed for the worse.

They are out of the top flight and struggling to get back. And the club's board seem to have given up on what they now seem to regard as the unequal struggle.

A while ago the board were boasting about their shirt sponsorship from Spanish property company Llanera, and they then went bust.
Let's hope they've made a better choice this time.

Get over it, Fernando

What a sad person Fernando Alonso has become. The former champion was reduced this week to saying he will do all he can to help Felipe Massa, a fellow Spaniard driving for a rival team, to beat Lewis Hamilton to the F1 title.

I know it's naive to talk about rules in a sport as suspect as F1 but drivers should compete fairly with each other, not gang up on one they don't like for personal or nationalistic reasons.

Alonso should be disciplined but I'm not holding my breath.