Right to turf out the old stadium but new pitch shames the FA

David Mellor
22.04.09

I have two problems with the FA Cup semi-finals; they shouldn't have been at Wembley, and the pitch is awful. Not quite bad enough, mind you, for Alex Ferguson to claim he played his reserves because he couldn't risk his top men on such a surface - it's the way he tells them! - but unacceptable nonetheless.

It seems all the Football Association have done at Wembley is substitute a grisly old stadium with a perfect pitch for a state-of-the-art new one with a field more suitable for Farmer Brown's cows than football.

As Arsene Wenger said on Monday, not much of a return for £800million is it?

The FA don't do shame, but it is shaming, particularly as someone should have suspected from the outset the turf could have been a problem.

A new system needs to be installed urgently, and if that means no more rock concerts etc, at least while the pitch is bedding down, so be it.

Moving on, Wembley should be the final destination, not a mere staging point en-route to the final. Of course, the fact 88,000 fans watched each game, far more than could have been accommodated elsewhere, is a plus but it still diminishes the final. But then again, perhaps I'm just an old fart.

Whether it was the pitch, arrogance, or that he's only prepared to lift the trophy on his own terms that caused Ferguson's team selection, who can say, but it's a terrific piece of luck for Chelsea.

Everton are a well-organised side where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, but the simple truth is, they won't give Chelsea the kind of game United would have done.

The Chelsea versus Arsenal semi-final was a cracker, extremely well refereed by Martin Atkinson. 

The United-Everton encounter was dire, a bad game made worse by the fusspot refereeing of Mike Riley.

Why do they still give him big games?

After some flukey wins in the Premier League, a near disaster against Porto, and Sunday's defeat, United are at best stumbling towards the title.

How those Chelsea players who care about winning things - which isn't all of them by any means - must be regretting the many dropped points at home early on, and that inept display at White Hart Lane last month.

This season could - and should - have been so very different for them.

* Charlton have been humiliatingly relegated to the old Third Division. It's as if the triumphant return to The Valley, which all London applauded, and the Alan Curbishley Premier League years never happened.

When Tony Banks and I launched the Football Task Force a decade ago, The Valley was the obvious choice, with fans on the board, and success built on endeavour rather than the flashing of obscene amounts of cash.

Sadly, for months the Charlton board, having failed to sell the club last year, have seemed bereft of energy and ideas, and content to make do with a third rate manager. There was no plan B, unless you count failure.

One man ensured there would be no repeat of Hillsborough

Even if it's hard to accept only the police were to blame for Hillsborough, Liverpool's commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the tragedy was deeply moving.

I remember that Saturday well. My elder son and I went by train to watch Chelsea play at Leicester. The train went on to Sheffield, and was packed with Liverpool fans going to Hillsborough. I've often wondered if some of those I saw enjoying the spring sunshine that morning while looking forward to the match ever made it back.

Who did what that day remains highly contentious. Thankfully what is not in dispute is that a Hillsborough can never happen again. Lord Chief Justice Taylor's report, and the Government's insistence that football implement it, made sure of that.

At first I disliked Taylor for his patronising attitude towards our game. But however much he showed his disdain for the stench of hotdogs and fried onions, and a game he thought far too rooted in the past, his report was penetrating in its clarity about what needed to be done. 

It's sad he didn't live to see football's resurrection, but leukaemia carried him off in his mid-60s.

Not long before he died, as the minister responsible for this, I consulted him on whether all terraces should be banned. He thought they had to go in the top two divisions, but, generally, could remain in the lower two.
I gratefully accepted his advice, and have never regretted doing so.

Peter Taylor was a well-rounded fellow who was almost as good a pianist as he was a lawyer. A man, in short, who brought the law into repute, which isn't an easy thing to do.

F1 is still in a mess

Predictably, the FIA have cleared double diffusers. If they hadn't the Formula One season would have been wrecked. But, for my money it is still in ruins.

Let's face the facts. Jenson Button, who had previously won once in more than 150 starts, has this season won two of the first three. Why?

Mainly because his Brawn car has diffusers and most of the rest don't. Red Bull, who finished first in Shanghai on Sunday, have never previously won a Grand Prix.

Ferrari, a dominant force for years, don't have diffusers, and so far haven't got a point.
It's all arse about face, as if West Brom were leading the League and Manchester United were bottom. How Bernie Ecclestone must be regretting the latest set of rule changes. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But he tried, and the consequences are there for all to see.

Pakistan should accept fate

Amazing but true, the International Cricket Council have made a decision. Led, if that description is not an offence against the Trade Description Act, by that prince among fumblers, David Morgan, they have pulled the plug on holding the 2011 World Cup in Pakistan.

But then, they had no choice. Even Morgan, the arch panderer to Zimbabwe, couldn't sustain a tournament in a country where only weeks ago a visiting Test team was raked with bullets.

It would be nice to think the Pakistanis too accepted the inevitable. But they haven't, with leading figures in Pakistan cricket queuing up to denounce the ICC. Coach Intikhab Alam went so far as to say it was “unjust for Pakistan to be singled out” — but where else are teams attacked with machine guns.

The only way for Pakistan cricket to rescue its reputation is to wise up to the sad reality of Pakistan's present state, and get their government to do something effective about the appalling security situation within the country.
But there's precious little sign of that at the moment.