Freddie to steer England in first test

The ECB have moved quickly to quash rumours that Andrew Flintoff has been installed as the England team’s official bus driver.

The ECB felt that having entrusted Freddie with marshalling the middle order, spearheading a weakened bowling attack and leading an inexperienced team in the absence of Michael Vaughan, driving a retired nineteen fifties Leyland London Bus on the bustling streets of the sub continent would be asking too much of their star man.

With the squad depleted of established test quality players, Flintoff will lead England for the first time in the first test against India, starting on Wednesday.

However, the ECB were keen to play down the mounting pressure on their emergency leader. They also claim that there is no truth in the suggestion that Flintoff was being considered for the role of carving Ian Bell’s chicken Tikka Masala.

Hacks – the fifth emergency service

The explosion ringing in your ears, your heart pumping and rattling in your ribs, and sweat is dripping from your brow thanks to years of over indulgence and a cocktail of fear and excitement. You are running, faster and faster, against the fleeing crowd to the heart of the action flanked by Firemen, police chewing doughnuts and paramedic team – congratulations you are a first responder – you are a journalist.

Reassuring then that the next generation of the fifth emergency service were overcome with emotion watching a jumpy video of a mini police riot followed some pornographic radio commentary from the grand old US of A.

All it took was a few Italian police to put a boot in on some soap dodger and the cream of the nations aspiring hacks had sweaty palms and were overcome with “terror”, “confusion” “fear” and loss of self control. No hope of objective reporting any time soon then.

I on the other hand was thinking, cool. I fear that years of studying volcanic eruptions that obliterate everything and everybody, floods that wash away people’ homes and earthquakes that wipe out the population of a small town, has left me a little tainted.

We geographers you see are only interested in something if a good few people have died a horrible death, swept away by a lahars or plyroclastic cloud. We are not moved by scenes of police brutality – that’s just Euro 2000 rehashed without the water cannons.

I refused to join in the game of wow – check out my vocab. I did something worse. I did nothing at all. I bottled it. You see there is something quite scary about being the only dissenting voice in the crowd and you guys scare me. That is why I write. Because speaking out in person is confrontational. Doing it in print is a source of debate.

Sir John Keegan or Kevin Keegan?

When Kevin Keegan took the job as England manager he had a big reputation and plenty of ideas. At the start he promised flair and passion but in the end he delivered vary little. His intentions were good, but his execution lacked a sound tactical know-how and, ultimately he came second to the German's attention to detail.

This in essence is Sir John Keegan’s problem. He has a good idea. An insight into the character of Donald Rumsfeld, the world’s most powerful military man, shapes to be an interesting read. Anybody working in that position must have a story to tell.

And despite a shaky headline, the ageing Alan Shearer up front if you will, the notion is a sound one. The standfirst, although a little long, provides intrigue and breadth and promises a revelation or two.

But, like Kevin before him, when the time came to shine, to set alight the readers senses with the most vital part of any feature, the introduction, Sir John was found wanting. A mass of irrelevant historic information, which would perhaps mean more to an American audience, does not promise a road to glory. His introduction is the writing equivalent of a first minute own goal.

He follows this shambles by diverting the reader to a golden age, his own experiences, to give greater clarity of explanation. This, so I am lead to believe, is more Glen Hoddle than Big Kev, but work with me here. And either way it didn’t work.

Sir John has a momentary reprieve in the second block, a spell of pressure in footballing terms, where things promise to get better. His use of nicknames and setting the scene with a personal encounter brings him momentarily back into the features genre, and the crowd back on side.

But the lack of any un-doctored or interesting quotes shows that, like England under Keegan, he is relying on luck rather than technical ability or understanding.

As a reader I felt let down by broken promises. I couldn’t help but wonder, where was the feature I was promised? So, I lost interest and hope and started to pray for penalties, or a last minute reprieve.

Now, everybody knows that England are not too good in these situations. But, Sir John briefly promises some hope with some reflection and quotes to provide so real content. Then, like England, Sir John looses the plot. A Jerry Springer sign off is as American as they come, and all hope is gone.

The final whistle is a small mercy. The end brings a relief and disappointment. Kevin Keegan lacked the technical knowledge to make it work and Sir John followed suit. As a good history writer he should take his archaic essays and read them to Kevin Keegan – together as relics of the 70s.