Laid To Rest

  Laid To Rest

Jamie Barnard on how English football must learn the lesson of Michael Johnson...

He had the world at his feet. But in one hand he clutched a pint glass, the other a wad of cash which belied his tender years if not his wondrous potential. At the age of 24 Michael Johnson’s football career has been laid to rest.

Queuing up to write the obituary were some of those that have played and managed at the top of the game. Roberto Mancini’s epitaph read: “He was a guy with a big talent. I am sad for this and for him, because he could do everything with his talent”. Johnson’s credentials already consigned to Manchester City’s past by their prosperous present.

Euthanasia or assisted suicide, Manchester City have terminated Johnson’s contract and paid off what remained of the five year deal that he signed in 2009. Back then, Johnson’s star burned bright, a product of a rejuvenated Manchester City youth academy. A hot prospect talked about in the same breath as Gascoigne, but the essence of that breath endures. Both stars burned to ashes, and the breath is tainted with alcohol.

Too much, too soon.  Johnson had it all. But such an assertion does not give reference to the virtues of his talent. Whilst blessed with the attributes to reach the very heights of the international game, and talent such as Johnson’s are gifted and not gained, his spoils became more financial than footballing. Handed a £25,000 per week pay packet at the age of 21, the bright lights and sounds of temptation and over-indulgence only served to mask the toll of death knocking at the door of Michael Johnson’s career.

“The guy has everything in front of him” Mark Hughes said. Little did he know that the everything he spoke of for his young star was material. Contrast this with the resigned statement released by Johnson himself in wake of the culmination of his career: “I am more disappointed than anyone but that’s the way it goes.” File alongside Messrs Collymore, Gascoigne, Merson. Supremely talented English products. Had it, yet lost it, all.

It was October 2006 when Michael Johnson burst onto the scene. The brightest hope of a club that had been to the darkest depths of its history, Johnson appeared to embody the new Manchester City; expectant, blessed and opulent. An eye for a goal, a killer pass, Johnson graduated with distinction from a class whose alumnus includes Hart, Onuoha, Ireland and Richards. On the terraces they prophesised, envious eyes were cast towards Eastlands, and Liverpool offered up £10million for his services.

They endure as nothing but anecdotes.

 Now when people talk about the passing of Michael Johnson it gives reference only to the traits he displayed only to fritter away: "An excellent player. Everyone thought he would become the next big star for England" Sven Goran Eriksson recently reflected. And in such high regard he was held by his team mates that he was christened ‘FEC’. The meaning? ‘Future England Captain’.

From FEC to RIP, Johnson was read his final rights at Leicester City. Loaned out for a season in Sven Goran Eriksson’s summer of free-spending, in exchange for £1million Leicester took delivery of an unfit and overweight Johnson. Shades of the former player remained. The strike of a ball, the touch and vision. Hidden beneath a bloated and tired façade were the remnants of a player. But having once chased the dream, Michael Johnson was now chasing shadows.

That loan deal was cut short less than six months later in January. The reason given an unspecified injury; vague in its nature yet mortifyingly ominous in its effect. Johnson returned to Manchester City only to collect the final nail for the coffin of his career.

To think what could, or even what should, have been paints a picture of Johnson’s future which is grim in its nature: “I have been attending the Priory Clinic for a number of years now with regard to my mental health and would be grateful if I could now be left alone to live the rest of my life” he says. The money, the fame, the power. Such mind-blowing things handed to him at such a tender age have seemingly ruined him.

Hopeful support for Johnson from the terraces never wavered, even in what are halcyon days for Manchester City, but the support off the pitch as he battled injury and exile was conspicuous in its absence. Mental health is not football’s consideration.

 The lessons are there, in that respect Johnson is no trail blazer. Just a couple of weeks since news of Johnson’s demise broke, even sadder news of Paul Gascoigne’s continued struggles were once again caught in that dilemma of being front or back page news. Gazza’s troubles are in their monotony no longer headline-makers, yet far from the footballing exploits which once upon a time peppered the back pages.

Football’s great solution is money. But money alone does not heal the ill mental health of a retired or injured pro trying to replace that kick, that euphoric rush of adrenalin, which only football brought to their life. The Professional Footballer’s Association speak of the money they have spent sending Gascoigne to clinics, the time and support they have given him in battling his addictions. He was the darling of the nation though; support for support for Gazza comes easy.

What about the rest?

Johnson’s predicament received publicity only because of what might have been. What he might have given us and the tragic ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybes’ of the potential he once displayed. In his autobiography Neil Lennon talks quite openly of the crippling depression he battled, alone, throughout his playing career. Lower down the football pyramid there must be players suffering the same afflictions he did. The same difficulties but without the same profile or platform to ask for help.
 
Through its promotion of organisations such as Sporting Chance the Professional Footballer’s Association is making strides in terms of the support it offers its members, but it needs to do more so that the path trodden by Johnson and Gascoigne is not taken by the next bright prospect England produces. Like no other football nation in the world, England produces world beaters who just can’t beat themselves.

Forty-seven years of collective hurt littered with individual suffering.

And so for Michael Johnson the goals now become of a tentative kind, to, in place of footballs, start kicking the habits that killed his career. The legacy he leaves may not be of the spectacular football kind once hoped for in his inauguration, but if English football can learn from the lesson of Michael Johnson it may be greater than he could ever have imagined.

English football would be mad not to heed the warning of Michael Johnson.

Run Of The Mill

Run Of The Mill

Jamie Barnard on how defeat at The Den for Leicester City exposed midfield deficiencies which could threaten their promotion bid...

 

Let em come, let em come, let em come, we’ll only have to beat em again. Well Leicester City came, and Leicester City were beaten. Again.

Recent history tells you that ‘The Den’ has been anything but a happy hunting ground for The Foxes, fresh in the memory resides the excruciatingly postponed nail in the coffin of last season so ruthlessly hammered in place circa mid-April in South Bermondsey. As hope sprung more ephemeral than eternal, for a fleeting moment those speculative ‘what ifs’ inhabited the creative mind of Leicester City fantasists. Such misconceived optimism habitual in its nature for a Leicester City fan.

But with admission to The Lion’s Den came a reality check, complimentary in price if not delivery from those lining the terraces to watch their tribal ‘Wall’. Leicester were soundly beaten 2-1. Turned over, out-fought, mugged off. Their season was ended the Millwall way, promotion hopes were evanescent.

To the Millwall fan, the footballing pleasures be simple. Honesty, commitment and effort. Base requirements and the essential building blocks of a team fit for the shift, fit for the shirt. In each of these areas Pearson’s side, if at that time only in name and not in nature, were left wanting. Glaring deficiencies highlighted in the stark contrasts to their adversaries.

Perennial underdogs, at Millwall Kenny Jackett has built a side with a bite every bit as bad as their bark. Just nine months on from that conquering of Leicester at The Den the more things seem to change, the more they stay the same. From hunting pack to promotion pack, Jackett’s men have flirted with the play-offs so strongly they look odds on to secure a date. From overpaid and underperforming, Nigel Pearson has built a team that on its day can beat any other in the division. Yet last Saturday Leicester were the latest to join the line of teams sent packing from The Den.

Déjà vu.

Whimsical, thoughtless, sterile. When Millwall took the battle to Leicester the response was as chilling as the December wind from Cold Blow Lane. Leicester withered. As the trademark vitriol rolled from the stands of the Millwall end, in the Leicester one the same question resounded countless times: where is Leicester City’s midfield enforcer?

Neat and tidy, at times Andy King and Danny Drinkwater can be two of the finest midfielders outside of The Premiership. In the scrap at The Den, they were afforded neither the time nor space to display such talents. When a midfield battle ensues, too often have they displayed a tendency to go to ground; not in the tackling sense. Give them possession and they are supreme, give them altercation and they are subdued. It is in times like these that Pearson needs that extra midfield dimension.

Cast into the shadows, the forgotten man, sent on loan to Bristol City, the name of Neil Danns has not been heard with such regularity since the post-match dissections of the Burton Albion League Cup horror show during which he was woeful. Later speaking on Danns’ absence from the team, Nigel Pearson reiterated the importance of togetherness, desire, professionalism and commitment. The implication was that Danns had displayed none. 

 

A man more likely to keep a congratulatory tweet than the ball, more likely to record a song for YouTube than a match-winning display, Danns is not the answer to Pearson’s problem. Energy he may have, right may be the things that he says online or in a paper, but when it comes down to it, with Neil Danns the end product is invariably flattery with a penchant for deception.

So to January Pearson must now look, and top of the bill must be a central midfielder wretched by nature but with the influence to help City win in his image. Leicester have to start winning ugly if they are to contend for the automatic promotion spots. Recent form has seen Leicester slip from the summit of the table down into the promotion pack through a propensity to play the intricate football that has seen them dominate opponents this season.

At times Leicester City have been unplayable, but in the heat of the battle at Millwall they melted again. A midfield general to master the battles that will win Leicester City the promotion war is all that Nigel Pearson wants this Christmas.

Standing Up To Be Counted

Standing Up To Be Counted

Jamie Barnard on how MPs vote on safe-standing presents football with an opportunity to move forward...

 

“Standing should never, ever come back. I do not think there is anything safe about standing”. They were the words of one woman, Margaret Aspinall, mother of Hillsborough victim James Aspinall. Few words, uttered by one woman, yet representative of the ignorant many. For those opposed to the return of standing at English football matches voices such as Margaret Aspinall carry the torch with no light.

This week the Football Supporter’s Federation hope to gain support from MPs for a small-scale trial of safe-standing at Premier League clubs. That’s the backing of MPs for a trial period of people being able to freely watch a football match stood on their feet rather than anchored in a plastic seat.

Safe-standing is the elephant in football’s room.

No-one is willing to talk about safe-standing but football supporters are beginning to stir. The elephant is becoming restless. In the dawning of the commercialisation of football with its soaring ticket prices, goal music and penchant for experience over atmosphere, out of the despair comes promise in the form of thirteen clubs backing this pilot scheme.

By no means a monumental number of The Football League’s ninety-two clubs, but nonetheless a start, safe-standing is at least now on the agenda twenty three years on from the horrors of Hillsborough.

Headway, albeit slow.

That English football move to all-seater stadia was a recommendation made in The Taylor Report which followed that tragedy in Sheffield in April 1989. In the twenty-three years that has passed since that report was published the face of English football has changed and, brandished unsafe, the terracing once found in football stadiums across the country has now become a rarity. In Peterborough’s London Road home, there remains just one ground in the top two tiers of English football with terracing.

For those wishing its return, the campaign for the re-introduction of standing at football matches in England has favoured progress over protest. Persuasive, considered, respectful. The argument for safe-standing is built on evidence not assumption, logic not speculation. Real, tangible working examples of how stadiums may be safely transformed are in existence, there to be tested and now here to be discussed.

Over in Germany ‘The Old Enemy’ are now safe-standing’s closest of allies. Every week at Bundesliga fixtures thousands of fans safely stand whilst watching matches. No incidents, no tragedies and a supremely favourable match day experience.

Contrast this to England, where Brighton & Hove Albion FC this month demonstrated quite spectacularly a deficiency in their understanding of their fan base in being the first club to come out against safe-standing: “The club does not support any move for safe standing in football... (on standing areas) a large percentage of the general football watching population are excluded because they would be unable to actually see the pitch. In turn, standing areas create the potential for poor behaviour to go undetected and unresolved.”

A choice.

The choice to choose whether or not to stand when watching football is all that an ever increasing number of football fans desire. A choice given or a choice taken, that will now be determined in Parliament. At every club, including Brighton & Hove Albion FC, fans are already standing in seated areas, speaking with their feet. But MPs now hold the power to give those people the opportunity to stand at matches unperturbed, and in facilities specifically designed for them to do so with railings and assigned positions with fold down seats.

There is nothing inherently dangerous about safe-standing, and this is the point that both Brighton & Hove Albion FC and people such as Margaret Aspinall neglect to see. If MPs back the trial of safe-standing they will not be accountable for a new Hillsborough, they will not burden clubs with the costs of installing compulsory standing areas, they will simply present the opportunity for clubs and fans to develop, through choice, a greater consumer experience together. And modern football after all is increasingly geared towards exactly that; the coveted and ultimate ‘consumer experience’.

In the twenty-three years that have passed since Hillsborough issues have become clouded. Outlawed because of safety concerns, from objectors now come unsubstantiated and speculative cries of costs, impeded views and unacceptable behaviour, all of which only serve to move further away from the point of why football fans are currently forbidden to stand during matches. In search of the truth, through reports, inquests and campaigns for justice we have passed. And now we have the truth: standing at football can be safe.

"There are 96 reasons why it should not be allowed," said Margaret Aspinall on safe-standing. In those who currently, and who would like to continue to, stand at football matches, there are thousands more reasons why it should.

 

Waghorn's Resurrection

 Waghorn's Resurrection

Jamie Barnard on how Martyn Waghorn's return to form is like having a new signing for Leicester City...

Reflection and recollection. The annual Remembrance fixture at Leicester City’s King Power Stadium evokes poignant memories of those that have gone before, sacrifices made. Lest we forget.

But stood in silence, encircling whitewash from which an incomparable and insignificant battle will imminently commence, eleven royal blue shirts flutter in the breeze of a crisp November afternoon only chilled further by frosty receptions afforded to ancient foes.

The age-old enemy, Nottingham Forest, back to re-commence hostilities. What was a gulf war last season only in the glaring monetary inequalities created by Leicester City’s free-spending Thai investors, is now evened by the levelling forces of Forest’s wealthy Kuwaiti benefactors the Al Hasawis.

With a poppy embroidered upon his bust and his heart adorning his sleeve, Martyn Waghorn stands as former glory personified. An armistice with injury demons and poor form Waghorn’s newfangled saving grace from a nightmare two years.

With Christmas fast approaching, a glimmer in Waghorn present of Waghorn past.

Not much stood still at Leicester City in the whirlwind two seasons of flux which succeeded Nigel Pearson’s departure from his position as commander-in-chief, but Waghorn well and truly stagnated. Callously discarded by Sven Goran Eriksson as a flurry of strikers were enlisted in his place, Waghorn was shell-shocked. Bednar, Yakubu, Kamara, Beckford. With varying success they came, with varying inevitability they left.

From darling of the terrace to no man’s land, Waghorn went missing in action. One of those peculiar breed, the confidence player, Waghorn needs to be loved. A North-Eastern grafter with that touch of class, Waghorn will give to the cause but craves love in return. However, if adulation were the currency in which Waghorn was dealing, shares plummeted and he was declared bankrupt.

The essence of Waghorn ebbed away.  Paired up front with debutant Jeff Schlupp in a League Cup game against Rotherham, never plainer was Waghorn’s demise than in the stark contrast as chances came and passed him by, whilst Schlupp’s rising star was illuminated with a superb inaugural hat-trick. An untimely and unwelcome ceasefire.

To the Eriksson cause he became a conscientious objector and to be allied with Pearson once more at Hull City offered salvation.

Now such times are but a distant nightmare. His game still bears the marks of post traumatic stress disorder, there endure the scars of his battles, at chances he has snatched and opportunities have been spurned, but to regeneration we are bared. Encouraging displays at Watford and Bolton preceded Waghorn’s remembrance fixture against Forest. A prominent figure in a 2-2 draw in that match, The Last Post was not to sound for Waghorn’s Leicester City career just yet.

But he needed a goal, ‘that goal’, any goal. And fast forward seven days from that draw Waghorn hit the fifth in a six-goal demolition of Ipswich at The King Power Stadium. Relief emanated stadium-wide and the reaction of Waghorn’s joyous team mates displayed an empathetic comprehension of their comrade’s struggles. A spring in his step. Fire in that famished belly. Waghorn was, Waghorn is, back from the dead.

To reclaim that tag of clinical marksman he must now score more. As poppies bloom and shed their seed, so must Waghorn shed the nuances that have halted a career which once looked so potentially glorious. The price of greatness is responsibility and Waghorn must now, by maintaining his scoring touch, shoulder the burden that has too often betrayed Nigel Pearson’s side: an inability to convert their chances.

Of late, bemoaned has been the lack of a new striker amongst Pearson’s troops but, in the air of optimism surrounding the re-emergence of Waghorn, such grumbles will evaporate. Because to have back the Waghorn that lay broken on the wet turf of The Cardiff City Stadium two and a half years ago, on an evening which brought closure to an outstanding season for both Leicester City and Waghorn individually, is akin to having a new signing. Remembered it should be that, in that play-off season, he earned the club’s Young Player of the Year award with twelve league goals.

And if this season is the one for Waghorn to expunge the tyranny of his personal demons, then he will hope to eradicate another of his former torments. Martyn Waghorn has won his personal battle, now he must help Leicester City win the promotion war.

 Credit top and bottom images Alex Hannam via Flickr

Credit middle image hst43077 via Flickr 

Talk Is Cheap

Talk Is Cheap

Jamie Barnard  on how Nigel Pearson's dignified silence has set the tone for his Leicester City side's promotion push... 

 

A rebuff, a refusal, a rejection. Interviewing Nigel Pearson must be no easy task.  Pearson is a man of few words and no plainer has this been than in recent weeks. Through the times in which it seemed any old Tom, Dick and Harry was talking about his job, Pearson closed rank and those stiff lips remained firmly fastened.

Pearson does his talking on the pitch and his team is his mouthpiece.

Delivering the boldest of statements, his Leicester City charges delivered a fifth consecutive league win against Bristol City to, albeit briefly, climb to the summit of The Championship table. Whilst people were talking Pearson’s side up, convincing wins were the substance amid such chatter, lifting Leicester City up the table.

Rewind little under a week and within hours of that fourth, emphatic, straight win at Huddersfield - in which The Foxes converted two of their eighteen shots and limited their hosts to just three – a national newspaper rolled out a match report proclaiming that, in spite of such feats, Harry Redknapp would still be filling those boots not yet parched from touchline rain in West Yorkshire.

A penny for Pearson’s thoughts.

Talk is cheap, but Pearson’s words are limited edition. He is a man who refuses to speculate and not even Leicester’s millionaire Thai owners would have riches deep enough to prize from Pearson more than a branding of such speak as a “minor irritant”. His is a soliloquy of high value.

Such a quality is a commodity in the modern football world. In the very same week as Pearson’s dignified silence, those of higher standing were left speechless as care-free mutterings came back to haunt them. Tongues were wagging.

Roy Hodgson, England manager, was left with the no-doubt awkward, and likely futile, task of convincing Rio Ferdinand that his international swansong was a croon belonging to the rat race rather than the rat pack after a commuter revealed Hodgson’s underground admission that Ferdinand was not in his plans. Regrets, both now have a few.

And Ashley Cole, never found left wanting for words, took to Twitter to criticise the FA’s latest ramblings in the long, drawn-out John Terry racism case. Miserly Cole’s one hundred and forty characters may have been, but the financial consequences of ‘the Twittersphere’ have never been so grand. Albeit a drop in the ocean of Cole’s wealth, the misconduct charge he now faces will likely being with it a hefty fine.

Hash tag: costly.

But Nigel Pearson is not a man of the new age. From the old school he graduated and to him Twitter is, as the rumour that besmirches it, simply cheep. The fruits of his labour more scouting network than social network one might deduce.

They say a picture paints a thousand words and the one painted at The King Power Stadium last Saturday should carry greater sway with the club’s owners than any careless whisper with which they may have solicited Redknapp in rumoured meetings. ‘Don’t Go Martin’ stuff this was not, but a vocal demonstration of support for Pearson rolled from the terraces surrounding the pitch with the smooth flow of the table-topping football being played on it.

A message to anxious owners delivered. Received, loud and clear.

Leicester City now walk the walk, and the mark of the man is found in the essence of a Pearson side that has quietly strung together a run of consecutive wins which threatens to rival the all-time club record of seven. Impenetrable, unnerved, restrained. For that old Leicester City confidante the nearly man, the cold shoulder has never felt cooler.

As they head into the winter months sterner tests will no doubt lie ahead. Trips to Birmingham City, Watford and Bolton lay on the horizon. The eulogy may yet be premature. But that early season indicator of ten games has arrived. If the declaration it makes is anything to go by then, come May, Leicester City and Nigel Pearson will be more than just the talk of the town.

Credit Kimmiji2012 via Flickr for Redknapp photo

Credit nicksarebi via Flickr for Hodgson photo

Credit hst43077 via Flickr for Pearson photo