Last Updated: Tuesday 08 June 1999 14:05
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| Features > The Patrick Barclay Column |
How Kevin Keegan Made A Meaningless Friendly Mean Something After All
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THE closer England's much-derided friendly with Hungary in Budapest gets, the more desirable it becomes. There may have been the familiar (and, in this case, understandable) complaints from club managers, but Kevin Keegan has made a virtue out of the moral necessity to stick to an agreement.
In more ways than one, England's Mr Positive has turned a bad situation to an advantage - not just to himself and the FA, but to the players and now to football's reputation. First and foremost, in conjunction with enlightened influences at the FA, he has prompted the players to donate their match fees to the relief fund for refugees from Kosovo, thus giving the impression that football does not exist wholly in a cocoon of self-interest.
True, the sums are relatively small - in total, roughly the average fine levied on Robbie Fowler - but the principle established here can be built upon. It points the game in the right direction at a time when rocketing Premiership salaries have added to a perception of greed. And while you can make a very strong case indeed for saying that this friendly should never have been arranged in the first place - at least not for this vital stage in the Premiership season - Keegan's gesture does so much more for football's image than an embarrassed pull-out would have. As Keegan said: "I definitely believe it is something an England team needs to do. We need to show we care."
But this is not the only breath of fresh air Keegan has blown into the England set-up on his second tour of duty (hard to believe, isn't it, that tonight we could be halfway through his tenure as England manager?). Knowing he was obliged to temper his demands on some clubs at a crucial stage of the season, and absorbing additional cry-offs after the weekend programme, he has gone for promise, offering a valuable taste of experience to potential England stars of the future.
Not for Keegan the pragmatic attitude of some predecessors, who have opted for the mature but clearly mundane in such conditions, creating worthless one-cap wonders. I shall not name names, but we all know the type of player - good servants approaching the twilight of their careers who have scant more chance of becoming established England internationals than you or I. No, in come the likes of Everton's Michael Ball and Francis Jeffers, while Manchester United's Wes Brown and Sunderland's Kevin Phillips make the team itself. At such tender ages, they must be revelling in the experience. If it does turn sour, Keegan can be trusted to ensure that it does not consume them.
So congratulations to Keegan. Instead of an unwelcome intrusion into the season, we have a refreshing interlude. Once again his supposed naivety has come to the rescue, and I suspect that the television producers will be quite grateful to him.
You can only admire the man's style. |
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