John Gavin on why he’s backing… England

The Scottish Comedy FC Podcast is out now. Subscribe/download/listen HERE

With Scotland failing to qualify for the Euros, like many other Scots, I’ll pledge my allegiance to another nation. My own choice in any major tournament would be the Netherlands. Being a Rangers fan some may think this decision is based on some inbred sectarianism and a fondness for the colour orange, but they would be wrong. I fell in love with watching the Dutch national side during the 1988 European championships and ever since I’ve been waiting for another Gullit, Koeman or Van Basten to show me some romance again. For this years Euros though the I’m leaving the Dutch and going for a dirty few weeks with England. Even writing that last sentence felt unnatural and wrong, so maybe I should quantify it.

Generally Scottish people aren’t that keen on the English national side for a number of different reasons. To be more precise 1966 reasons. This year though my support is more for Roy Hodgson rather than the whole team.

When Cappello left the England managers role the English media went into overdrive and appointed Harry Redknapp as the only viable candidate. Redknapp must have been so convinced that the job was his he probably phoned up Umbro to give them his tracksuit measurements. As most of the coverage was about when and not if Redknapp would become the next manager, finding out that Hodgson was the front-runner was a bigger shock than Ashley Young lasting 90 minutes without the need for a snorkel and flippers.

In the aftermath of his appointment it’s hard not to get behind Hodgson. The day after his first press conference The Sun featured a headline mocking Hodgson’s inability to pronounce his ‘R’s properly. Immediately after this various pundits offered opinions on the topic which to be summed up were “why was Harry not even interviewed?” The Metro even ran a story featuring Harry Redknapp lookalike Shaun Smethers and how he was left “disgruntled” due to Hodgson’s appointment based on the impact on his potential earnings from looking like Redknapp. Although it’s hard to feel any real malice to Smethers, after all he does have to go around with a face like Harry Redknapp’s.

Sections of the media suggested that Hodgson was in some way an inferior candidate to Redknapp. Although of late it could be argued that Hodgson’s profile might not be as high profile as Redknapp’s, but with a CV featuring the likes of Inter Milan, Grasshoppers and Switzerland he is not exactly a lacking in experience. Some pointed to his failure at Liverpool as being an indication that he was not a great manager, but when you look at his record in comparison to that of Kenny Dalglish it does seem fairly similar. It would indicate that there is much more wrong with Liverpool than Hodgson could deal with.

Then there has been the selection of his squad. His decision to leave Rio Ferdinand out of the squad in favour of John Terry was always going to be a contentious one. For non footballing reasons it would have been perfectly reasonable to leave out Terry. His past record includes taunting American tourist immediately after September the 11th, taking money from an undercover reporter for a tour of Chelsea’s training facilities, sleeping with a teammate’s wife and he is awaiting trial for allegedly using racist language towards Rio’s brother Anton, but we will need to wait until July to find out the result of this.

However, Hodgson made his decision for footballing reasons and most would agree that Terry is the stronger candidate of the two. Even though he has explained that his decision is due to footballing reasons, is a decision that’s faced more questions than James Murdoch during the Leveson enquiry.

The only decision I would question would be his decision to leave out Micah Richards. A league winner with 13 international caps who boasts pace and the type of physique that makes him comparable to a brick sh*t-house would normally feature in such a squad, but Hodgson just doesn’t seem to fancy him. If only we could go back in time to before he had any caps and find him a Scottish granny.

As it stands though Hodgson has taken a ridiculous amount of stick for someone in such an early stage of his time in charge of England. So it would be great for him to win the Euros and then in the post match interview tell the Sun they were a bunch of ‘pricks’ purely to see if they would mock his speech impediment then. The guy deserves his chance at the finals, and for the amount of stick that he taken thus far I would like to see him do well.

This will probably change 20 seconds into the first match against France when 1966 and penalties against the German’s are mentioned and I end up supporting Holland again. Wij houden van Oranje!

You can download/listen/subscribe to the Scottish Comedy FC podcast HERE
———————————————————————————————————-

About the Author

John started his comedy career back in 2008 after his wife signed him up for a comedy competition in the Sunday Mail, without his knowledge. He ended up winning it and going on to the final of So You Think You’re Funny. A year later he won Scottish Comedian of the year. He talks about his home life with his wife and 3 daughters mostly as there is very little else exciting that happens in his life.

He has followed Rangers all his life. As a 5 year old boy he spent his birthday money on his first Rangers strip complete with number 9 on the back. It was also around that time that he was taken to a barbers for a haircut and asked to get his hair done like Frank McAvennie. As he had short, brown, poker straight hair the barber struggled to recreate the long blonde permed look that McAvennie sported at the time. This is a tale that his mother likes to share from time to time.

He also distantly related to Rangers hall of fame member Willie Waddell. It is very distant, but its close enough that he likes to use this to make him look like a big man.

His football career took a nose dive in secondary school when he found out he was actually a better rugby player than footballer. Brief stints at 5 a sides in 20′s followed. Since a tragic accident in which he slipped and fell on some ice due to his insistence on wearing converse all stars, he broke his left leg. Since then he has been too much of a big Jessie to grace a pitch again.

“All the makings of a class act” – Chortle

“Brilliant” – Sunday Mail

“Hard hitting and side splitting” – Daily Record

“There’s a rosy future ahead for John Gavin” – Scotsman

“Very Impressive” – Edinburgh Evening News

Follow John on Twitter – @johngavincomedy

John’s website – www.johngavincomedy.com

Comments

comments