In a world of role models and appropriate behaviour..........

Wasn't the 20- 30- man brawl at the Watford - Crystal Palace play off encounter just a thing a absolute beauty. Yes Boothroyd was childish, Fitz Hall petulant, but the resulting melee was the way a football team should approach resolving such issues. I have had enough of the big centre half running the length of the pitch to pull away the opposition antagonist. Let there be a free for all, don't limit the subs to just 3, all 5 and backroom staff.

Even the arrival of Ian Dowie into the fray (or is that affray) brought no sense of caution to Watford. It went a reasonable distance it seemed to release a lot of the usual play off tension. Just brilliant.

What a brilliant Game

You get the guff every year "watched all over the world" and "advert for footbal"l but this year's FA Cup was so special it was un real. Played in a terrific spirit and quality coming out at every twist and turn.

How brilliant that an evenly contested match between two teams that aren't Arsenal Chelsea or Manchester United should bring the curtain down on a great elite domestic season.

Roll on June and the fixtures coming out.

The Best (English)Man for the Job

Steve McClaren is the new England Manager. It is a huge mercy that this episode in our lives is now put to bed. We can get back to our everyday lives safe that Patriotic fervour has ruled over the task of finding the best man for the job. If you are looking for somebody to win the world cup it is always worth looking at those who have done it and would appear capable of doing it again.

If they are unavailable then let's try other avenues. Steve Mclaren has been part of the FA set up for long enough to undertsand the politics and the landscape and his knowledge of the players must be second to none. Presumabley Beckham and Neville have approved the appointment , so there will be no "player power" blind alleys further down the line.

Perhaps the biggest joy of his appointment, once we have put our crosses of St George down for a minute, comes in the shape of his ability to bring youth through, something that has served him well over the past season at Middlesborough. It brings a tear to my eye the amount and quality of young players that are filling those famous red shirts in the current glut of games they are encountering. Hopefully McClaren will show the same faith in the youngsters that regularly come up through the under 21 ranks and hit the starry glass ceiling.

We shall see. In the meantime let us all reflect on the biggest challenge that Mclaren faces and that will be the media who seem to believe that their job is served best by chipping away at human beings and that the effects of their undermining and harrying is somehow justified in our interest.

God Bless him and all who sail with him.

Come on England

Enemy of the People

He is a devil. The writings of the season's end were unanimous in their condemnation of Jose Mourinho.

He's won the championship and his response to that achievement is to highlight the scant respect he and his team are shown. How ungrateful can he be? What Jose has neglected to embrace his time in the UK is that nobody likes a show off, a rich show off they like less and to cap it all a successful rich show off really is taking the biscuit.

When Gary Lineker smirks "the special one" on Match of the Day you can see the soul of man who won very little in his career, uncomfortable with somebody doesn't do losing and knows just how good he is. Not that Gary doesn't enjoy George Benson's view on true love, he knows he's a special one too, he just doesn't need to say it himself, he has the Walkers Crisp corporation do the crowing for him.

But back to Jose and Media. Manager of the Month in 2 of the 20 he competed for the prestigious prize - Mourinho highlighted this point on his day of glory - when he should have been royally enjoying the media's two-faced praise of his "valueless" achievement. How very dare he.

But how can he not have been recognised during one month of this season. It is unbelievable.

Love him or hate him - personally I love him - he is the best thing to happen to sport media in the modern age, if he could just be tempted into a sexual dalliance with farm animal I feel certain he would be crowned the king of those who live, leach like, off the reporting of other peoples’ lives.

He will be a long time missed when he has gone. And long may he reign.

Harry Kettle calls black FA

Quote from Harry Redknapp

Portsmouth boss Harry Redknapp added his condemnation of the failed bid to appoint Scolari.

He added: "It's like most of these things that seem to happen with the FA lately, it seems a bit of a mess-up."

I think the FA can learn a thing or two about the way to handle employment and recruitment issues from a man whose toing and froing on the south coast in the past two seasons have been handled with a level of enormous clarity and simplicity. Something the FA may wish to mirror.

Gripping end to the season?

Well with 3 matches to go there seems every chance of everything being done and dusted in the Championship (Division Two as I like to call it). No last minute nails to be bitten until the play off action kicks in during May.

It seems almost anti-climactic that all the issues are decided with so much left to be played. It has been a strange season with records about to be smashed by Reading at the death. Their achievements appear to be largely going un noticed, heck let's go on and on about Chelsea, Man United and Arsenal with Liverpool filling the media silence in between.

Steve Coppell has proved himself to be an extremely durable manager. Excepting a terribly savage brief spell at Manchester City his career looks really successful, with much of it plied in the unfashionable end of football.

So with nothing much to be decided (sorry Watford Leeds, Preston and Palace) the toast today has to be Stevie Coppell.

Simon Jordan - what's that all about?

He's appeared on Match of the Day 2 on the BBC2 as a pundit. He has his own column in the Observer. IT is pretty safe to say that Simon Jordan is not your ordinary Football Club Chairman.

After the debacle of a "fan at the helm" - The Mark Goldberg Experience, Palace fans could have been forgiven for feeling bit like a hitch hiker been offered a lift home by Ted Kennedy, when Simon Jordan took the reins back in the early noughties. He had money which all glory seeking fickle fans love the look and feel of. But was he just going to roll over throw it all away like his unfortunate predecessor.

What has emerged is a veritable swan from ugly duckling beginnings. He is very media savvy, but avoids all the banality and superficial nature that has to persist in football, because if the truth came out about it's snide and unwholesome nature, there's a danger none of us would want to bank roll it to the level we currently do.

Each month his column in the Observer sends me reaching for an email to applaud and eulogise about the skilful way he exposes and deconstructs. This month he goes for David Sullivan - a persistent thorn in Jordan's (the chairman, not the model) side over the years. In having a go at a fairly easy target he manages to expose the crazy conundrum that is club ownership.

Given the money would you buy your club and expose yourself to grotesque life that passes for ownership of a football club. The abuse, the despair of seeing defeat as an extension of your personality and public standing, it must take a unique individual to be able to contend with such adversity. When you succeed you can only be a hairbreadth away from the return of the abuse and brickbats.

I would commend the artful Mr Jordan to you. His savaging of Mr Sullivan and Mr Gold is here