I thought Steve Coppell was destined for great things from the first moment I saw him.

I’d just been appointed as manager of Luton Town. My defensive options were predictably limited: a few limited journeymen, a tired veteran on his last legs and a handful of youngsters that hadn’t yet seriously competed for a regular place. The teenage Coppell had never played for the first-team but had all the attributes to succeed. Thrown in at the deep end, Coppell excelled and soon established himself as one of the best right-backs in the lower divisions. A few seasons later, our promotion push to the top-flight had fallen at the last hurdle but Sunderland offered me a crack at the big time. And who would be my first signing? Of course: Coppell. He earned a place in the starting line-up and even starred in our UEFA Cup triumph.

As you’ve probably guessed, this Steve Coppell wasn’t the fleet-footed former Manchester United winger. He was an imaginary player (as they all were at the time) in the original Championship Manager football management game which was released in 1992 for the Amiga and the Atari ST. The game was light years beyond those that had preceded it and would eventually morph into the behemoth we know as Football Manager. In the contemporary game, every facet of management is under your control. Want to send your scouts to Peru to sign a nippy teenage winger? Go ahead. Ah, he needs a work permit. No problem, send him on loan to your Belgian feeder club for a few seasons until he qualifies. Want to teach your youth team to embrace the English football tradition by learning to lump it up to the big man? That can be done.

What wasn’t immediately obvious was that Championship Manager heralded the end of the gloriously amateur early days of the genre.

The first football management game, unimaginatively titled Football Manager (which is unrelated to the current series), was released in 1982 and showed little sign of the complexity that would later emerge: the goalkeeper wasn’t even recognised as an in-game position (you merely had to pick another defender), goal scorers weren’t named and the entire game consisted of just twenty-four endlessly recycled players. You could, for example, sell a rubbish Kevin Keegan only to find a superstar version of him available to sign just a few matches later. Nonetheless, a generation were soon hooked – even Arsenal’s Charlie Nicholas described it as “completely fantastic.” Football Manager’s success saw creator Kevin Toms became a celebrity of the gaming scene, partly because he plastered his hirsute features on the game’s packaging and advertisements.

An early notable contender for the genre’s crown came from United which took a much different approach. While Football Manager featured jerky but often nail-bitingly tense match highlights, all United showed was a ball pinging around a spookily desolate pitch. What made it standout was a depth of new features. It boasted specialist ‘keepers; the option to deploy a sweeper if you were feeling suitably continental; a simplistic training programme; named scorers and five different ages of players. It demanded more of the bedroom manager too. You needed to select a balanced team (so no splashing all of your money on three Van Persies upfront if that meant you could only afford four Jenkinsons at the back) and could choose to play a cynical, aggressive game to boost your chances of winning. It countered Football Manager’s lack of players by allowing you to name the players yourself (and anyone with even a token knowledge of BASIC programming could hack into the game code to give your team a Manchester City-sized budget).

What followed was a golden age in which enterprising programmers competed to become the next Kevin Toms. With so much competition, clubs and players alike were sought for endorsements to give new titles a competitive advantage. This was especially true of arcade-style games, such as the crazily titled Peter Shilton’s Handball Maradona, and the dreaded arcade/management crossover games in which the management section was often deemed pointless as the result depended entirely on your skills with a joystick.

This resulted in all kinds of names being lent to the ponderous joy of the management game. Kenny Dalglish Soccer Manager was perhaps the most accomplished example. It tracked stats for all your squad, you could interact with other key personnel at the club such as the scout, the physio and the chairman, and above all, the game looked fantastic – even if the player on the loading screen looked more like Emlyn Hughes. Gary Lineker put his name on a variety of games but Superstar Soccer was the only one that featured a management aspect. While you could play the match itself, it worked so much better as just a coaching game. A more esoteric release was Brian Clough’s Football Fortunes, an awkward blend of computer and board game. Although both individual elements were somewhat lacking, it was great fun as a multi-player game. Or at least it was until you found out that two of your best players had been killed in a car crash. Budgets being what they are, not all companies could afford to splash their cash on a Clough, Dalglish or Lineker, which is probably how Dundee’s European Challenge came to life. This offered the less than appealing challenge of being Archie Knox’s player / assistant manager in the team’s battle for a European spot. When Knox left The Dark Blues, the game was reworked with the new manager, Jocky Scott, in his place.

It comes as little surprise to see that games without celebrity endorsements often featured much more creativity than their big budget counterparts. Again featuring on the covers of his games looking like the Pete Best of Chas ‘n’ Dave, Kevin Toms was still in business, delivering the excellent Football Manager 2 and Football Manager: World Cup Edition. Released with an Italia ’90 wall-chart, the World Cup Edition didn’t match its predecessors but foresaw the genre’s future trends by introducing team talks and media interaction. Also notable was the Football Director series. The concept was rather unusual as it blended the managerial role with various boardroom duties, such as dealing with shares, mortgages, crowd violence and the hiring of a youth coach to bring new talent through. While possessing much more depth, it looked every bit as basic as United did. What makes the game memorable is its sheer difficulty. Dealing with the retirement of star players in the middle of the season is problematic and balancing the books is even tougher. But the greatest challenge of all is the fluctuating difficulty levels – you might find yourself challenging for the title only for the difficulty level to step up a gear, which would see your championship contenders collapse in the season’s final weeks.

Arguably the two best games from the era shared a unique trait: players which were described rather than evaluated by a numerical score. In the tactically complex Tracksuit Manager, the player possessed a huge pool of real players to choose from in an attempt to lead England to international glory. Your scouts could give you detailed feedback on your opposition, such as the observation that Wales prioritised the long ball while employing an offside trap. With a defence described as “disappointing”, they were one opponent that didn’t require much analysis. In The Double, you started your career by taking a job at a random Division Three team. If you were lucky, you were given the job at perpetual promotion chasers Fulham or Gillingham. And if you weren’t, you’d be stuck with a no-hoper such as Mansfield. Tactically this was a much simpler game but its strength was in a transfer system that isn’t too far away from that used in contemporary games. You could scout any of the game’s 1000 real players (Gordon Strachan’s passing is “pure magic”) and then embark upon a bidding war to sign your fabled transfer target.

No matter how sophisticated the games of this era became, they’re naïve by the levels of today’s Football Manager offerings. The game will surely continue to evolve with a stripped down version for mobile devices proving to be a hit, while the main game becomes ever more intricate with extra layers of detail and more playable leagues added every season. However the genre develops, huge numbers of people will doubtless remain addicted enough to lose hundreds of hours to the challenge of taking Dover to Champions League glory.

Published by DB Publishing, ’Running through Walls’ tells the story of one of Ireland’s greatest ever full-backs whose career saw him go from the bottom to the top of the game, only to suffer a turbulent off field battle and hit rock bottom .

A native of Ringsend, in Dublin, Dave was brought to England by the legendary Brian
Clough as a teenager and went onto become one of the best young full-backs in the English game.

A record breaking move to Birmingham hampered by career threatening injuries saw him written off by many however, true to his Dublin and Irish roots, Dave fought back to defy the odds helping Oxford United win promotion to the top flight and the 1986 Milk Cup.

With brutal honesty reminiscent of his playing days Dave Langan tells of his battles both on and off the field.

From growing up in a close knit family in Dublin, to playing in England and the heartbreak of missing out on Euro 88 with Ireland to failed marriages and homelessness, Dave talks about having it all and then rebuilding his life from rock bottom.

“Running through Walls” is not just an insight to life as a footballer before the Premiership – it
is also a rare insight into the struggles outside the comfort of the pitch.

With a footballing career and retirement in such stark contrast to that of current stars of English football, Dave Langan’s tale is certainly one to cast a bright light on the lives of footballers that just missed the financial gain and security it offers its stars today.

Co-written by Trevor Keane and Alan Conway ‘Running through Walls’ is a must read for
Sport and non-sports people alike and is sure to be a hit across Ireland and the UK.

The book is available from all major book stores and online as of today.

“Well I ask him which way he thinks it should be done, we get down to it and then talk about it for 20 minutes and then we decide I was right”

Now We See You: It’s All Very Well Backslapping Yogeshwar Dutt But Do We Really Care Beyond That?

I was flipping through the TV channels and stopped when I saw two rowers racing neck and neck with another team in a fight to the finish. It turned out one of the teams was from India and I sat down right there, calling out to my mom and brother. As we watched in delight, Sandeep Kumar and Manjeet Singh first overtook, then surged away from their Egyptian competitors, ultimately finishing more than four seconds ahead.

Was it a gold or silver, my brother wanted to know. Aware of the notoriously difficult conditions our rowers conduct training in, I asked him to hold on. It could be a qualifier to enter the next round.

It was a qualifier all right, but a qualifier to decide who would finish last.

Our rowers finished 19th in the Men’s Lightweight Double Sculls in a field of 20 teams, handing the ignominy of last place instead to their Egyptian rivals.

It was crushingly disappointing to realise what we had been cheering them on for. However, it has to be said that rowing is among the fringe sports in India, where sports itself is on the fringes.

The Indian way of life is geared towards stability. We don’t like risks. Safety is as much a staple as salt in Indian households. We have a paranormal fear of losing. It’s as if every Indian has the words of Howard Hughes’ mother ringing in his ears: “You are not safe! You are not safe!”.

To realise what needs changing in the Indian mentality, lets fly west across the Arabian, Red and Mediterranean Seas and on to England. The legendary late English football manager, Brian Clough, had been operated upon for liver transplant and was recovering in the hospital. His doctor, a brilliant surgeon named Derek Manan, visited Clough to check up on his progress.

Clough was a livewire who could be relied upon to produce ingenious one-liners in almost any circumstance. “Hospitals are wonderful places when you need them,” he recalled later. “But you need to break the ice from time to time”.

Clough asked Manan what his hobby was. It turned out to be golf.

“Any good?” asked Clough.

“Not bad, I am off fifteen”.

“What’s your weakness?”

“My short game, chipping to the green”.

“Well,” Clough said, “I’ll tell you what you’re doing for a start”.

“You don’t know what I do. You’ve never seen me play golf,” the doctor said.

“Maybe not but I bet you’re never up. I bet you nearly always leave the ball short of the hole”.

Seeing the doctor smile, Clough asked if he could offer any advice. Sure, he said. “Never up, never in — that applies to a lot of things in life”.

The trouble with a majority of Indian households is a fear of what would happen to their child if he/she fails to make the cut as a sportsperson after compromising study.

A dominant number of Indian sportspersons take up sport as a career either because (i) they have no other choice or (ii) they can afford to fail and have an upper-middle-class (or better) family life to fall back on.

A majority of school and college-level athletes hail from rural backgrounds, managing to get an education by virtue of their exploits on the field. In my years as a sports correspondent and a student office-bearer in college, I’ve come across only a handful of athletes from the middle-class.

And no revolution can meaningfully start unless the middle-class takes it up. All roads in a consumer-oriented globalised world are starting to make inroads into middle-class India. Middle India is the swelling, soaring monolith whose spending power makes its cricketers figure among the world’s richest sportspersons despite the game’s span being stretched over eight to ten countries.

The argument of the middle-class is that there is no money in other sports as in cricket, and they’re right. World class athletes like Mary Kom and Gagan Narang should have at least half as much air space in advertisements as Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir. When success is measured by different yardsticks in different sports, it is natural parents and their wards are wary of making an unrewarding career choice.

But success, however hard it may seem, breeds success. Just look at what Michael Phelps has done for swimming. Or closer to home, what Vijender Singh and co. have done for boxing after their exploits in Beijing 2008.

While Vijender was the lone Indian among the 5-member all male contingent to make the semifinal back in 2008, this time around three Indians have an opportunity to make the last four stage, including the imperious Mary Kom.  In a team much stronger than the one that left for Beijing, Vikas Krishnan too made the quarters before being controversially knocked out following a successful appeal by the U.S. against him.

Moreover, letting children do what they want, what they are good at, will mean a much greater success rate of talent conversion and frankly, happier lives. Would a state-level athlete settle for a job in a bank if he has accommodating parents who encourage him or a corporate culture that is willing to back him? Children need heroes to look up to. Stability is a desirable quality in life, but there are no certainties in life, only probabilities. To dare is to live. To fear is to shrink.

“Never up, never in”.

On the southern tip of Sweden lies the city of Malmö, a key access point to neighbouring Denmark and home to around 300,000 people. The city is also home to Malmö FF, a football team who play at the Swedbank Stadion in front of 24,000 supporters. On matchday, there is nothing in the stadium that catches the eye apart from a small pocket of supporters who take a banner to all of the home games and hang it in the same place each time. The banner reads “Roy’s Hörna”, or “Roy’s Corner”.  It is their sign of appreciation for Roy Hodgson, the man who led their club to five successive league championships between 1985 and 1989.

Indeed, Hodgson was pushed into his own little corner by strong media scrutiny surrounding his appointment as England manager. Roy with his back against the wall whilst the nation screamed, “where’s ‘Arry?!?!”

With most England fans questioning the whereabouts of Redknapp, our national team went into the Euros not expecting to get out of our group. Except we did. Finished top too. Unbelievably, the Three Lions had exceeded our expectations for the first time since 1966. But why?

The answer is that Roy Hodgson is a good manager. A very good one at that. He has punched above his weight in a number of countries and with clubs of varying size and ability. In the 1990s, he took Switzerland to 3^rd in the world and guided them to their first participation in a major tournament since the 1960s. He has won silverware with Hamlstads, Malmö and FC Copenhagen, and guided Inter Milan to a UEFA Cup Final. He has also had successes in England, guiding Fulham to their first European final in their history and consolidating West Brom’s place in the Premier League.

I’ve only given a few examples of Hodgson’s best work throughout his 36 year career as a manager. Yet, despite this vast experience, it seems that Roy is often judged by one thing only: his failures at Liverpool Football Club.

Admittedly, Hodgson did a poor job at Anfield. A very poor one at that. He left having guided Liverpool to 12^th, with humiliating home defeats to Wolves, Blackpool and Northampton Town on the way. However, in hindsight, we can establish that Roy’s reign wasn’t a complete and utter disaster, since Liverpool are still terrible.

But it’s just not fair to judge a manager’s capability according to one job that went sour. If we judged Brian Clough by his days at Leeds United, or Marcello Lippi by his latest spell with Italy, they wouldn’t be considered as two of the greatest managers of all time. Perhaps ex Spurs boss Harry Redknapp would have been the better option, but to downgrade Hodgson for not being the overwhelming favourite seems a little over the top.

For the first time since the start of the 2010 World Cup, I feel we can be satisfied with the direction in which the England team are going. The football was a bit dull at Euro 2012, but we came through unbeaten, showing resilience and organisation at the back which went missing under Capello. Given that Hodgson will now have more time to select and work with his squads, the quality in the final third should improve. Roy has also spoken of a “revolution” which will take place in the coming months, so expect exciting young players to burst onto the scene.

So, let’s not obsess ourselves with his ill-fated spell at Liverpool. Instead, look at the reasons why FA Chairman David Bernstein appointed Hodgson in the first place. After all, there’s a reason why that pocket of Malmö supporters have maintained Roy’s Hörna 23 years after he left…

Follow the Link:Analysis of how the transfer market works.

Brian Clough

Arguments happen every day, in every situation and every occupation. Disagreements with a partner, debates with a manager, disputes with a supplier. The ability to hold your own and win an argument is an invaluable skill that can be all the difference between getting your own way and being subject to the will of others. So here are 5 key steps to help you win an argument when it counts.

Step 1: Have a clear goal that you want to achieve and stick to it.

Arguments go off in tangents. They start out about A, veer off towards B and end up being about C. If your aim is only to prove the other person wrong, you will end up arguing for the sake of arguing and aiming to beat the other person into submission, which will invariably not happen, instead of coming out of the argument having persuaded the other person towards your point of view.

Enter the argument clear as to the goal you want to achieve and then stick to it. When you sense the argument veering off into tangents, drag it back to the point to keep it focused.

Step 2: Give ground where you can.

Have you noticed how much easier it is to say you are sorry when the other person says it first? The moment before, your differences seemed intractable, and the next moment everything is forgiven and you are tripping over each other to apologise.

It is an incredibly effective technique to defer to the person you are trying to persuade, even to the point of giving ground in the first instance. If you can do this on a point that you are happy to concede without it undermining your main arguments, it disarms the other person and lowers their defence. Then with their guard down, you can begin your attack. You will inevitably find a much weaker opposition, especially if you start off with uncontroversial statements that you know the other person will agree to.

Step 3: Be more passionate than logical

Arguments are emotional. Tempers fray, voices get raised, because when you are locked into a debate, your heart often pumps harder and faster.

However, reasoned and logical the arguments, it is often the power of passion that carries the day. The one that wants it most, is the one that more often than not wins out in the end. To be sure, you should make your arguments as sound and logical as you can, since a completely flawed argument is difficult to sustain. But be ready and willing to win the battle of the heart as well as the mind if you want to win the day.

Step 4: Reductio ad absurdum

This is a classic age old technique of taking an argument to its logical extremes to reveal the flaws that are inherent within that argument, but often not immediately apparent. It is the same principle of magnifying a small seemingly perfect picture up to billboard size, and the flaws and pixels will show up large.

A well known example and favourite of parents over the years is:

Dad: Why did you smoke that cigarette?
Son: Cos my friends were doing it.
Dad: So, if your friends all jumped off a cliff, would you do that too?
Son: huh?

Try exploring the fundamentals of the other person’s arguments by asking searching questions to test the soundness of their argument.

Step 5: Give them a reason to agree with you

The typical argument involves both sides telling the other they are wrong. Both sides get entrenched and so neither gives ground. If however you are able to give your opponent a self-interested reason to agree with you, your arguments will gain greater traction. So find the benefits for the other person in the position you are advocating and highlight this strongly. That way you are working at your opponent from both ends – with the compelling power of your own passion and words, as well as the niggling feeling you implant in the back of their mind that what you are saying really makes sense.

Lets return to our dysfunctional family and the confrontation between father and cigarette-smoking son:

Son: why shouldn’t I smoke? You did when you are my age?
Dad: Yes. You’re right. So do you want to turn out like me?
Son: huh?

Here, by showing the value to his son of agreeing with what he is saying, Dad is underlining his son’s argument from behind his defences. Do I really want t turn out like deadbeat Dad?

Of course, there are sound reasons to avoid arguments or to let the other person have the final word and even concede defeat.

Leadership in particular often involves claiming the moral high ground, whilst at the same time, conceding the field. But debate and disputes are fundamental and naturally human elements of communication. And we should seek to master any skill that is necessary to our daily existence. As the French moralist Jospeh Joubert stated:

“It is better to debate a question without settling it, than to settle it without debate”

“The Clown” denies England in the most famous goalkeeping performance of all time – Courtesy The Daily Mail

It’s a game that defines an era, the start of England’s decline as a world footballing power. Just six and a half years after winning the tournament, England failed to qualify for a World Cup for the first time since they had deigned FIFA the honour of actually competing for the trophy in 1950.

In that World Cup, held in Brazil, England famously lost 1-0 to the USA. England’s full back that day was Alf Ramsey and 23 years after that embarrassment, Ramsey was in charge of the side for what was perceived as the worst result since that day.

However in the cold light that 39 years offers, England were not embarrassed. In fact on any normal day they could quite easily have emulated the result of their previous match and put seven past the Poles. Unfortunately for Ramsey and England, fate and a “clown” intervened.

Brian Clough’s famous description of Poland’s goalkeeper Jan Tomaszewski has gone down in football folklore as an early example of the commentators curse. The outspoken Clough, fresh from his resignation at Derby County, could have been justified in his comments. Some of the giant keeper’s antics could have cost his side dear on the night. To Clough and England’s chagrin, it was the hatful of unbelievable saves which would be remembered.

The task facing England was a simple one. Beat Poland and they would qualify for the World Cup the following summer in Germany. Anything else would see the Poles (who were Olympic champions) reach their first World Cup since the war had devastated their country. Ramsey’s side was unchanged from that which had hammered Austria the previous month. Bobby Moore was still missing, but Norman Hunter had proved to be a more than able deputy in the past. Tony Currie retained his place in the side, with Alan Ball suspended following his sending off in Chorzow. Martin Chivers partnered Allan Clarke, the Leeds man at the top of his game for both club and country.

The nation settled down in front of their TV’s, the FA agreeing to show the game live, with ITV given the rights to show the game. Brian Moore presented with his usual big match panel, which included Clough with Hugh Johns and Billy Wright on commentary duty. Unfortunately my copy of the game is from a Polish rerun of the game.

Tomaszewski almost proved Clough right in the opening seconds. Collecting the ball in his area, he rolled the ball in front of him, as was allowed at the time, to advance to the edge of his box. He hadn’t seen Clarke lurking and “Sniffer” sensed an opportunity, attempting to steal the ball away. Tomaszewski recovered the ball, getting a bang on the hand in the process, but offering England hope that he may prove to be fallible.

That hope was magnified as the Poles started extremely nervously, looking shaky in possession. England were right at it from the beginning, forcing the Poles back, the visitors finding it incredibly difficult to even get out of their own half. The opening 15 minutes though, despite the domination, saw England fail to test the keeper.

England continued to press, with Tony Currie driving an effort in from the edge of the box, which Mick Channon diverted just over the bar via the Southampton man’s head. The Three Lions corner count continued to rise, but the desperation was rising at a similar speed. It was now time for the clown to take centre stage.

The Polish keeper produced a stunning full length save to deny Colin Bell, touching the ball away at full stretch as the Man City man smashed a shot from 20 yards as Poland once again failed to clear their lines. Then Tomaszewski denied Clarke, pushing away a header as the Leeds striker was left completely unmarked by a Polish defence rushing out in a failed offside trap.

Wave after wave of England attacks continued, with the Polish defences getting weaker and weaker, at one stage not even getting the ball out of their half for a five minute period. Yet England could not breach the line and when they did, Tomaszewski was there to deny them again, producing a backpedalling tip over the cross bar from a Channon header.

The half time whistle brought blessed relief to the Poles and left England 45 minutes from elimination. However there seemed little doubt that if England continued in the same vein, there was no earthly way they could be denied.

England started the second half with the same fire in their bellies, and with continued attacking intent. The impressive Currie forced Tomaszewski into another fine save, the Pole punching out his 25 yard effort and then seeing Channon volley into the side netting. Then with 57 minutes gone, the most shocking moment since Larry Gaetjens goal in Belo Horizonte 23 years earlier saw England fall behind.

Poland looked for a little relief, playing the ball away from defence down the left flank. Hunter went out to collect the ball, under a little pressure from Gregorz Lato on the halfway line. It was a challenge Hunter would win 99 times out of a hundred, the Leeds hard man normally would have played the ball, and most probably the man into the stands. However in his eagerness to keep England’s attacking momentum going, he attempted to keep the ball in play and allowed Lato to get a foot in to rob him. With breath-taking speed, Lato broke forward, finding Domarski in support on his right hand side. With Emlyn Hughes desperately trying to cover, Lato slid the ball to his right to the onrushing Domarski. The Poles effort was powerful and low, but should have been dealt with by Peter Shilton in the England goal. However the young keeper seemed to be unable to get his hands down and appeared to dive over the top of the ball, allowing the shot to fly under him and into the net to give Poland the lead.

If there were people dropping pins inside Wembley, you would have heard them clattering to the floor, as Domarski wheeled away in celebration. England having had all the play were now left with the task of scoring two goals in half an hour to save their World Cup lives.

Heads could easily have gone down, yet England had the ball in the net almost immediately through Channon. Unfortunately Clarke was deemed to have handled in the build-up as the ball struck his arm before he laid the ball off.

England were not to be denied though for much longer and within minutes had their equaliser. Skipper for the night Martin Peters burst into the box and was challenged by Jerzy Gorgon. “He barely touched me but I went flying. I dived. It wasn’t a penalty, but the referee didn’t see it that way,” Peters is quoted as saying on fifa.com. The referee indeed had no hesitation in pointing to the spot. Clarke, as he waited to take the penalty, looked the coolest man in the stadium, unlike his goalkeeper Shilton, who was on his haunches at the edge of his box, with his back to the action. The roars will have told him that Clarke had scored, the Leeds striker, who scored a penalty against Romania on his international debut at the 1970 World Cup, casually stroked the ball into the top right hand corner. 25 minutes remained for England to grab the goal they required.

Clarke gives England hope with the equaliser – MSN.com

However whereas England had bombarded the Polish goal in the opening period of the match, the visitors now were full of confidence and having hit England on the break once, looked capable of doing so again. With England wary of being caught out again, their attacks lacked the intensity of the first half, leading to a period of more measured play.

That is not to say that England lacked attacking intent and as the minutes ticked away, they began to drive forward again. Hunter was denied instant redemption as Tomaszewski pushed away a powerful strike. The keeper then denied Currie again by clutching a 20 yard effort by the Sheffield United midfielder.

The writing though was on the wall as Tomaszewski produced an unbelievable closing to the match to ram Clough’s words firmly down his throat by denying Clarke with an incredible save, throwing himself at a shot from just eight yards to turn the ball wide.

With England fully committed to attack they were leaving huge gaps at the back. Roy McFarland plugged one of them by rugby tackling Lato with the Pole away and clear. The Derby centre back grabbed the striker by the shoulders and threw him to the floor; the yellow card he earned was scant punishment for the opportunity he had denied.

Moments later Lato broke clear again, but this time Shilton produced some fine goalkeeping, standing up to the onrushing striker, forcing him wide and allowing his team mates to come back and scramble the ball away.

It was Poland who looked most likely in the closing stages, England’s desperation for a goal leaving them dangerously exposed. Shilton again saved well, this time denying Polish skipper Kazimierez Deyna with a scrambling block.

Substitutions had always been Ramsey’s Achilles heel, and the England manager left it until the 89^th minute to make a change. With Kevin Keegan on the bench, there was widespread surprise when Ramsey brought on Derby’s Kevin Hector for Chivers as his final throw of the dice. The striker had enjoyed a fine spell under Clough and was one of the Football League’s top goal scorers, but this was a high pressured moment to be making his international debut.

It was almost an inspired change, as seconds after his introduction, Hector managed to get his head to a corner, only to see his goal bound header hacked off the line by Hector Bulzacki, Peters putting the rebound just wide. In the final seconds Colin Bell finally beat Tomaszewski, only to see Bulzacki clear off the line again. Seconds later the final whistle blew ending England’s World Cup dreams.

There were scenes of unparralled joy from the Poles and the few supporters that managed to make their way onto the field. The happiest man by far was the goalkeeper, who punched the air with as much delight as he had the punched the ball. England by contrast stood dejected, unable to retreat to the safety of the dressing room until the archaic practice of standing for the National Anthem had been undertaking.

All the talk after the game was about the incredible performance produced by Tomaszewski. The FIFA Website fifa.com records the thoughts of Guardian journalist Frank Keating: “He hurled himself arms, knees and bumps-a-daisy all over his penalty area like a slackly strung marionette,” he wrote. “And all with a half-taunting, half-surprised smile which made one think this might be his first-ever game.”

Tomaszewski himself said: “I remember the last thing [Kazimierz] Gorski said before the game: ‘You can play football for 20 years and play 1,000 times for the national team and nobody will remember you. But tonight, in one game, you have the chance to put your names in the history books.’ He was right. It wasn’t my best-ever performance and I had a lot of luck during the match.”

If it wasn’t his best performance but it was one that made his name, and is still remembered to this day. It put Poland on the football map and began England’s banishment to the international wilderness.

‘If I had an argument with a player we would sit down, talk about it for twenty minutes, and then decide I was right’    Brian Clough

Tiger Woods during a practice round at the Masters (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

‘Confidence is everything’  Tiger Woods.

English: Football : Manager Jose Mourinho of Inter during the Serie A match between Juventus and Inter Milan at the Stadio Olimpico di Torino on April 18, 2009 in Turin, Italy. (Photo by Tsutomu Takasu) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

‘I am the Special one’  Jose Mourinho

English: Bust portrait of Muhammad Ali, World Journal Tribune photo by Ira Rosenberg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

‘I’m so fast that last night I turned the light switch off in my bedroom and I was in bed before the room was dark’  Muhammad Ali (see videos).

All of the above mentioned sports people ooze confidence.  So why is it so important? Because it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy (expecting something to happen, helps cause it to happen).  An example of a self-fulfilling prophecy is the 4 minute mile.  Before 1954 many people claimed that running a 4 minute mile was physiologically impossible.

Roger Bannister however that it was not impossible, which in that year he did (3 min 59.4 sec), then in the following year, more than a dozen runners broke the 4 minute mile.

World class: Rooney’s winner against Manchester City PICTURES: ROBIN PARKER/FOTOSPORTS INTERNATJONAL

Judges chose Offside Sports photographer Leech as the best from over 50 entries from some of industry’s finest.

His portfolio of five images included an inconic shot of the late Brian Clough, as well as shots of Arsenal’s Ian Wright challenging former Blackburn keeper Tim Flowers and Spurs’ David Ginola attempting an overhead kick.

Farewell: Clough says goodbye to the Nottingham Forest fans

‘Being chosen as the Barclays Photographer of the 20 Seasons is the proudest moment of my career,’ he said.

Robin Parker of Fotosports International won his award for the shot of Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney scoring the overhead winner in the 1-0 win over Manchester City in the 2010/11 season .

Hungry: Charlton’s Chris Perry looks to take a bite from Herman Hreidarsson’s boot

He said: ‘For my photo to be chosen as the best shot in the history of the league is very humbling.’

Metro picture editor and president of the Guild of Picture Editors, Alan  Sparrow was one of the five judges on the panel which decided both awards.

“I wouldn’t say I was the best manager in the business. But I was in the top one.” - Brian Clough

“Beckham is unusual. He was desperate to be a footballer. His mind was made up when he was nine or ten. Many kids think that it’s beyond them. But you can’t succeed without practising at any sport.” - Bobby Charlton

“There are hundreds of Beckhams playing football all over the world.” - Diego Maradona

It seems like ages since I collected anything that resembles thoughts on my blog.  I could argue that I have been busy and that would be true.  This time around I decided that not only would we stage InZain as a pop up play but we would also go site specific.  I believe that doing theatre this way really concentrates the audience on the story.

There is nothing vague about a comedy drama staged on one of the most iconic pieces of turf in the UK.

If you’ve ever stood in the Brian Clough stand you will know exactly what I mean.

So now I can say after lots of planning and preparation InZain by Leah Chillery is set to be staged again in June 2012 at none other than the City Ground in Nottingham.   I have received such fantastic support from my home city.  Our partners and the local councils seem to understand the potential impact of a show like this.  After all it is loosely based on a real guy who really did want to play for Nottingham Forest.