Dave Ewing's Back 'eader
Well-Known Member
I'm a bit late with this. Can't see anything on the threads but . . . . . . .
He has written an apologist's article on Ferguson and his fine and ban.
One sentence catches my eye: "The case against Ferguson lacks perspective. It is like hounding Barack Obama for double-parking outside the White House".
No, Mr Winter, it is not. It is like hounding Barack Obama for double parking outside the White House and then listening to a tirade where the poor bloody traffic warden attempts to give a ticket and is subjected to one gratuitous insult after another.
It is annoying when people like Winter, secure in his column in the nation's favourite Tory rag, feel that they can just write anything and it is the weight of the newspaper that brings all the intellect to the argument and nothing in the column.
I've copied the arse-end of the article below:
The case against Ferguson lacks perspective. It is like hounding Barack Obama for double-parking outside the White House. The FA must see the bigger picture with Ferguson.
This is an individual whose managerial feats have been worth tens of millions of pounds to his rivals, raising the Premier League's coefficient to permit a fourth side into the Champions League.
At the risk of straying further into Monty Python territory, what has Ferguson ever done for English football? Well, this is a leader of men who has built on David Moyes's fine work at Everton to nurture Wayne Rooney into England's one saving grace.
This is the club boss who could supply more than half of England's starting XI in Ben Foster, Wes Brown, Rio Ferdinand, Michael Carrick, Owen Hargreaves and Rooney, let alone cultivating Ravel Morrison as a potential gem for 2014.
Better than Kieran Gibbs and Jack Wilshere, certainly up there with Jack Rodwell, if Morrison does emerge as the pre-eminent English footballer of his generation, it will be because of a certain Scot's shrewd guidance.
I can't remember the last time the FA acknowledged Ferguson's role in shaping England's present or future.
Crassly imitating a scene from Swift, Lilliputian no-names attempt to bring down a giant of the game. The cast of pygmies includes Alan Leighton, a rep from referees' union Prospect, an unknown organisation in football until its pushy principal began piggybacking on Ferguson's fame.
Apparently, Prospect represents referees. So Leighton will know that Ferguson was the first manager to inquire after Mark Halsey's health.
It is the inconsistency of individuals such as Leighton that is particularly galling. Ferguson makes a mistake and gets pilloried. Leighton's members make shocking errors, ignoring beach-balls and bad challenges, yet the Prospect chief stays silent.
The FA seems to have been swayed by a union man stamping his feet and spouting off on the airwaves. Football would be better place if a wise owl such as Ferguson, for all his acerbic outbursts, was advising the FA and its hordes of amateurs on how to run the game.
In a land where many FA types just worry about guaranteeing their free tickets to Wembley every year, Ferguson plots how to take his team there again and again. Ferguson contributes so much to the game that the FA fails to note.
England's most important player, Rooney, rallied to his manager's defence yesterday, detailing why Ferguson should be cherished.
"First of all the trophies he's won,'' began Rooney, "and the type of football he wants you to play – attacking football all the time. Sometimes you feel you can't do it but he keeps you going. At his age [67], he still wants to win all the time. That's incredible to see.''
Ferguson should show more respect to referees – and football should show more respect to Ferguson.
He has written an apologist's article on Ferguson and his fine and ban.
One sentence catches my eye: "The case against Ferguson lacks perspective. It is like hounding Barack Obama for double-parking outside the White House".
No, Mr Winter, it is not. It is like hounding Barack Obama for double parking outside the White House and then listening to a tirade where the poor bloody traffic warden attempts to give a ticket and is subjected to one gratuitous insult after another.
It is annoying when people like Winter, secure in his column in the nation's favourite Tory rag, feel that they can just write anything and it is the weight of the newspaper that brings all the intellect to the argument and nothing in the column.
I've copied the arse-end of the article below:
The case against Ferguson lacks perspective. It is like hounding Barack Obama for double-parking outside the White House. The FA must see the bigger picture with Ferguson.
This is an individual whose managerial feats have been worth tens of millions of pounds to his rivals, raising the Premier League's coefficient to permit a fourth side into the Champions League.
At the risk of straying further into Monty Python territory, what has Ferguson ever done for English football? Well, this is a leader of men who has built on David Moyes's fine work at Everton to nurture Wayne Rooney into England's one saving grace.
This is the club boss who could supply more than half of England's starting XI in Ben Foster, Wes Brown, Rio Ferdinand, Michael Carrick, Owen Hargreaves and Rooney, let alone cultivating Ravel Morrison as a potential gem for 2014.
Better than Kieran Gibbs and Jack Wilshere, certainly up there with Jack Rodwell, if Morrison does emerge as the pre-eminent English footballer of his generation, it will be because of a certain Scot's shrewd guidance.
I can't remember the last time the FA acknowledged Ferguson's role in shaping England's present or future.
Crassly imitating a scene from Swift, Lilliputian no-names attempt to bring down a giant of the game. The cast of pygmies includes Alan Leighton, a rep from referees' union Prospect, an unknown organisation in football until its pushy principal began piggybacking on Ferguson's fame.
Apparently, Prospect represents referees. So Leighton will know that Ferguson was the first manager to inquire after Mark Halsey's health.
It is the inconsistency of individuals such as Leighton that is particularly galling. Ferguson makes a mistake and gets pilloried. Leighton's members make shocking errors, ignoring beach-balls and bad challenges, yet the Prospect chief stays silent.
The FA seems to have been swayed by a union man stamping his feet and spouting off on the airwaves. Football would be better place if a wise owl such as Ferguson, for all his acerbic outbursts, was advising the FA and its hordes of amateurs on how to run the game.
In a land where many FA types just worry about guaranteeing their free tickets to Wembley every year, Ferguson plots how to take his team there again and again. Ferguson contributes so much to the game that the FA fails to note.
England's most important player, Rooney, rallied to his manager's defence yesterday, detailing why Ferguson should be cherished.
"First of all the trophies he's won,'' began Rooney, "and the type of football he wants you to play – attacking football all the time. Sometimes you feel you can't do it but he keeps you going. At his age [67], he still wants to win all the time. That's incredible to see.''
Ferguson should show more respect to referees – and football should show more respect to Ferguson.