Euro 2008: England Fans, Will You Be Watching?

The BBC has recently started to promote its coverage of the European Football Championships to be held in June in Austria and Switzerland. The competition kicks off with a riveting clash of the titans - Switzerland versus the Czech Republic in Basel.

All the major European foot-balling powers will be there, competing to be Champions of Europe, with the exception of course of any single representative from the four Home Nations, all of which failed - some miserably - to qualify for the finals.

What the impact upon the TV ratings will be because neither, England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland managed to qualify, is open to debate. I would lay money that the ratings will be considerably lower for Euro 2008 without any home representation, than would be the case if any of the four home teams had managed to qualify.

Euro 2008 is very likely to be 'non-event' for a great majority of the public in the UK - except for the 'football purist' of course, very likely to get excited watching anything on TV that involves kicking a ball!

During previous World or European Championships, when any of the home nations have been represented in the finals, pubs and clubs are filled to capacity when a match is on, with football fans getting carried away, drinking too much beer and waving the flag for their national team, regardless of whether they have ever attended a game of football featuring their National team or not.

When your national team is playing on the big stage, you don't need to know about 4-4-2, 'diamond formations' or holding mid-field players. You just want to see your country play well and win.

Some of the 'politically correct lot' may argue that celebrating your national team winning is jingoistic, but quite frankly who cares what they think. If your national team performs well, with style, skill and spirit, it lifts your heart, as demonstrated in 1966 when a rise in Gross Domestic Output following England winning the World Cup, was attributed directly to the victory over the Germans on that glorious June day 42 years ago.

Following England's timid exit from the Euro 2008 competition after their ignominious defeat to Croatia, and Scotland's better than expected performance, which almost led to the Scots emerging victorious from the "group of death", a period of national navel gazing took place in an attempt to rationalise where we went wrong!

In England the furore over the witless, and to be honest gutless failure to overcome Croatia at Wembley, has soon faded into distant memory. The outcry from the press and the broadcasting sports media has been forgot, after the team Manager paid the price of failure, with a replacement quickly lined up to take over at the helm as guardian of the country's foot-balling hopes for World Cup in 2010.

It may be that qualification for the next World Cup is all about 'hope' rather than any degree of certainty.

There has been much said about the state of football in the UK, particularly since the advent of the Premier League and its domination by 'non-British' born talent. The blame for national failure to qualify for Euro 2008 has been laid by some at the door of the Premier League and the droves of imported talent outnumbering British born players in the top flight.

The UEFA president and football great Michel Platini has claimed that there are not enough home-grown players and coaches in the English top flight. Platini added that England's failure to qualify for Euro 2008 was damaging the "soul" of the national game.

English foot-balling heroes such as Steven Gerrard have been quoted as calling for "quota system" to regulate the number foreigners playing for Premier League clubs. Tony Adams has blamed the coaching structure in the national game. Steve Coppell as also called for immediate action to make improvements in the structure of the Football Association, who have themselves declared an intention to conduct a "root and branch" review to put right what went so drastically wrong.

Many hypotheses have been postulated as to why England struggle so badly at international level, ranging from the grass roots in football being uncomfortable with flair and coaching it out of kids, to failure to embed an ethos of intelligence and technique into our young players, rather than current approach based upon fitness and strength being continually applied to try and wear down the opposition.

If anything in the national game changes to encourage more kids to play football based on technique and skill, with some thought applied, then by the time it has an effect it will be far too late for 2010.

It may be that for those of us that find it hard to get excited about a tournament without any home nation representation will need to findother things to occupy us during forthcoming international football events for many years to come!

Bill Bailey is freelance writer, journalist and football fan. More of Bill's articles on cars, finance, travel, computers, shopping and sports can be found at http://www.schnafflehound.com