Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Capello the immigrant and the truth about England

Some time ago (although it seems like only yesterday) I wrote that Steve McClaren shouldn't be blamed for England's failure to qualify for Euro 2008*. And so it is again. The game of scapegoating for England's World Cup failures had found an early target in Rob Green, but memories of his butterfingered silliness are fading away. Now the new target is Fabio Capello, or more specifically, foreigners in general.

It's a simplistic narrative which I've covered time and time again here with regards to other matters - in a lot of ways it's one of the defining narratives of our time. Labour blame immigration for losing them the election. The victorious Coalition plan to crack down on skilled immigrants - that's skilled immigrants - just to make a point, blaming them for unemployment. Our news narratives blame immigrants for everything from crime to unemployment to the erosion of the 'British way of life'. It's got to the point now where toads like Leo McKinstry can make a healthy career out of peddling this bullshit time and time and time after time - he even pre-empted the latest soul-searching with a particularly poisonous article about how immigration had wrecked the England football team's chances in South Africa.

When in doubt, blame immigration. If you're looking for someone to fit up, pick on the immigrant. It's easier that way, because it means you don't have to address any of the difficult stuff. Tabloids and Governments alike enjoy blaming immigrants - tabloids because it's the faceless bogeyman and taps into the fears of middle-class white folk in Surrey who rarely see a brown face but just don't like the unknown; Governments because everyone needs a scapegoat, and it's hard to assess the impact of immigration on society in such a short space of time, and it means you can deflect attention away from the real reasons why unemployment is rising, why the economy is shot, why people are feeling the pinch, and so on.

Fabio Capello is, after all, an immigrant from the EU, doing a job that a UK resident could have done. He is that which we have been told to dislike. Could things be really so different if 'Arry stepped in from White Hart Lane and did a bit of cockney mooching around the touchline, and played something other than a 4-4-2? Is that all it would take to take a team of flops whose first touch bounces off their knees 20 yards and out for a throw-in into a bunch of world-beaters? Probably not. But that doesn't matter. People feel happier with an Englishman in charge of England. Pity for McClaren that he wasn't good enough, although it wasn't really his fault in so many ways. He was stuck with the same 'Golden Generation' who can't pass, tackle or shoot as well as their counterparts from younger footballing nations. He was stuck with the same expectations from players and public alike - and the same sense of entitlement.

England don't deserve to reach the finals of any tournament. They don't get a bye to the group stages just because they're England - they have to earn everything out there. But there is a whiff of entitlement about the players, a sense that they belong in the World Cup and that everyone else is just making up the numbers. The media buy into this too - when the group draw was revealed, the Sun's headline was EASY using the words England, Algeria, Slovenia and Yanks to make up the acronym. There's a sense that England deserve to win something, because of the Premier League, and, well, that's about it really.

Now I don't begrudge the players' thousands of pounds a week for turning up and doing their jobs - that's fair enough by me, and they pay their taxes, so that's not the reason in itself. It's the idea that stuff leaks out about how they think they should be playing. Where do you think all that stuff about Steve Gerrard being better behind Rooney came from? Did loads of journalists all come to the same conclusion? Or did someone have a word? When John Terry muttered about Joe Cole (who was shit when he came on against Algeria) deserving a place in the side, he was just being unsubtle, because he did it on the record. That's not the way it's done, traditionally. And then you see the presence of David Beckham lingering around everywhere in the background - a reminder of another of the 'Golden Generation' who isn't going anywhere, who once was top dog and decided where he would play on any given occasion, even in a ridiculous 'quarterback' position which led to defeat against Northern Ireland. But who got the blame? The manager. When in doubt, blame the manager. Blame everyone except the players.

You have to wonder whether anyone can really be a successful manager of an England team. The Premiership might be exciting to watch, but English players aren't learning their craft well enough to convert it into tournament success. So few English players bother going to Europe to learn. As we've seen, top-level football commentators know next to nothing about many other leagues in Europe. It's that English arrogance - we've got the best league in the world, why should we bother looking at any others? Why bother to see how other countries do it? We're better than them! Give McClaren his credit, he's made a success in Europe and he's moved on and moved up. Have the players who once performed so badly under him in England shirts? Probably not.

It's not xenophobic to say that foreign players are stopping English players from getting a chance in the Premier League. But it is wrong to imagine that foreign players are the main reason. If English players were better and more skilful, for example, they'd push the imports out on merit. Is it a question of the immigrants undercutting wages, as is the accusation with other trades? Probably not. I'm not even going to blame the Murdoch millions for ruining football. I can't stand the man as much as anyone else, but that's not the cause. I just seem to get the impression that in other countries, like Germany - who fully deserved their victory yesterday - the national league and the national football organisation work together to try and prepare things as best as possible. In England, that doesn't appear to me to be the case. The Premiership exists to hoover up money. Anything that jeopardises that - a winter break, fewer matches, whatever - will be rejected. It's as simple as that.

Capello will probably go, I should imagine. The pressure will mount on him, as it did against all previous managers. The tabloids have already started. Presumably there will be unpleasant intrusion into the private life, just as there was with Rob Green, long-lens pictures, and all sorts of ghosts from the past waiting to sell their dirty tales for a few quid. The soul-searching will carry on. Why can't England win? For me, the answers are simple, and I say all this as an England fan. We aren't good enough. The players are overrated. Technically, we lag behind most other nations, who are well organised and coached. The players demand they play where they want to play, in the systems they play for their club sides, rather than fit together for a common purpose in, you know, a team. The top dogs demand that they do whatever they want, and these demands find a way of ending up in the papers. Managers aren't listened to. That won't change with Honest 'Arry coming in. It won't be long before the first player who gets dropped starts grumbling from the touchline, or the first player who feels he'd rather be playing there rather than here starts making it known.

And so it all starts again. Blame the immigrant. Blame the foreign manager. Blame the foreign players. Blame everyone except the star striker who wasn't good enough, the captain who wouldn't play where he was told to play, and the others who decided not to turn up in South Africa. Blame, blame, blame. But it won't change anything. And we'll be back here again soon enough after another tournament knockout, another non-qualification, head-scratching again. There can't be anything wrong with England... they deserve to win, don't they?

* Re-reading it now with the benefit of hindsight, a few things spring to mind. McClaren may not have been good enough at the time but he's marked himself out as a decent club coach. He was out of his depth with England at the time, but you have to wonder who really would be 'in their depth' with that job.

A fan writes…

A reader calling him or herself 'Brit' sent me this comment on the 'England shirt ban' post* and I thought it deserved to be looked at in a bit more detail:

To be honest i agreed with all the groups on facebook, until i found out the rumor wasn’t true, there are a lot of people on here who are quick to judge people just because they want to fly their countries flag and support their team in the world cup, to be honest you should all climb out of your own arses and reallise that not everyone has the same views as you.

Is being proud of you country and heritage racist?

If you went to Pakistan and wore an England shirt you would probably be murdered, and yet foreigners come over here and get a house given to them and claim benefits, why should the tax payer shell out money for these people to come to out country and sponge off the rest of us? And most of them dont even speak english! so while you sit at your computer without a care in the world you should think about all of the British men who cant get work and who struggle to find a place to live because foreigners are getting all the houses.

Brit's views do intrigue me. They disappoint me rather than appal me. I'm not so much angry as weary when I read this kind of  thing. Because I think there are some fundamental misunderstandings going on, and it's a shame.

I always do realise that people don't have the same views as me, for one thing. That's the wonderful thing about multiculturalism: we're all so similar, and yet so different. Some of us wear silly hats; some of us have silly names; we all have got to live together, like Diff'rent Strokes - "the world don't move to the beat of just one drum", ah how sage that advice was, and yet, how relevant still. So my position on England shirts and the silliness of ban rumours isn't me thinking that everyone thinks the same as me at all; it's recognising that a lot of people think very differently. If that means I'm up my own arse (or indeed someone else's) then so be it, I suppose; but I don't think it's blinkered vision at all, is what I'm trying to say.

And I don't really think there's anything wrong with flying a country's flag. Another classic misunderstanding. Oh if only we could just sit down and have a cosy chat, Brit, you'd see we weren't so very different, you and I. Like you, I can't wait for the World Cup - like you, I'll be wearing my England shirt in eager anticipation (I've got the 2006 vintage, but I had the old Admiral Kit for Espana 82 when I was a much smaller child with more hair, arranged in a bowlcut - remember that strip? Beautiful, with stripes of red and blue. Controversial in a way, as there's no blue in the England flag, but still rather lovely, as I recall.)

I'll be nibbling my fingernails and hoping against hope that this time - more than any other time - this time, we're going to find a way, find a way to get away, this time, getting it all together, we're going to get it right. I'm hopeful England can even make the final - I've booked the Sunday off work, just in case - and I would love it if they did. Patriotism is in many ways a bizarre and silly thing, but it still comes surging up even in a woolly liberal-left bleeding-heart-and-proud-of-it like me. You can't choose which country you follow, whereas people do choose football teams that aren't in their back yards - I'm stuck with England, whether I like it or not, though of course I do like it.

So it's not about the pride. No-one's pride makes me annoyed. I've watched England play at Wembley; I've followed their fortunes around the world. I want them - us, if you like - to win, whatever happens. That it will delight knuckledragging fools is no matter to me, because it will be amazing, if England were to win a tournament, as they probably are long overdue to do. It would be wonderful, and I long for the day it happens. There's nothing wrong with these feelings. You can step back and say they're irrational and a bit odd; but they're there, so that's me. As a fan, I can say there's nothing wrong with showing pride in your country, or hoping your team wins a football match. Of course not! Brit asks "Is being proud of your country and your heritage racist?" to which I reply, of course not. No, it isn't racist. That's the strawman. No-one is calling anyone racist for wanting to support their team. But it is the case that some of the people who are proud of their country and their heritage are also racist. That's the thing.

And it's there, I'm afraid, that Brit and I really do part company. He says that if you went to Pakistan in an England shirt you'd probably be murdered. Oh, Brit, I'm sure it's not like that at all. But here you can see the fear that's part of these kind of feelings - fear that other countries are places where English people would be killed just for being English. Not at all. My limited experience of world travel tells me that English people are seen as being boorish idiots who can't handle their alcohol and behave like children, but people deserving of being murdered? No. I don't think many of us get murdered for being English, not even in - gasp - Muslim countries.

Brit goes on, comparing the murder of English people abroad which would probably happen to the warm welcome we give immigrants - apparently giving them houses and benefits straight away. You can try and bring up the points-based immigration system, or the detention centres for asylum seekers, or the chronic lack of social housing, or the fact that immigrants don't go to the front of the housing queue (although of course any family with children will get priority, whether they've been around for years or not - if that's the beef, then that's something separate, but that's not what people are arguing) - that doesn't matter. People believe the stories they get told - down the pub, or in the papers. People who are afraid they'd be murdered for wearing an England shirt in Pakistan - it's always linked with fear... fear of the unknown, or fear of what you think you know.

All political parties - including Labour, as I wrote the other day - are determined to make immigrants the new scapegoats. When the huge Coalition cuts are announced this week, and thousands of public sector workers find themselves on the dole, the pressure will only increase, as unemployment inevitably rises. Immigrants will be blamed. People like Brit might see it as evidence that the taxpayer is shelling out for foreigners to come over and sponge off us and 'get all the houses', while loads of people who were born here can't get jobs. Who is brave enough to argue why immigration is important, why it works, why it's a good thing? Not any of our dogwhistling politicians, I'd imagine. And these kind of views will just carry on, and get bigger and nastier.

The irritating thing I see about a lot of prejudice towards immigrants is that it doesn't seem to be racist at all. It seems to be based on a series of misunderstandings and miscommunications, and a series of myths that people have chosen to believe are true. Foreigners get all the council houses and come over here to be given benefits and sponge off the state; but if you went over there, you'd get murdered. No wonder people are angry, and annoyed, and fearful, like my new friend Brit, and it's not necessarily racist. But it is wrong. Wrong, but it isn't being challenged by politicians, who have got a handy scapegoat for (in Labour's case) the election defeat and (in the Coalition's case) the unemployment they're about to boost with their swingeing cuts. If anything, these myths are going to increase as the years of austerity unfold. Who will challenge them?

* That post has been viewed more than 6,000 times so far. Whether it's reinforced people's prejudices about there being a ban, or has convinced people there isn't a ban, I don't know. But it does go to show the power of Facebook, as most visitors have come from groups there.