He must have made it only halfway through his book, 'Phil Cool Died Here (And Lived To Tell The Tale)'.
Tony Dorigo is another who played a few games for England and neither his parents were English or British, He was born in Australia and while playing for Chelsea he became a British citizen !
So on a serious point, where do you draw the line? The loveable 'Arry Redknapp (I use the term looselly, I hate the ****) has just been on R4 saying any young kid who comes over from another country to sign for a football team should not be classed as English. However if his family just choose to move here from a foreign country then he can be classed as English. Eh - what the **** you on about? How are them 2 any different? A 14 year old might move here with his family with the express aim of getting picked up by a club so where does that leave us? And everyone keeps using the 'born here' tag. Well what if some Croats move here for 2 years, have a kid, and then decide to move back and spend the rest of their lives away from England. How is that more English than someone who moves here when he's 12 and spends the rest of his live here? It's all well and good making media friendly soundbites saying The England Team for the English - I imagine we all agree with that principle - but then defining what is English is a lot mroe difficult. On another note, redknapp was talking about his book and his controversial comments about the FA in it and he said today "the public were fully behind me getting the England job". What a cock, where's he got that from? Did he do a poll of the whole of the English football watching community?
English- born in England, of English stock, of English culture, with English as first language. This is not a 100% waterproof definition, but it's a starting point. We have to get away from the current slack 'laissez faire' (that's french for 'let make') where almost everyone in the world is eligible. This happy breed.
Tony Cascarino's story is brilliant. Plays for ROI 88 times and scores 19 goals, turns out he was never eligible.
So you dont think Huddleston and Davies should have any chance of playing for England? Hmm interesting
What's amusing is that this Januzaj kid was born in Belgium, but he recognises that he, like his Albanian-born parents, is ethnically Albanian and that he should thus play for them. Imagine if he was born in London and wanted to play for England, and someone said he should play for Albania. That person would be 'racist'. It seems that the current thinking is that nationality is about how you 'feel', whatever the **** that means. Mo Farah British because his dad was born in Hounslow to Somalian parents?
This whole Mohammed Farah thing is driven by pathetic glory-hunting, "he's the best in the world and will boost our medals haul". He's Somalian. What part of him is British? There's no glory whatsoever in nicking other countries' larkers or athletes......
For "as long as the name England or Great Britain is on the trophy it's OK", read, "as long as they play in Hull it's OK" The parallels with supporters of Hull Tigers are striking...
Many Somalis fled the country in the 1980s due to the internal civil war between dictator Siad Barré and opposition groups such as the SSDF. There was inter-clan fighting, street murders, rape, savagery, huge refugee camps on the borders. It wasn't a functioning country & hasn't been for years. Mo Forah was born in Mogadishu in 1983, spent 8 years in Djibouti & then joined his father (who was born in Britain). He didn't speak English at first. The UK is certainly his adopted country, some might not consider him British but to me it would be equally questionable to Somalis if he were to return there just for running events and represent them internationally.
