Ins and Outs of Football (and Norwegians)

“So why aren’t all football teams composed of 19-20 years olds?” I ask Elder Daughter on the way back from the Cheese Festival.

She and Web Wizard are home for the weekend, tempted by the great British Cheese Week Fair at Cardiff Castle. They have desperately been trying to recoup the £8 entry fee by eating large quantities of free samples. Web Wizard declares he has now got a ‘cheese headache.’ I as usual am on taxi-duty, dutiful parent that I am.

Elder Daughter is a bit of an Arsenal fan, this having been the only term in the pre-nuptial agreement with Web Wizard. In consequence we, in the wider family, are now also all conscripted Arsenal fans, even though we know next to nothing about football. I decided this needed rectifying.

I have this weird theory that, after a few years of kicking a ball about, surely a promising footballer should know how to play and what to do? Why then would you need a manager? Why then do you need ‘experience.’ Just what more is there to learn, I ask innocently?

Elder Daughter is patience personified. When she and her sister were little they used to sit one each side of me on the bed at night and we would have ‘interesting chats.’ They would ask naive questions - why does the light come on when we turn the switch? Why do countries go to war? What is the moon made off? Where does dust come from? And I would attempt a half-competent answer, usually boring them into early drowsiness.

Maybe however I am losing my touch. The other day, sitting in the garden of a friend’s house I tried the same thing with their four year old red-headed grandchild, who for some reason wanted to know where Americans came from. I started on Columbus and then Madoc and then - with one eye on the red hair - the Vikings.

“Where do Vikings come from?” came the inevitable question.

“Norway” I answered boldly, thinking on the spur of the moment that in terms of the countries she had heard about Norway might beat Denmark by a short head, while Scandinavia would trail in a poor third, if indeed it finished at all.

So I told her about Vikings and Longboats and the Beserkers and, carefully skating around the rape and pillage bit, told her that many Vikings had settled in Britain and that for all we knew we might both be descended from Vikings ourselves.

“Does that mean you are Norwegian?” I winced at her lack of inclusivity.

“Well, yes. I suppose it does. In a manner of speaking.” I waited eagerly for the next question. Instead there came an unexpected put down.....

“I’m bored with Norwegians,” she announced crushingly, and marched off to play tug of war with the dog.

As a result I have decided to give up (at least until Younger Daughter’s mite, Topaz, is toddling) giving random interesting chats to the rising generation. Instead, I am practicing, in preparation for my dotage, being on the receiving end of such pearls of wisdom. Hence this chat in the car about football and my suitably naive questions.

Elder Daughter explains that although 19 and 20 years olds can whiz about the pitch they don’t always run to the right places, nor to they always know what best to do with the ball should they find themselves in its way. Older players know better what they are doing.

“Theo Walcott was only 17 when he played for England,” I chirp up, desperate to show my knowledge of at least one Arsenal player.

“Walcott is exceptional,” came the somewhat lame reply.

This was, I felt, a knock-out blow. Convincing proof of my argument.

But then she went on to suggest that while the then seventeen year old Walcott might have taken the correct decision about playing the ball two times out of three, give him a few more years of careful attention to his betters and he would be taking the right decision all the time.

“But why then when you have got all these experienced players, who always take the right decision when the ball lands at their feet, do you need a manager? Can’t you just nominate a captain and a vice-captain (in case the captain is injured) and get them to pick a team and then let the team decide the best strategy according to their skills and their opponents’ weaknesses? Why pay some lantern-jawed Italian vast sums of money when our own lads could do the job themselves?"

This brought a long lecture about the skills of Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal Manager, which I shall not bore you with. Words like strategy, analysis, tactics, encouragement, discipline, selection and development, figured prominently. Had I been a mere 58 years younger I should have long since fallen asleep, as indeed despite his Cheese Headache had Web Wizard. Instead I had roundabouts to attend to. I listened attentively, as Elder Daughter's bullets of wisdom struck home

Should I ever be called upon to manage a football team, I shall know just what to do.