National service

Ian Wright. Aah, bless him. He said this, in the Sun.

The next young player who says he does not want to play for England should be ordered to ring the parents of a soldier who has died serving his country in Afghanistan, and tell them his reasons.

I took the quote from 101 Great Goals, as the Sun is behind a Murdoch paywall. Which means people pay real spendable money to read the Sun online. Can you imagine? Wright was responding to a Harry Redknapp BBC radio interview, in which he claimed that while he was manager at Spurs English players had asked him to get them out of international games.

It's hard to know where to begin with this. Firstly, at the most literal level, can you imagine that phone call? Especially if you consider that most of us don't exactly warm to the Afghan war anyway. Not that most players are that political, but unless a player happens to combine an aversion to footballing national service with a strong patriotic desire to defend America's Uzbekhi oil lines it may not be best for them to go phoning bereaved parents.

But it's also worth looking at the two reasons Redknapp gives for players' reluctance to play for England.

Firstly, he mentions a player who didn't want to leave the country because his girlfriend was going to be having a baby in four weeks. Surely this is entirely reasonable? It isn't the fifties any more, men are generally encouraged to regard the pregnancies they cause as events deserving of their attention. I don't suppose many men with partners eight months gone would be taking themselves off to Minsk or Bratislava unless they had to.

Except of course that there are plenty of fans who'd do exactly that, and don't their friends think they're hilarious. Did you hear about Biggsy? Only went to Prague for the Champions League game! What? But isn't Carol about to drop? I know, what a lad, eh?

No. Biggsy is not a lad. Biggsy is a twat, you are both also twats, and Carol deserves better. I'm glad you aren't real, it saves me having to avoid you.

So a resounding fuck off to anyone demanding fathers-to-be hurl themselves across Europe for our entertainment, then. But Redknapp also offers another reason.

You see the stick the England players get and they come home, they’re earning fantastic money at their clubs, they’re all playing in the Champions League. They think, ‘Do we need the aggro?'

Now this might seem more like a legitimate complaint. It feeds into our sense of top level players as a pampered upper class, the oligarchs of sport. Until you remember an England fan shouting insults at the team as they left the pitch after losing to Romania at Euro 2000. I hope you get cancer. I hope you get cancer and die. I hope your kids get cancer and die.

I haven't put it in quotes, as I can't find a reference online, but that was the gist of it. It's an extreme example, but we all know there's a culture of that kind of thing among some of those who follow the game. When you think about it, I can't think of any reason why anyone should feel obliged to put themselves through that.

Take Rooney. He scored more goals than anyone in the qualifiers, and scored one and made one of the two goals we managed in Brazil. And look at the grief he's had. If I was him, I would think fuck this, you go out there and see how many slide rule passes you can thread through the Italian defence, you fat middle-aged fucks.

Yes, all right, that was two made up quotes and one I couldn't exactly remember. Here's some real ones from Twitter right now.

Hopefully thats the last time I will see #Rooney in an #England shirt

England look better without #rooney no shocks there

Here comes captain fantastic to slow the game down even more #gerrardsfault 

Gerrard Sucked Cock #GerrardsFault #FuckingScouser

Someone's got to trash his gaf if you scousers are really English! #germangerrard #undercovergerman #gerrardsfault 

Can't believe Roy Hodgson isn't resigning. Worst EVER performance in the World Cup??? Come on mate, do the right thing. #England

Admittedly the last one was Piers Morgan, but all the others seem to be real fans. I haven't added their Twitter names, because I don't want to encourage them, but I'm sure you could find them if you looked. Don't be unpleasant to them, though (wink wink).

I'm really not sure why anyone doing a professional job to a very high standard should feel obliged to subject themselves to such a torrent of bile when they don't have to. It would be offputting even if it was correctly spelt and capitalised.

So I'd have to take issue with Wright and his footballing white feathers, but the same knuckle draggers that excuse the draft dodgers remind us that there are worse things in football than his honest overcommitment to the cause. And as if on cue Suarez demonstrates this on our TVs. Just what we needed, a little biting satyr.