England's Dreaming

Every time you think that English football has reached its absolute nadir, the team conspires to demonstrate an unfailing ability to plumb ever deeper lows.

As our footballers (some of whom are paid as little as £80,000 per week) dream up fresh ways to sink the country (avg salary £26,000 per annum) into a pit of despair, fear not, for I think I have the answer...

Yes, while your thoughts were turned to 4-4-2 or 4-5-1, player/manager relationships, to WAG to not-to WAG, roast or not-to roast, I believe I have found the source of the despair.

And I can exclusively reveal that IT'S ALL MY FAULT !!

Or more accurately, it's the fault of my Hackett World Cup 2002 shirt. 

I bought this before the World Cup in Japan in 2002, because I liked it and more importantly, because those replica football shirts are, well, not really made for the man with the "fuller" figure, shall we say.

No such probs with Hackett though, outfitters to the stout Yeomanry of England.

I remember the 2002 finals as a period of abject despair until England went out, and then a period of abject boredom. Frankly, it hasn't got any better in the intervening years, what with an appalling display in Germany 2006, a completely unforgettable Euro 2004 and a couldn't-even-be-bothered-to-qualify Euro 2008.

And all the while, brooding with red malevolence, the source of England's despair, it's demon, its mole in the camp, its saboteur, my shirt...

So it's time to say goodbye to that shirt. Not just to throw it in the wardrobe and never wear it again, no... its evil is to strong for that. It must be BURNT, I tell you, BURNT until it's essence is just vapour and gas in the sky, offered as a sacrifice to whatever supreme being has the inside track on footy.

It needs to happen before Wednesday. Stay tuned for the ceremony...