Trevor Brooking is an unlikely evangelical but, as Barney Ronay reports, the mild-mannered one has come down off his fence with a vengeance in a bid to improve the basic football skills of children
“When it comes to skill levels, we are lagging behind the other major European countries… Unless this culture is changed, we will continue to slip behind.” So said Trevor Brooking last month, in one of his frequent and always deeply pessimistic dispatches from Soho Square. In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t the same cheery old sit-on-the-fence Trevor you might have become used to from his “to be fair the ball took a bit of a bobble” appearances on Match of the Day. Two years in charge of the FA’s youth programme have taken their toll, transforming Brooking, the director of football development, into the game’s Cassandra, repeatedly mongering the imminent doom of our national sport.
