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A week of hopes and fears for Scotland and England led to double failure but contrasting reactions online, as Ian Plenderleith found out with the help of a folk singer and various dead writers

England’s and Scotland’s failure to qualify for Euro 2008 not only proved there is no longer a British team in the continent’s top ranks. The contrast in home reactions to that failure also showed us that, although the end result may be the same, an underdog country’s sporting patriots generally maintain a healthy perspective, while a Bulldog Nation’s repeat anticipation of glory only perpetuates its misery and ill-humour.

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Dear WSC
The substitutes’ bench at a football stadium should be exactly that – a rickety, splintered wooden structure, also housing an elderly physio with a smoker’s cough, that players will be only too keen to get away from. Yet several Premier League clubs, including Newcastle and Spurs, have comfortable seats for the substitutes that look like something from the executive class on an aeroplane. These players won’t feel motivated to leave their padded headrests with optional vibro-massage function in order to run around in the wind and rain. What next – soothing music piped in through headsets? Treat them mean to keep them keen, for God’s sake.
Glyn Teasdale, via email

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The Burns Report changes are finally implemented at the FA. Bruce Wilkinson reports

Almost three years since Lord Burns was asked to put together a report into the structure of the FA, 21 months after it was presented and seven since it was ratified, the governing body’s shareholders have finally voted for the changes. When Burns originally looked at the governing body he immediately realised that its Byzantine structure made quick and incisive decision-making almost impossible. He declared that the FA Council was not representative of the diverse interests of the game and was out of touch with modern thinking. The author also highlighted a number of conflicts of interest among voting members.

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Tuesday 1 Liverpool beat Chelsea on penalties to reach the Champions League final. “In extra time we were the only team who tried to win,” says José, pouting more than ever. Joey Barton is suspended by Man City for a training‑ground fight with team‑mate Ousmane Dabo. The FA are to investigate Oldham chairman Simon Blitz, who made a £500,000 loan to Queens Park Rangers.

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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.

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