Search: 'Steve McManaman'

Ian Plenderleith ploughs through the ruminations of Setanta's pundits

I once worked for a website that took contributions from professional footballers, but the only player who regularly sent us copy was so inane that the impossibility of turning his column into something interesting or readable caused you to take the only option available – to bury your head in your hands and weep. Another player we approached who had written some sensible blog entries on his own personal site turned us down politely on the grounds that writing a blog had been fun for the first few weeks, but then it had started to seem more “like homework”.

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The Biography of Manchester United’s Midfield Maestro
by Ian Macleay

John Blake, £ 17.99

Reviewed by Joyce Woolridge
From WSC 260 October 2008 

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This is a book that should have been written two years down the line, when hopefully Owen Hargreaves has managed to put in something like a full season and lived up to his premature billing here as “United’s Midfield Maestro”. Currently, the Canada-born player is yet again not gracing the Old Trafford, or any other, pitch with his sublime skills, though his return to ­fitness is expected soon. It is undoubtedly true that without Hargreaves’s sporadic appearances Manchester United would not have won their two trophies last season, but the same could be said with more justification about most of the rest of United’s squad. He also showed some promise as the “holding midfield player”, the current mythical missing piece of the England team’s jigsaw, when fit. But he is still a work in progress.

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The Eleven Elements of Footballing Greatness
by Musa Okwonga
Duckworth, £15.99
Reviewed by Jonathan O’Brien
From WSC 249 November 2007 

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Musa Okwonga’s impressive CV includes the fact that he once won a poetry competition, a detail that may well send shudders down the spines of potential purchasers of his new book. In the event, A Cultured Left Foot rarely threatens to end up in Pseud’s Corner, but it still fails to really come together as an analysis of modern ­footballing excellence.

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Cameron Carter on an attempt to get the UK watching MLS

There used to be a time when a chap’s name in the programme title meant he was central to the project. Ellery Queen, Dempsey & Makepeace, The Sooty Show – they all featured the eponymous protagonists plum in the middle of the fray. Nowadays we live in more complex times, as illustrated by Macca’s Monday Night (Setanta) and David Beckham’s Soccer USA (Five). The former was in fact presented by Angus Scott, with Steve “Macca” McManaman and Tim Sherwood invited along as pundits to mull over the weekend’s games. Now, if my name were Macca and someone told me I was going to be on a programme called Macca’s Monday Night, I’d turn up in my best jacket and trousers expecting to be introducing the thing from the master chair. While it did appear that Scott’s questions were mainly directed to McManaman and then by trickle-down effect on to Tim Sherwood to add a supplementary point, it didn’t seem that Monday Night was owned by Macca as the title suggests. At best you could say he co-owned Monday Night as a sleeping partner.

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Phil Ball analyses David Beckham's time in the Spanish capital

Back in the mists of time, during David Beckham’s first season in Madrid, Guillem Balagué of Sky was given the privilege of interviewing the great man in situ. They sat together in the Asador Donostiarra restaurant, a regular haunt of Real Madrid’s bons vivants, Beckham looking splendid in his Lucius Malfoy haircut phase and Balagué asking all the right (pre-selected) questions. Becks seemed relaxed and happy, trusting Balagué. As he supped on a glass of red wine, he agreed to show his startling prowess in Cervantes’ tongue, “Tienes un poco de chorizo por favor?” (Have you got some salami sausage please?) He seemed Euroman incarnate, the symbol of a new era. Not only was this a man who could generate greenbacks by the million and play football half-decently, he could also meld into the sophistication of Madrid, a city whose hauteur and social mannerism know few limits. Balagué did to Beckham what Martin Bashir did to Princess Diana – teased him out and appeared to humanise him. It was a weird occasion, during a weird time when Beckham, if you recall, was everywhere – even in M & S.

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