England Expects That Every Man Will Do His Duty

They will call it the 3rd test. They will be wrong! They will say that with KP out England have less chance of winning the ashes. They will be wrong!

The truth is that it is the 78th test. Or more importantly his 78th test, and then will come the 79th and finally the 80th and after that it will be over. That man of course sits, arms in the air, to the right of this paragraph, that man is Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff.

I know! Most of you care not about cricket but about football. But for those of you who don't know the man from Preston is about to retire from Test Cricket. He will no doubt be remembered as a great cricketer, as a great personality but one who never took as many wickets or scored as many runs as he probably should have. Freddie may still deliver a World Cup trophy for his nation, but if he does not then he will have led England to victory in at least one, and hopefully two, ashes series victories. Yes partially this will be through his talent, but mainly it will be through his will, through his destiny!

OK stop looking at me all funny! I've not suddenly developed a massive weird streak, well weirder any way. But does it not seem odd, in the case of Freddie and in the case of another English sportsman, that somewhere it must be written "You will capture the hearts of the nation and bring to them glory, but you will sacrifice your body and soul and injuries shall stop you from winning more.". Bit precise I know. And at this point you must be thinking the other sportsman must be a footballer, after all I couldn't have spoken this long without mentioning football. You're wrong, the other man is Jonny Wilkinson.

England's World Cup winning Fly-Half put in hours, days, weeks and months of extra training to learn how to kick the perfect kick in rugby. And so after sacrificing body and mind and, at times, getting England to the World Cup final almost single handed (or with his left boot), Wilko injured his shoulder in the final. He went onto kick that kick and so the celebrations began. The number 10 from Newcastle had brought World Cup success to England for the first time in a major sport since 1966 but the shoulder he injured would start the chain reaction that would see him barely play, not just for England, for a long time. Jonny is still playing, but no doubt he will get injured to the extent that will lead to retirement.

And what's the point of me yabbering on about these two men? One who plays with smaller and one with a more odd shape ball, than this column usually focuses on. Well my point is, these two men have put everything, and more, on the line. For what? For their country and their sport. And again the point to all this? The fact that England's football team do not have this man.

Rooney, Owen, Beckham- all these man have tried, with their will, to win England a World Cup, and all of these men have had injuries along the way. But none of these men have really made the sacrifices necessary. For one Owen and Rooney both play for the World Club champions and Beckham only threw away his chance of playing for one of Europe's best teams permanently and not on loan once Steve Mclaren had told him his chances of playing for England were over. No where is there a man willing to end his career prematurely in order to bring us the joy of being World Champions, one day, we may do it, we may even do it soon, without someone having to lose a leg or other limb. In this generation we may have to accept that we will see a rugby world cup, we will see 2 ashes wins (here's hoping) we just probably won't get the football world cup we

hope for.

Meanwhile, in the world of Sunday league football, all is well! We have a sponsor! This doesn't sound like ground breaking news I know, but it means that we get to stay a float. At the top level of football player's are getting paid more and more whilst at the bottom rung football gets more expensive. We find it difficult to find places to train, a five-a-side match costs £56 for an hour, our pitch for the season will cost £75 more than last season, all this in a recession. I must thank our sponsor Clive Anthony residential lettings for their commitment to our team.

Rising costs and falling numbers in males playing 11-a-side football in our country, it's perhaps no surprise that there isn't enough English players coming through to play in the Premiership and trying to force their way into the England football team. And with the nature of football- International stop club football, which is unlike the other two sports- perhaps it is impossible that one man will have to give up everything to win us a world cup. But England should at least produce one man who WOULD, given the opportunity, give it all up for that beautiful trophy. England Expects! Now we just have to wait!