We Might As Well Have A Monkey Captain

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Being England captain is one of the greatest honours to be bestowed upon a player in the English game. You are not just a leader of men, you are a first amongst equals, you are an ambassador for the country, you are Our Finest.

Uh huh. Right. If you say so.

So can you tell me who is Italy's current captain? Who is Germany's captain, or even Spain? Most of us probably don't know. And even if you do know, do you see those men as any more special in any way at all? Do they somehow embody their nation more than any other player? Do you hold them in higher regard because of the captain's armband? Do you see them as an ambassador for their country?

Of course not.

As far as we are concerned, they're just the bloke who leads out the team and tosses the coin. That is because it isn't really an important role and when it comes to countries other than England we can see that very clearly.

But not when it comes to England. Somehow, somewhere along the line, the captaincy in this country acquired a mythic quality of Arthurian proportions; He is a king leading his knights into battle.

So when good captains go bad it is always big news in England. Whether it is off-field shenanigans or on-pitch clusterf***ery, the appointment or defenestration of an England captain seems to occupy the press greatly, though I have always suspected it bothers us, the paying public, far less.

It is evident that this yearning for a captain that is somehow an upstanding member of the community, a man of integrity and valour, has not done England any favours. Whomever has been Engand captain since the uber Golden Lion, Bobby Moore, has not led us to victory nor anywhere near victory. Not even when the captain has been one of those 'English Lions' that the press and the more slack-jawed fan seems to desire so much, men such as Terry Butcher.

Butcher's great claim to fame as England captain was to bleed profusely from a head wound, which, to be fair, is a talent all of us potentially have. Time and again Butcher's red corpuscle count for the cause has been hailed as being the embodiment of the true English spirit, even now. Butcher actually only captained England seven times and to my certain knowledge, bleeding profusely from a head wound has never been necessary to win a world cup or European Championship. But such matters don't seem to bother those who perpetuate the myth of the special captain.

For all the supposed yearning for this mythical English hero, history instead reveals lots of anonymous, distinctly non-Arthurian England captains such as Peter Shilton, Mick Mills, Ray Wilkins, Kevin Keegan, Gary Lineker and Alan Ball amongst many. None of these men had a bandaged head so perhaps were not quite lionhearted enough.

For all their qualities they were not leaders of men who would single-handedly drag the side to glory. They turned up, shook hands and tossed a coin. That was it and rightly so. This is not a critique of them but of the whole concept of the inspirational captain. England have not failed for nearly 60 years because of the character of their captain but because of the nature of their football.

As we know Fabio Capello is somewhat puzzled and now confused and angry by our concern with such matters and how it affects attitudes to a player. In Italy the most capped player in the team get the armband. This would mean Ashley Cole would be our new captain.

Oh. Bum.

See, that put a shudder of horror down your spine, didn't it? So maybe it does matter to us a bit, even to us sceptics. Even we have, to some degree, been indoctrinated by this English captaincy disease and perhaps feel some men are not good enough for the armband.

David Beckham was widely regarded as marvellous at the job, not so much for anything on the pitch but because he looked handsome on the telly; media duties being a large part of the captain's role in the 21st century.

Since then other captains haven't looked so clever. By contrast to Becky, John Terry has looked like an old lag out of jail after a ten stretch for armed blaggings. His light, slightly hoarse voice, at odds with his brick wall appearance, has always created an unnerving disparity.

Stevie G's perma-frown suggested a man for whom this talking business is a bit of an intellectual stretch. Rio's seven armbands were always somewhat undermined by all that merking business and the fact that that he was as physically brittle as a Ryvita and liable to get injured at any minute, quite possibly during a press conference or while tossing a coin. That very sensible if dull school prefect type Frank Lampard was given a go but presumably lacked sufficient Inner Lion for the job.

All of these were a comedown from lovely, lovely Becky, his melt-your heart smile and self-evidently genuine, unaffected loyalty and passion for his country. But regardless of how delicious The Sainted Underpant was as a captain, we miss Beckham's ability at free-kicks far more than his armband abilities.

The fact is, the whole captaincy issue is in reality a non-issue. It is not worth worrying about. It does not deserve the acres of press written about it. We assign way too much importance and significance to it. Ok so it's not Terry anymore. Big deal. Having a couple of central defenders who are fit, have some pace and positional sense is much more important to England's cause. The fact that Terry's defending is at its best when he is doing his impression of a felled tree should always have been more concern than whether he is captain or not, to him, to us and to the FA.

We could train a monkey to lead out the side, shake hands with the opposition captain, exchange a pennant and toss a coin and maybe that's exactly what we should do. A monkey captain is the future. Everyone loves a monkey, he'd literally work for peanuts and make as much sense as any footballer during press conferences.

Mind you, if he was an English monkey it'd probably only be a matter of time before he was found in the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas with a couple of hookers and a big bag of cocaine screaming 'when the monkey is high, you do not stare!'

A Big Thank You: To everyone who bought t-shirts last week to help pay off my HMRC bill. It made a big dent in it. You can still use this code FBN at www.djtees.com and get a special F365 20% off. Cheers, Johnny.