How Many Kids Were Out Playing Football On Xmas Day?
Last updated : 29 December 2007 By Footy Mad - Editor
But a question I would like to ask the up and coming kids .... how many were out playing football on Christmas Day.
The days when the best Christmas present was a football shirt of your favourite team and a "proper" football.
I couldn't wait to get outside on Christmas morning, and the majority of us school kids were the same. Snow, hail, rain, we weren't concerned. The fields were full of youngsters kicking a ball about.
But I couldn't see a single youngster this year as I walked past the football fields. NOT ONE!
This is the age of laptops and Wii computers, kids sat in their rooms playing "vertual games" rather than actually DOING something.
That is the problem with football in the country.
Never mind the FA forming a 'root and branch' structure, you have to have kids with the passion to WANT to play.
All you need to play football is a ball! Nothing else matters.
African players are flooding into our game. What 'root and branch' structure do they have? They WANT to play football and that is the difference.
Venables: "All parts, from the Football Association to those involved in the football itself, have to look at themselves, strip it down and see where the problems are.
"But then it has to be backed. It's no good leaving players to their own devices to get results and say, 'it's nothing to do with me'.
"It's about saying, 'have we all done enough'? because we are all in it, and some of the answers are not particularly good, so we have to look at it.
"If you want success it has to happen. The FA has a big job on, and they have to get down to the problems because with any business, it starts with the people at the top.
"You need big men to stand up and say 'this is not right', and 'why isn't it right'? and to get people who are prepared to say what they think without others getting upset by that."
