The events at the Oval last month have fuelled much cricketing debate. Why did it happen? How did it come to the point where the Pakistan side refused to take the field again? Are they a victimised cricketing nation? Is Darrell Hair an officious cold hearted racist or a sole defender of the game’s values?

Well today’s post hearing press conference should have given us a great insight into some truths about what happened and how the ICC intends preventing such farcical scenes soiling crickets good name ever again. Enevitably however, as is with anything co-ordinated by the ICC, it was a pointless exercise and only served to shroud the whole incident in greater mystery and controversy. Not least by the fact that they announced the suspension of Hair’s umpiring duties for the ICC Champions Trophy moments before the man himself took to the hot seat, after they once again bowed to pressure from the new cricketing bully boys, the Board of Control for Cricket in Indian.

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There is a rather large problem permeating the Football Association. Ignoring the fact that they have appointed a man who is publicly known to be their second choice as manager, there is a bigger problem that not only faces this generation of English footballers, the self-anointed “golden generation”, but if the problem isn’t addressed, also the next two or three generations to come. The problem is, that for all the F.A.’s demands that England should be the best in the world, there has been very little of anything to suggest that the F.A. has the ambition to match these statements.

Whilst countries such as Holland, Italy, Brazil, Croatia and even Ireland have taken the bold steps of appointing untested ex-players as national team mangers, England still fall foul of the age old conservativeness that has so long affected the picking of the team.

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