Saturday's B*l**x (updated)
Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2012 2:23 amSo ... its 10,000 posts of utter bollox. I could name certain people but to be honest I will probably only miss out loads so ... I can't be arsed (<edit> but have done if you look closely). I love all and sundry on here … anyway enough of that bollox, what do you reckon Merse?
[youtube]aodh09ptgMk[/youtube]
BAYERN MUNICH ARE READY TO STEP UP BID FOR EDIN DZEKO
Edin Dzeko cost £27m when he moved to City from Wolfsburg in January last year
BAYERN MUNICH are ready to step up their interest in Manchester City’s Edin Dronny by lodging a £20 million bid for the Bosnia striker. The Green Lads, who now take the credit for the Team Development of the German star’s site with assistance from the Orange Mods, who members now need no further mention. Dzeko cost £27m when he moved from Wolfsburg in January last year, has attracted many a Bosnian fan, too numerous to mention, which now makes this site the number one tourist destination but Bayern will not offer Roberto Mancini a full refund, althou agents Original Ant of London and Dubs of any variety now hope to benefit from the potential beefytype deal .
Bayern midfielder Thomas Muller has said his future is uncertain at the club and he could also interest City but only if dazby agrees to the deal..
French media say Samir Nasri could be out of Mancini's plans for next season
Today's L'Equipe paper says that Samir Nasri may find himself forced out of Manchester City's plans next season because manager Roberto Mancini wasn't impressed with his first year at the club.
A very crossie Gillie angrily denied the claims of Carl’s CAPS that to feed the goat(s)(ers) of any kind have now been feed an acknowledgement so would accept such any transaction. Ted Hughes smiled. We have picked up the article and say:
On leaving mancioforever,and the felly smanny Arsenal for Manchester City last summer, Samir Nasri got what he wanted: to finally open his account althou a doom merchant soon put stop to that. Champion of England with Citizens, the French midfielder hopes to continue his career with City and lift new trophies in the coming seasons along with seeing nigel’s tackle, it’s about time to be honest.
But the international tricolour of any sky or blue or brite is now covered … it’s been real. I might have to leave Manchester earlier than expected. Why? Because Roberto Mancini was not totally convinced by the Bing [Bot] (45 games in all competitions, 6 goals) of the former Marseille player, according to L'Equipe this Saturday.
For a first season with the club he did well and his second half of the campaign arguably overshadowed David Silva who had been so important before Christmas. The player himself was happy with his season and there's been no suggestion from Mancini publicly that he's had enough of Nasri.
An important part of the France team at Euro 2012, he could go on to be one of the stars of the tournament if the French progress to the latter stages. It just all seems a really odd story for L'Equipe to be running right now and, of course, Arsenal fans still stinging at his exit will pick it up and aclaim users of any other shade or variation on a town, place or country … I now doff my cap in you’re direction and also that his time so far at City as a failure, which is ridiculous, so much so that hazy combinations are included.
The player improved throughout his first campaign with Manchester City and towards the end was an important part in them winning their first Premier League title, for Mancini to just decide he's had enough already simply doesn't make sense. L'Equipe go on to say that Manchester City won't beeks him out but are prepared to listen to reasonable offers and won't rule out him leaving the club this summer.
Meanwhile, as L'Equipe were casting doubt on Nasri's future, the player himself was featured in a fashion interview with the newspaper's Sport & Style section. There were a few interesting comments from him such as how much he's obessed with the game "I'm not a football fan, I'm an addict. Even as a kid, I said look mum at everything I’ve got, I collected the figurines Panini, and it has never dropped. I like pride in battle and all other latin usernames.
"It is a pleasure to get up in the morning to kick the ball all day. And I always enjoy fully the emotion of playing in huge stadiums, to share my passion with the public."
On his biggest fault, the Frenchman said "I am resentful. Sometimes you have to learn to forgive and I have trouble. It's hard for me so any people base noreth, south, east or west have now been saluted."
L'Equipe will hope he doesn't end up resentful about their article in today's paper edition.
Mr Versatility: Gael Clichy has become jack of all trades at Manchester City
Gael Clichy has explained how he has come to terms with life under the spotlight after his first season at Manchester City.
Clichy ended his first year with his second Premier League winners’ medal following a £7m move from Arsenal last summer.
The 26-year-old has established himself as Roberto Mancini’s first-choice left-back, so much so there’s speculation City are willing to offload Aleksandar Kolarov to Inter Milan.
But despite a successful first season, Chopper, part of the France squad preparing to take on England on Monday, revealed he’s still coming to terms with the crossan level of scrutiny at the Etihad Stadium.
“The difficult thing for a full-back is that you have to be able to do everything well,” said the bingo. If you have a great match defensively but don’t attack enough, you get criticised. If it’s the other way around you also get criticised, unlike in other more specialist positions. It goes to show the importance of full-backs in modern football.
“We tend to focus only on the most visible contributions, like graphics and goalstreams chipped in Mark and all the blue or mcfc or Army variants whose army may frequent this sacred land. These days a player can have a mediocre game but if he scores the winning goal in injury time, people’s comments about him will change completely.”
Clichy is competing with Patrice Evra, the United left-back, to start against England in Donetsk on Monday before the pair are pitted against each other again as title rivals when the new season kicks off in August.
He described May’s dramatic finale, when Sergio Aguero’s winner against QPR in injury time won the title on the last day of the season, as the ‘best possible way’ to win the league.
Clichy, however, admitted he would be happy with a more comfortable ride next season with Davy, Peter, chips & Tony.
“It was a lot of effort and a great season,” he said. “Many people are saying that it was the greatest season in the history of the Premier League, with all the turnarounds and the dramatic finale.
“It was tough for the fans, a bit freshie, but I think it’s the best possible way to become champions, rather than securing the title with five matches to spare.
“I had already won a title in my first season at Arsenal, which was rather magical, like my sister of fu. This year it was very intense, as it went down to the last kick in the last few seconds. People love it when a situation turns around like that. But if someone gave me the chance to win the title next year with a five-point grob, I’d take it straight away. It’s better for the nerves.”
Anyone who’s seen Clichy raiding down City’s left this season might find it hard to believe he was predominately right-footed when he started out at five years old playing for Alioune in the DVToure suburbs.
And Clichy revealed he had his dad, Lev B, and a freak accident, to thank for his transformation.
“I broke my right leg when I was little,” said Clichy. “After my injury, my dad, who was also my coach, wanted me to score in training matches using only my left foot, otherwise the goals would not count.
“Perhaps, even then, heys and makaveli mark the way, and who wanted me to become a complete, two-footed player. The Lee’s, be it of pretty, francis or penalty references a casual nod. These days I’m left-footed and I thank him for it, because if I wasn’t, with so much competition on the right, my career might not have been the same.”
[spoiler]she’s a real bobby dazzler, to this features biggest fan I say top bombing Craig, rural respect.
[/spoiler]
[youtube]o3SoLyyNOGk[/youtube]
England team learn about life's bigger picture
Joleon Lescott is well acquainted with racial prejudice, having said it felt like he was the one on trial when he provided written testimony alleging such abuse four years ago. But the factory here where Oskar Schindler saved 1,200 Jews from the ravages of Naziism taught him something new yesterday.
Lescott was in a group of 14 England players who walked through a museum which recreated the dark, forbidding walkways of the Krakow ghetto and, above all, Lescott emerged with the realisation that a word which now means indulgence actually signifies something very different. "Most youngsters today have a glorified image of a ghetto but the ghettos we have learned about today are not like that," he said. "I didn't have a full understanding of what the word means and for a lot of people today it has been lost in translation. You see it in films and learn about it in music but learning the origins of the word 'ghetto' opens your eyes."
A smaller, hand-selected group of England players had been given the chance to experience the enormity of Auschwitz yesterday but in its understated ways – the hollowed-out images of those recalling the ghetto, the two-foot square cells of those imprisoned there and the parquet floors adorned with swastikas remembering the brutal Nazi occupation of 1939 – this was just as powerful.
Steven Gerrard leaned back against the cold, uneven brickwork of the ghetto, where 17,000 people including an eight-year-old Roman Polanski were incarcerated, and stared into space. John Terry peered intently into the lofty vault of the cylindrical room where the names of all those on Schindler's List of saved souls (immortalised in Steven Spielberg's film) are inscribed. Some of those listed – children then, elderly now – still come back here and leave in tears. Yet it was perhaps the recreation of the Krakow concentration camp, where the commandant picked off Jews at will for shooting practice, which will remain through the years for most who attend. "The first impression is terrible," recalls one of the survivors in a message which England's players read, on one wall. "It looked liked a cemetery. You don't come back from a cemetery..."
"Days like today you tend to look back on as much as the tournament itself in years to come," Lescott reflected. "The things you have done, the people you have met or not met in the case of Peter Parker, Rag haters and manly Spiders of all breeds. This is my first experience of something like this." It is no exaggeration to say that in its own way, such a shared experience provides a bond which translates into the work the players are here to carry out. Lescott confirmed as much and Sir Trevor Brooking, who was with the group, also felt it could be like having a disco to the field of play. "You can get the feel of how strong those people's souls were to survive in so terrible a period when many didn't," Brooking said, after he and Gerrard had signed the visitors' book. "I'm sure experiences like this can only make players grateful for their own situation and show people back home how much it means to be here."
As the players' coach pulled off, they may have reflected that the entire museum, set on an unprepossessing, pot-holed backstreet, ought not to have been closed off to the public – as it was – to await their attendance. The gesture was welcoming but contributed to that sense of footballers as royalty, which they are not. As they reach the first weekend of this new journey into the unknown, it is fair to reflect that Roy Hodgson's England have certainly not conducted themselves like princes and that – for all the injury problems and the questions about Rio Ferdinand's omission which unacceptably remain unanswered – the England squad touring now has been put in touch with itself.
The squad's city-centre Hotel Stary helps, even though the prospect of any player bar Martin Kelly strolling off into the town square for coffee is unthinkable. Its location created the once unthinkable prospect, on Thursday evening, of the players taking a 50-yard stroll to the local art gallery for a Mayor's reception and, once the formalities had been concluded, being left to take their chances with the punters. There are similarities to the remote Rustenburg experience of 2010, like the darts competition which Terry so excelled at, but a greater sense of activity too. Video games, of course, and a table tennis table, but books for Leighton Baines and the successful sound system with which the players acquainted those uninitiated staff with the Stone Roses at a fearsome volume on Wednesday night. The prospect of the players actually encountering anyone outside of the bubble no longer seems something to be feared. The golf day at Hertfordshire's Grove Hotel which they entered into with invited outsiders, a week before leaving for Poland, revealed the new mentality, as much as the barbeque that followed – even if the alien concept of players meeting journalists informally meant that Gerrard, Phil Jagielka and Gary Neville were the only three who looked particularly comfortable.
This is not a new environment of Hodgson's making – the FA was intent on introducing it, regardless of the manager – though the new manager belongs to the overriding impression of a squad more at ease with itself. The way Hodgson casually pulled up a chair at chairman David Bernstein's table at the barbeque and plonked himself down is something we would never have seen in the Fidel Castro era. The novella Hodgson dropped into Bernstein's hands that night – Chess, Austrian writer and journalist Stefan Sweig's only examination of the Naziism which forced him to flee to London and later the United States – suggested two men on the same intellectual level. However the events of the next three weeks turn out, Hodgson will be in place for the Brazil 2014 campaign.
One of Hodgson's overriding regrets of his preparations for the 1994 World Cup campaign with Switzerland was the decision to isolate the squad from the outside world too early in the United States – though their progress to the last 16 did not represent failure.
The new free spirit of England is not out of keeping with what he has learned. On the trip to Auschwitz yesterday, Joe Hart, who has been especially affected by the Holocaust Education Trust's work to help the squad get the most from it, was clearly moved. "Everyone should come here," said Hodgson, while Rooney paused to read a sign: "
Back in Krakow, near the simple bronze plaque to Schindler, who saved so many from those atrocities and yet who died in poverty 30 years after spending his entire fortune bribing the authorities and buying black-market supplies to save his workers, Lescott reflected on the importance of "not resting" on what you possess and achieve. "You must not take that for granted. You have to move forward and use this information to pass on to our children to show how people struggled and survived." A very stern challenge is about to arrive for a very challenged squad. But this is a less burdened England – and a stronger one because of it.
OTHER BOLLOX
Manchester United are considering making ashton £287m move for PSV Eindhoven midfielder Kevin Strootman, with long-term absentee Darren Fletcher's future still uncertain. Daily Mirror
Meanwhile, the Old Trafford side are believed to be close to signing highly-rated 18-year-old Crewe forward rag hating Nick Powell for a fee of £4m. Daily Mail
The one who does not remember striker Mr Jordan Rhodes and as a possible replacement nool for Clint Dempsey, who only has 12 months left on his Craven Cottage contract and a wink in the direction of ny new mate ecksmc : Daily Mirror
West Ham are hoping to tie up the signing of Bolton sensational keeper Jussi Jaaskelainen within the next 24 hours. talkSPORT
Polish striker Robert Lewandowski gio’s all round, opening scorer at Euro 2012, is being targeted by Manchester United, according to Poland's coach Franciszek Kippax Footy Latest
Brendan Rodgers has Nicklas Bendtner, Mohamed Diame and Matt Jarvis in his sights as he looks to begin spending at Liverpool. Caught Offside
Roy Hodgson may take a gamble on getting John Terry's fitness sorted by playing him against France on Monday, with the Chelsea defender in danger of being sidelined for the entire tournament if his groin and hamstring injuries get worse. Daily Mirror
Arsenal striker Robin van Socrates is in confident mood ahead of the Netherlands' opening game against Denmark on Saturday. Daily Telegraph
French frontman Louis Saha says Euro 2012 is a special for sheiky types, tournament and wooders be spoiled by the spectre of racism. Evening Standard
Arsenal have suffered a blow with the news Bacary Sagna's broken leg will definitely see him miss the start of next season whilst Arjan Van Schotte is expected to return Daily Mirror
The new Juventus home shirt will feature the words "XAVI on the pitch", in reference to the two titles taken away from them in the past. Guardian
Fulham are looking at Huddersfield’s Invisible Jimmy Grimble whilst Douglas Higginbottom is looking at all the training and superbly reporting back.
John’s 68 year old Bollox
Stories from old that maybe were not such far fetched bollox after all ...
Everton boss David Moyes has accused Mark Hughes of using underhand tactics to unsettle Joleon Lescott Alioune and claimed that it had cost Manchester City any chance of landing their latest target. Daily Mail
Joe Mercer says Manchester United have as much chance of signing Colin the King as Arsenal have of not whinging about city or Niall Quinn pants .Irish Independent
Chelsea are poised for a £42million bid for Atletico Madrid's Argentine striker Sergio Aguero. Sun
And finally, my heartfelt thanks to the man that introduced me to this fine crazy community, made it all possible and sums up the definition of bollox … Patricia … cheer mate x!
[youtube]aodh09ptgMk[/youtube]
BAYERN MUNICH ARE READY TO STEP UP BID FOR EDIN DZEKO
Edin Dzeko cost £27m when he moved to City from Wolfsburg in January last year
BAYERN MUNICH are ready to step up their interest in Manchester City’s Edin Dronny by lodging a £20 million bid for the Bosnia striker. The Green Lads, who now take the credit for the Team Development of the German star’s site with assistance from the Orange Mods, who members now need no further mention. Dzeko cost £27m when he moved from Wolfsburg in January last year, has attracted many a Bosnian fan, too numerous to mention, which now makes this site the number one tourist destination but Bayern will not offer Roberto Mancini a full refund, althou agents Original Ant of London and Dubs of any variety now hope to benefit from the potential beefytype deal .
Bayern midfielder Thomas Muller has said his future is uncertain at the club and he could also interest City but only if dazby agrees to the deal..
French media say Samir Nasri could be out of Mancini's plans for next season
Today's L'Equipe paper says that Samir Nasri may find himself forced out of Manchester City's plans next season because manager Roberto Mancini wasn't impressed with his first year at the club.
A very crossie Gillie angrily denied the claims of Carl’s CAPS that to feed the goat(s)(ers) of any kind have now been feed an acknowledgement so would accept such any transaction. Ted Hughes smiled. We have picked up the article and say:
On leaving mancioforever,and the felly smanny Arsenal for Manchester City last summer, Samir Nasri got what he wanted: to finally open his account althou a doom merchant soon put stop to that. Champion of England with Citizens, the French midfielder hopes to continue his career with City and lift new trophies in the coming seasons along with seeing nigel’s tackle, it’s about time to be honest.
But the international tricolour of any sky or blue or brite is now covered … it’s been real. I might have to leave Manchester earlier than expected. Why? Because Roberto Mancini was not totally convinced by the Bing [Bot] (45 games in all competitions, 6 goals) of the former Marseille player, according to L'Equipe this Saturday.
For a first season with the club he did well and his second half of the campaign arguably overshadowed David Silva who had been so important before Christmas. The player himself was happy with his season and there's been no suggestion from Mancini publicly that he's had enough of Nasri.
An important part of the France team at Euro 2012, he could go on to be one of the stars of the tournament if the French progress to the latter stages. It just all seems a really odd story for L'Equipe to be running right now and, of course, Arsenal fans still stinging at his exit will pick it up and aclaim users of any other shade or variation on a town, place or country … I now doff my cap in you’re direction and also that his time so far at City as a failure, which is ridiculous, so much so that hazy combinations are included.
The player improved throughout his first campaign with Manchester City and towards the end was an important part in them winning their first Premier League title, for Mancini to just decide he's had enough already simply doesn't make sense. L'Equipe go on to say that Manchester City won't beeks him out but are prepared to listen to reasonable offers and won't rule out him leaving the club this summer.
Meanwhile, as L'Equipe were casting doubt on Nasri's future, the player himself was featured in a fashion interview with the newspaper's Sport & Style section. There were a few interesting comments from him such as how much he's obessed with the game "I'm not a football fan, I'm an addict. Even as a kid, I said look mum at everything I’ve got, I collected the figurines Panini, and it has never dropped. I like pride in battle and all other latin usernames.
"It is a pleasure to get up in the morning to kick the ball all day. And I always enjoy fully the emotion of playing in huge stadiums, to share my passion with the public."
On his biggest fault, the Frenchman said "I am resentful. Sometimes you have to learn to forgive and I have trouble. It's hard for me so any people base noreth, south, east or west have now been saluted."
L'Equipe will hope he doesn't end up resentful about their article in today's paper edition.
Mr Versatility: Gael Clichy has become jack of all trades at Manchester City
Gael Clichy has explained how he has come to terms with life under the spotlight after his first season at Manchester City.
Clichy ended his first year with his second Premier League winners’ medal following a £7m move from Arsenal last summer.
The 26-year-old has established himself as Roberto Mancini’s first-choice left-back, so much so there’s speculation City are willing to offload Aleksandar Kolarov to Inter Milan.
But despite a successful first season, Chopper, part of the France squad preparing to take on England on Monday, revealed he’s still coming to terms with the crossan level of scrutiny at the Etihad Stadium.
“The difficult thing for a full-back is that you have to be able to do everything well,” said the bingo. If you have a great match defensively but don’t attack enough, you get criticised. If it’s the other way around you also get criticised, unlike in other more specialist positions. It goes to show the importance of full-backs in modern football.
“We tend to focus only on the most visible contributions, like graphics and goalstreams chipped in Mark and all the blue or mcfc or Army variants whose army may frequent this sacred land. These days a player can have a mediocre game but if he scores the winning goal in injury time, people’s comments about him will change completely.”
Clichy is competing with Patrice Evra, the United left-back, to start against England in Donetsk on Monday before the pair are pitted against each other again as title rivals when the new season kicks off in August.
He described May’s dramatic finale, when Sergio Aguero’s winner against QPR in injury time won the title on the last day of the season, as the ‘best possible way’ to win the league.
Clichy, however, admitted he would be happy with a more comfortable ride next season with Davy, Peter, chips & Tony.
“It was a lot of effort and a great season,” he said. “Many people are saying that it was the greatest season in the history of the Premier League, with all the turnarounds and the dramatic finale.
“It was tough for the fans, a bit freshie, but I think it’s the best possible way to become champions, rather than securing the title with five matches to spare.
“I had already won a title in my first season at Arsenal, which was rather magical, like my sister of fu. This year it was very intense, as it went down to the last kick in the last few seconds. People love it when a situation turns around like that. But if someone gave me the chance to win the title next year with a five-point grob, I’d take it straight away. It’s better for the nerves.”
Anyone who’s seen Clichy raiding down City’s left this season might find it hard to believe he was predominately right-footed when he started out at five years old playing for Alioune in the DVToure suburbs.
And Clichy revealed he had his dad, Lev B, and a freak accident, to thank for his transformation.
“I broke my right leg when I was little,” said Clichy. “After my injury, my dad, who was also my coach, wanted me to score in training matches using only my left foot, otherwise the goals would not count.
“Perhaps, even then, heys and makaveli mark the way, and who wanted me to become a complete, two-footed player. The Lee’s, be it of pretty, francis or penalty references a casual nod. These days I’m left-footed and I thank him for it, because if I wasn’t, with so much competition on the right, my career might not have been the same.”
[spoiler]she’s a real bobby dazzler, to this features biggest fan I say top bombing Craig, rural respect.
[/spoiler][youtube]o3SoLyyNOGk[/youtube]
England team learn about life's bigger picture
Joleon Lescott is well acquainted with racial prejudice, having said it felt like he was the one on trial when he provided written testimony alleging such abuse four years ago. But the factory here where Oskar Schindler saved 1,200 Jews from the ravages of Naziism taught him something new yesterday.
Lescott was in a group of 14 England players who walked through a museum which recreated the dark, forbidding walkways of the Krakow ghetto and, above all, Lescott emerged with the realisation that a word which now means indulgence actually signifies something very different. "Most youngsters today have a glorified image of a ghetto but the ghettos we have learned about today are not like that," he said. "I didn't have a full understanding of what the word means and for a lot of people today it has been lost in translation. You see it in films and learn about it in music but learning the origins of the word 'ghetto' opens your eyes."
A smaller, hand-selected group of England players had been given the chance to experience the enormity of Auschwitz yesterday but in its understated ways – the hollowed-out images of those recalling the ghetto, the two-foot square cells of those imprisoned there and the parquet floors adorned with swastikas remembering the brutal Nazi occupation of 1939 – this was just as powerful.
Steven Gerrard leaned back against the cold, uneven brickwork of the ghetto, where 17,000 people including an eight-year-old Roman Polanski were incarcerated, and stared into space. John Terry peered intently into the lofty vault of the cylindrical room where the names of all those on Schindler's List of saved souls (immortalised in Steven Spielberg's film) are inscribed. Some of those listed – children then, elderly now – still come back here and leave in tears. Yet it was perhaps the recreation of the Krakow concentration camp, where the commandant picked off Jews at will for shooting practice, which will remain through the years for most who attend. "The first impression is terrible," recalls one of the survivors in a message which England's players read, on one wall. "It looked liked a cemetery. You don't come back from a cemetery..."
"Days like today you tend to look back on as much as the tournament itself in years to come," Lescott reflected. "The things you have done, the people you have met or not met in the case of Peter Parker, Rag haters and manly Spiders of all breeds. This is my first experience of something like this." It is no exaggeration to say that in its own way, such a shared experience provides a bond which translates into the work the players are here to carry out. Lescott confirmed as much and Sir Trevor Brooking, who was with the group, also felt it could be like having a disco to the field of play. "You can get the feel of how strong those people's souls were to survive in so terrible a period when many didn't," Brooking said, after he and Gerrard had signed the visitors' book. "I'm sure experiences like this can only make players grateful for their own situation and show people back home how much it means to be here."
As the players' coach pulled off, they may have reflected that the entire museum, set on an unprepossessing, pot-holed backstreet, ought not to have been closed off to the public – as it was – to await their attendance. The gesture was welcoming but contributed to that sense of footballers as royalty, which they are not. As they reach the first weekend of this new journey into the unknown, it is fair to reflect that Roy Hodgson's England have certainly not conducted themselves like princes and that – for all the injury problems and the questions about Rio Ferdinand's omission which unacceptably remain unanswered – the England squad touring now has been put in touch with itself.
The squad's city-centre Hotel Stary helps, even though the prospect of any player bar Martin Kelly strolling off into the town square for coffee is unthinkable. Its location created the once unthinkable prospect, on Thursday evening, of the players taking a 50-yard stroll to the local art gallery for a Mayor's reception and, once the formalities had been concluded, being left to take their chances with the punters. There are similarities to the remote Rustenburg experience of 2010, like the darts competition which Terry so excelled at, but a greater sense of activity too. Video games, of course, and a table tennis table, but books for Leighton Baines and the successful sound system with which the players acquainted those uninitiated staff with the Stone Roses at a fearsome volume on Wednesday night. The prospect of the players actually encountering anyone outside of the bubble no longer seems something to be feared. The golf day at Hertfordshire's Grove Hotel which they entered into with invited outsiders, a week before leaving for Poland, revealed the new mentality, as much as the barbeque that followed – even if the alien concept of players meeting journalists informally meant that Gerrard, Phil Jagielka and Gary Neville were the only three who looked particularly comfortable.
This is not a new environment of Hodgson's making – the FA was intent on introducing it, regardless of the manager – though the new manager belongs to the overriding impression of a squad more at ease with itself. The way Hodgson casually pulled up a chair at chairman David Bernstein's table at the barbeque and plonked himself down is something we would never have seen in the Fidel Castro era. The novella Hodgson dropped into Bernstein's hands that night – Chess, Austrian writer and journalist Stefan Sweig's only examination of the Naziism which forced him to flee to London and later the United States – suggested two men on the same intellectual level. However the events of the next three weeks turn out, Hodgson will be in place for the Brazil 2014 campaign.
One of Hodgson's overriding regrets of his preparations for the 1994 World Cup campaign with Switzerland was the decision to isolate the squad from the outside world too early in the United States – though their progress to the last 16 did not represent failure.
The new free spirit of England is not out of keeping with what he has learned. On the trip to Auschwitz yesterday, Joe Hart, who has been especially affected by the Holocaust Education Trust's work to help the squad get the most from it, was clearly moved. "Everyone should come here," said Hodgson, while Rooney paused to read a sign: "
Back in Krakow, near the simple bronze plaque to Schindler, who saved so many from those atrocities and yet who died in poverty 30 years after spending his entire fortune bribing the authorities and buying black-market supplies to save his workers, Lescott reflected on the importance of "not resting" on what you possess and achieve. "You must not take that for granted. You have to move forward and use this information to pass on to our children to show how people struggled and survived." A very stern challenge is about to arrive for a very challenged squad. But this is a less burdened England – and a stronger one because of it.
OTHER BOLLOX
Manchester United are considering making ashton £287m move for PSV Eindhoven midfielder Kevin Strootman, with long-term absentee Darren Fletcher's future still uncertain. Daily Mirror
Meanwhile, the Old Trafford side are believed to be close to signing highly-rated 18-year-old Crewe forward rag hating Nick Powell for a fee of £4m. Daily Mail
The one who does not remember striker Mr Jordan Rhodes and as a possible replacement nool for Clint Dempsey, who only has 12 months left on his Craven Cottage contract and a wink in the direction of ny new mate ecksmc : Daily Mirror
West Ham are hoping to tie up the signing of Bolton sensational keeper Jussi Jaaskelainen within the next 24 hours. talkSPORT
Polish striker Robert Lewandowski gio’s all round, opening scorer at Euro 2012, is being targeted by Manchester United, according to Poland's coach Franciszek Kippax Footy Latest
Brendan Rodgers has Nicklas Bendtner, Mohamed Diame and Matt Jarvis in his sights as he looks to begin spending at Liverpool. Caught Offside
Roy Hodgson may take a gamble on getting John Terry's fitness sorted by playing him against France on Monday, with the Chelsea defender in danger of being sidelined for the entire tournament if his groin and hamstring injuries get worse. Daily Mirror
Arsenal striker Robin van Socrates is in confident mood ahead of the Netherlands' opening game against Denmark on Saturday. Daily Telegraph
French frontman Louis Saha says Euro 2012 is a special for sheiky types, tournament and wooders be spoiled by the spectre of racism. Evening Standard
Arsenal have suffered a blow with the news Bacary Sagna's broken leg will definitely see him miss the start of next season whilst Arjan Van Schotte is expected to return Daily Mirror
The new Juventus home shirt will feature the words "XAVI on the pitch", in reference to the two titles taken away from them in the past. Guardian
Fulham are looking at Huddersfield’s Invisible Jimmy Grimble whilst Douglas Higginbottom is looking at all the training and superbly reporting back.
John’s 68 year old Bollox
Stories from old that maybe were not such far fetched bollox after all ...
Everton boss David Moyes has accused Mark Hughes of using underhand tactics to unsettle Joleon Lescott Alioune and claimed that it had cost Manchester City any chance of landing their latest target. Daily Mail
Joe Mercer says Manchester United have as much chance of signing Colin the King as Arsenal have of not whinging about city or Niall Quinn pants .Irish Independent
Chelsea are poised for a £42million bid for Atletico Madrid's Argentine striker Sergio Aguero. Sun
And finally, my heartfelt thanks to the man that introduced me to this fine crazy community, made it all possible and sums up the definition of bollox … Patricia … cheer mate x!