Cowling, Nazis, clowns and whether Rooney will blow it

I’m not going to apologise for the World Cup build-up dominating my recent blogs – but I probably should for my relative pessimism.

Two things didn’t sound quite right when I was reading through Mr Wise’s England EDP subbing tonight.

One – Jermain Defoe complaining that the altitude was affecting the players already.

He said: “With the conditions, the altitude and the heat, it made it difficult…you do notice the altitude here when you’re running around. It’s different, and we’re a lot higher here than we were in Austria, but I’m sure we’ll get used to it in training.”

Hmm… let’s hope so.

And two – Wayne Rooney. The guy’s talent is enough to tip us towards an unbelievable World Cup victory next month.

Sadly, rather than picturing him lifting the strange gold lump on July 11, I can see a much more vivid sight – England’s number 10 doing something impetuous to rival his sending off against Portugal four years ago.

Considering he looked frustrated in the friendly against Japan and somehow contrived to get booked for dissent in a placid friendly with a domestic South African side, how is he going to cope if Cristiano Ronaldo or whoever gets his wink going on again?

Anyway, three days to go. I cannot wait…

* A quick aside. I was quite chuffed with my EDP back page headline for our story on Monday, on Colchester chairman Robbie Cowling apologising for his Nazi slur at the Norwich board.

“Robbie cowering.” Bam.

Chris Lakey’s own effort was not bad either: “Scowling Cowling.”

Who would have thought, almost 10 months on and there are still headlines to be had from the man. Will it never end?

posted on 07 June 2010 23:20 byMichael Bailey - Sportsdesk

Comments