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Heroes and Villains

By Sue Mott

Monday, May 25, 1998


DAMIEN HIRST may be one vowel short of an England World Cup hat-trick scorer but, by God, he has served his country. The mod-art creator of the pickled cow has turned his attention to the Indian takeaway (same thing, really) and performed in the new hot anthem of the terraces: Vindaloo.

Where do you come from? Do you put the kettle on? Kick it. Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah Bonjour ... nah nah Monsieur ... nah nah nah nah nah nah We're England ...''

... and so forth.

It's the perfect title at the perfect time. As the team proved so conclusively against Saudi Arabia on Saturday, England are in desperate need of something to run straight through the middle. Ray Parlour (more associated with pizzas in his youth) has been spurned and so it may be left to these fine lyrics to inspire the chosen few in France just as Three Lions took Terry Venables to the Euro 96 semi-finals.

Witness David Beckham. Playing in central midfield for the first time in an international jersey, he was distinctly more visible than in his previous England outings. Uncharitable people would put this down to his unashamed parading of Girl Power hair bleach but in fact he rustled up sufficient crosses, passes, chips and intelligence to make Gazza's panting efforts look hollow by comparison.

Beckham, like Hirst, is an artist, crossing all sorts of multi-media barriers. Both are paid silly money (Damien's God - a medicine cabinet full of pill bottles - sold for £188,500) and both have books out, although Hirst's probably features more decapitated pigs than Beckham's.

This synchronicity can only be good for England. Glenn Hoddle needs players of enormous generosity, adaptability and awareness in his midfield. Beckham has already proved he has the spirit of a 'sharer' by owning a matching Rottweiler, Rolex and Jaguar (the car, not the animal) with his fiancée, Posh. To be at one, therefore, with England's most modish supporter is no bad thing either.

The irony of it all is that so much depends on England gelling, becoming more than the sum of their parts. And here they are being lyrically hosanna-ed by a man who takes chain saws to cattle and makes a huge sum from their parts.

Is it an omen, Damien?

ADAM HOLLIOAKE should stop saying he doesn't mind whether or not he is the England one-day captain. Not as in ``one day, we'll win a Test Match'', I must explain to the uninitiated, but as in those short, sharp games we used to be good at, done and dusted in a day.

The reason Hollioake should stop saying this, albeit a good move to reduce the pressure on himself, is that the utterance is entirely unbelievable. Of course, he adores being captain. It must be a source of rampant pride to the grandson of a Fiji warrior to come over from Australia and assume leadership of an English institution because none of the locals have sufficient guts or aggression to manage it themselves.

Of course, cricket captaincy brings with it problems. One suspect field placing and it seems to invoke the desire in even the mildest-mannered vicar to see you tied to the stumps by your unravelled jumper wool and flogged without stint until lunchtime. But Hollioake gives the impression of being able to see off vicars. ``I know I'm a street fighter. A bit of a scrapper,'' he has said.

It is the worrying inability to see off the opposition (yesterday at Headingley apart) that now oppresses him. Wall-to-wall failure characterised his captaincy in the Caribbean. He had lost the one-day series to South Africa before a ball was hit yesterday. He has, he admitted, stopped trusting his renowned guts.

``I listened to too many people and acted on their thoughts instead of doing it my way,'' he said. Since his way, as Surrey have proved, is swaggering, extrovert; not averse to the odd sledge and intimidatingly effective (in other words, Australian), his loss of confidence has hit England hard.

The idea was for our lads to catch his infectious arrogance, not for the hard man to catch our reticence. If England are to have any remote chance of success in the World Cup next year, they will need to become a battle-hardened unit with the all-for-one will of the Musketeers soonest. The first step towards that Nirvana will be for their captain to lead unapologetically from the front.


Source: The Electronic Telegraph
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Date-stamped : 25 May1998 - 06:27