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| Richard Williams: Burton can help English coaches Simon Grayson managed to beat Manchester United, but will he or any other English manager ever get a chance at the very top?A question: how many English managers have guided their teams to a top-three Premier League finish in the past decade? The answer: just one. Sir Bobby Robson's feat in taking Newcastle United to third place in 2002-03, behind Sir Alex Ferguson's Manchester United and Arsène Wenger's Arsenal and ahead of Claudio Ranieri's Chelsea and Gérard Houllier's Liverpool, remains unique.Will Simon Grayson get the chance to be the next, or will he have to be content with occasions like Sunday's victory for his Leeds United in the FA Cup, when he drew the sort of praise from Sir Alex Ferguson that visiting winners are seldom awarded?There is a lot to like about Grayson, particularly something he said in the build-up to the match. When he left Blackpool to take over at Elland Road 13 months ago, some people questioned his wisdom. Leeds, after all, were giving the firm impression of being trapped in a death spiral.But Grayson knew that one day somebody would come along and turn the club's fortunes around. Why shouldn't it be him? Now he looks very much like the man capable of restoring the old pride, and at Old Trafford the way his players applied themselves to a straightforward tactical plan was a tribute to his ability to focus passion into performance, eradicating a gap of 42 places.On the eve of the match I had asked Howard Wilkinson, who gave Grayson his Leeds debut, what he thought of his former player's progress. "Simon is one of a large but unsung new breed of young domestic managers who've worked hard at learning the job and gained experience at different levels and in different roles," he said. "Given the financial resources that some of their more famous counterparts enjoy, they'd be equally successful. They're as good as anybody anywhere."Grayson may well end up back in the Premier League with Leeds. But will he, or any of his contemporaries, ever find themselves in the reckoning for the really big jobs, the ones that go to chaps called Mancini, MartÃnez and Zola? It would help, of course, if British managers had a better reputation, the sort that would persuade foreign owners to smash what amounts, with rare exceptions, to a glass ceiling.Wilkinson now chairs the League Managers' Association, but in his days as the Football Association's technical director he visited the facilities in other major European countries in order to create the blueprint for a 300-acre, £20m national football centre at Burton on Trent. Designed as a finishing school for young players and coaches, it should have been opened years ago but was stalled by the FA's incompetence and dithering.How paltry that £20m looks now, particularly when compared with the £757m spent on the new Wembley, but there is a promise that a new plan for a scaled-down Burton will be announced at the end of the season. Under pressure from the top clubs, the FA has abandoned the idea of using it for players. A coaching academy is better than nothing if England is to compete with the activity at France's Clairefontaine, Italy's Coverciano, Holland's Zeist and the similar operations in Germany, Spain and Portugal, but don't hold your breath."One shouldn't underestimate its symbolic value," Wilkinson said yesterday. "How can you espouse the value of education and then say, in effect, 'You don't need a university – let's hold the lectures in a hotel'? Talk to foreign coaches and you hear them referring to their national centres in those terms, like some people talk about their old school or university. Until it's actually built, there will be some doubt about our commitment to the idea of education." And until that day a Simon Grayson will be unable lay the foundations of his career in the expectation that success will clear a path to the very top.• This article was amended on 5 January 2010. The original asked how many English managers had guided their teams to a top-three Premier League finish since the turn of the century. This has been corrected.End of the road for two heroes of fight for equalityTwo heroes of the long struggle against racism in sport died in the last days of 2009. The first, Dennis Brutus, was a man of African, French and Italian ancestry and therefore classified as "coloured" under the apartheid system. A lifelong activist, he occupied the next cell to Nelson Mandela on Robben Island for a while in the 1960s and helped to secure South Africa's expulsion from the Olympic movement. The second, Bill Powell, served with the United States forces in the second world war and responded to being turned down for membership of his local golf club in Canton, Ohio on his return by borrowing the money to buy 78 acres and start his own club. The first in America to be owned and run by a black man, it was recognised by the US Department of the Interior in 2001 as a site of national historic importance.Christmas repeats beat cold turkey and leftoversWhenever the Christmas holiday started to drag, refuge could be found in ESPN Classic and its endless reruns of official World Cup films. It's the ignored or forgotten details that make them so compelling. Take the 1970 final. Who remembers Enrico Albertosi, the Italian goalkeeper, surreptitiously scuffing up the penalty spot as he walked to his position before the start of the second half? Or the sainted Pele, brutally kicked out of the 1966 tournament, unsuccessfully diving for a penalty claim and theatrically feigning an ankle injury four years later?Coppi tragedy holds the imagination 50 years onCyclists all over the world will have doffed their casquettes on Saturday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the passing of Fausto Coppi, the first man to win the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France in the same year, who died at the age of 40 after contracting malaria in Burkina Faso. Raphaël Géminiani, one of his companions, was also bitten but recovered after proper treatment. Coppi, however, succumbed after being incorrectly diagnosed as suffering from bronchial fever. Eddy Merckx and Lance Armstrong may possess the more impressive statistics, but – as my colleague William Fotheringham's recent biography, Fallen Angel, so vividly reminds us – the glory and the tragedy of Coppi retain an unrivalled hold on the imagination.Vai, campionissimo!Leeds UnitedFA CupRichard Williamsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Portsmouth bullish there will be no fire sale after paying players Portsmouth finally paid their players’ December wages yesterday and insisted that there will be no fire sale of players in order to improve the club’s finances. feeds.timesonline.co.uk |
In bid for sponsors, Carolina Panthers' next season is already under way For Danny Morrison and his staff, it’s time to tackle a sluggish economy and score with fans and sponsors. feeds.bizjournals.com |
Greipel on verge of Tour Down Under win • Luis León Sánchez wins stage but Greipel remains first overall• HTC-Columbia rider has 11-second lead ahead of final stageAndré Greipel is on course to win the Tour Down Under for the second time in three years after another strong showing in today's fifth stage.While the Spaniard Luis León Sánchez, the 2005 champion, won stage five from Snapper Point to Willunga, the HTC-Columbia team's performance ensured Greipel has an 11-second lead going into tomorrow's final stage.Sánchez's thrilling stage win saw him hold off Luke Roberts, Alejandro Valverde and Cadel Evans to reach the summit of Willunga Hill, but Greipel's team-mates kept him in command by limiting the damage of the climb as the German sprinter finished 17th, losing nine seconds on the stage.Team Sky's Greg Henderson was ninth today and is 24 seconds adrift in the overall classification ahead of the finale, a 90km street circuit in Adelaide.Cyclingguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Melbourne licking its lips as Andy Murray prepares to lock horns with Rafael Nadal Roger Federer may be in consummate form and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga may look leaner and meaner than when he reached the final here two years ago, but it is Andy Murray’s match today that is causing fans across the time zones to set their alarms. feeds.timesonline.co.uk |