It’s a measure of how detached big clubs have become from their past that some will cling to any old statistic to try make themselves feel in tune with their community.

Apparently, Marcus Rashford’s goal against West Ham United last week “marked a special occasion” because it was the 85th anniversary of Manchester United having at least one player from their youth development programme either on the pitch or the bench.

As sweet as that is, forgive me if I don’t stand up and applaud.

This ‘record’ – and I use the word lightly – has apparently seen them go 4,163 games with at least one homegrown player involved. Admittedly that is a remarkable run.

Yet I am sure if you slip down the leagues a little – where the opportunity to buy external talent is slim or non-existent – you will find a host of clubs who absolutely obliterate that record; out of sheer, unadulterated necessity.

And that’s the key point here. When you are one of the biggest clubs in the world, that sort of record is little more than a quirk, a fun side note to keep going for the record books that doesn’t really say much about the structure of the squad.

Smaller clubs, meanwhile, have no choice but to field players who were born within a stone’s throw of the ground. They don’t have wide scouting nets that can scoop up all the major talent in their region and beyond. They don’t have the money to sign better players from Europe or South America. They have to do their best with the lads who grew up in the shadow of the rusty floodlights; proper homegrown boys.

I’m not getting at Man United here. There are other big clubs who probably haven’t had a homegrown player on the pitch or the bench for 85 years.

But please, don’t throw that sort of record in my face as some sort of incredible achievement that is to be lauded and celebrated like they are fighting tooth and nail for the very existence of local talent.

In a day and age when you can name nine substitutes on the bench but only use five of them, having a ‘token local’ is hardly difficult to maintain.

Find me a club that insists on having two or three homegrown players in their starting line-up and that will properly impress me.

Find me a club that insists on having two or three homegrown players in their starting line-up and that will properly impress me

 

Sick chants betray football

Incidents of supporters chanting about the Hillsborough disaster are apparently on the rise. Now, I am all for a bit of spicy football banter. In fact, I think listening to rival fans take the mickey out of each other is one of the things that makes the sport interesting and entertaining.

But chanting about a tragedy of incredible proportions which left 97 men, women and children dead is just sick and deprived. It’s inexcusable.

However, and this is the crux of the issue, how do you stop it?

It’s one thing for MPs and other ‘important’ individuals saying it must stop, but how on earth do you stop 20,000 people collective singing something stupid and offensive?

Aside from appealing to their sense of common decency, which they are evidently lacking, I can’t see much else that can be done.

You can threaten the fans’ clubs with fines, I suppose. And maybe even other, more impactful, punishments. But what you are essentially saying here is you want to stop people being cruel. And I think history has told us that that is not something that will be easily achieved.

 

Gareth’s foot in mouth moment

King Woke of Woke Mountain seems to have let his crown slip.

England manager Gareth Southgate, normally the master of politically correct sound bites, said last week that workers in Qatar were ‘united’ in wanting the World Cup to go ahead.

And that has provoked a lot of criticism from entities like Amnesty International who have pointed out that most workers in Qatar were actually more concerned with making it through the building process with some of their human rights intact. Or, indeed, their lives.

Undoubtedly there are many thousands of native and expat workers in the country who are proud of what they have achieved preparing for Qatar 22 and equally proud of the idea of football’s biggest spectacle coming to the region.

But that doesn’t mean they were happy with the process that made it happen.

And failing to publicly acknowledge that feels a bit like Southgate trying to pander to the establishment because in a couple of weeks he will be sipping mocktails and nibbling canapes with the people that organised the whole thing.

 

Your say

“For all it matters, your article ‘VAR will drive the fans away’ was (funeral) music to my ears. You prophetically pre-empted how a great match such as Liverpool vs Napoli – and I was a neutral – was brought to ridicule by two VAR decisions.

“Moreover, I have long contended that VAR is killing football for the simple reason that what has made football the most popular game worldwide was the fact that wherever a game was played – from the Maracana to the village field behind my school – the rules were all the same.

“Technology is for robots.” Dr Alfred Quintano, e-mail.

 

“Football is dying. I don’t want to sound dramatic but it’s the truth. VAR is killing the game to the extent that I no longer enjoy watching it. The way things are going, the sport faces being wiped off the earth.

“I have watched football for 65 years. I remember back in the days of watching in black and white on an old portable set. Now I don’t bother watching even in HD because not being able to enjoy a goal being scored means the enjoyment has ended.

“Hoddle is right but wrong because the way things are going people will not only stop going to watch it in grounds but like me they will stop watching on the television as well, and that will be what kills the sport, when the advertising money dries up.” A. Portelli, Balzan, e-mail.

 

E-mail: James@Quizando.com

Twitter: @Maltablade