Roy Hodgson Unveiled As England Manager, Forced To Field Questions About Apartheid

By Chris Wright

“Errr, is it too late to back out?”

It’s official! Roy Hodgson has just been unveiled as the new England manager at a press conference at Wembley. It was announced that the 64-year old has signed a four-year contract, and will take over immediately after West Brom’s final game of the season on 13th May.

Hodgson’s deal at the Hawthorns was due to expire on 30th June, but the Baggies have agreed to release him early to give him more time to prepare for England’s stab at EURO 2012 – including friendlies against Norway (26th May) and Belgium (2nd June).

It will no doubt come as scant surprise that the press, having seen their top top triffic raison d’etre overlooked for the England post, have already got the knives out for Roy – who, instead of being welcomed into the job, was forced to field deliberately prickly questions, with one journalist even barfing forth a jibe about his playing days for Berea Park in Apartheid-era South Africa back in the mid-1970s (along with other sainted English footballing deities like Bobby Moore, Gordon Banks and Alan Ball).

Hodgson replied that he and his compatriots were ‘anti-Apartheid’ and that it was ‘unfair to go back 40 years to criticise a decision’ but that wasn’t really the point: The gurning arsehole responsible for the question wasn’t looking for any diplomacy, compassion or contrition on the subject of Apartheid – he, most likely, couldn’t care less – he was merely chipping away at the new, ‘not Harry’ England manager from the off. It was horrific. Vindictive and horrific.

The poor bastard’s not going to get a moment’s peace.

Posted in Euro 2012, International football, Managers, Media

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16 Comments

  1. Mr. Sparkle says:

    I guess John Terry can breathe a sigh of relief.

  2. dbm says:

    the thankless job to end all thankless jobs

  3. paulo says:

    all the best to woy in his new role. i hate england and hope they never win a thing and as a liverpool fan i don’t particularly like roy hodgson (only for that reason) but something about hodgson coming to manage a team is a massive lift seeing what he can do with a pile of rubbish. liverpool weren’t bad….he couldn’t do anything with them. england are fucking awful…..he’ll win them the world cup

  4. Phil says:

    oh my goodness, you pour english guys!!!
    myself, as a german, was hoping for a younger guy that would england give it’s spirit back. another grandpa, another weird guy – what the heck is the FA doing?

    i’s hoping for nice mathces between germany and england. now he singed a damn 4 yr contract, WHY?????

    another decade lost for english football, lousy job FA!

  5. Vincent Cole says:

    even the Ze Germans feel sorry for us

    FFS

  6. Tom Jones says:

    A perfectly reasonable question. And poor from Hodgeson not to answer it properly.

  7. Joe says:

    I’m pretty pissed at the media coverage of all this, with everybody in the papers having seemingly decided that Redknapp was everybody’s first choice (not mine) and the obvious candidate (only because he’d be the only one who wouldn’t be slaughtered and slandered out of the job by the scribes). Woy worked a miracle at my own Fulham 4 to 2 years ago, and is a much more intelligent, thoughgtful manager than Redknapp ever will be. Yeah, he didn’t do well at Liverpool but Dalglish has dumped 50m into overhauling the squad Woy had to work with and they’re STILL absolutely plankton.

  8. Phil says:

    oh my goodness, you poor english guys!!!
    myself, as a german, was hoping for a younger guy that would england give it’s spirit back. another grandpa, another weird guy – what the heck is the FA doing?

    i’s hoping for nice mathces between germany and england. now he singed a damn 4 yr contract, WHY?????

    another decade lost for english football, lousy job FA!

  9. Phil says:

    how did I double-post that? haha, sorry!

  10. Redskywalker says:

    F***ing Stupid question. How the hell was that relevant?!?! At all??? idiot

  11. Scott says:

    English media jumping on him already – ridiculous! I never wanted Redknapp in myself

  12. Joe says:

    And @phil, what is so ‘weird’ about Hodgson? Your guy looks like a flaming metrosexual in the middle of a raging midlife crisis who’s picked out a rather unconvincing wig. Not doubting Jogi’s quality as a manager but people in glass houses…

    You do have a point though-there’s not enough young English managers coming through. The only ones promoted from the lower leagues into a PL job in the last decade have been Paul Ince and Roberto Martinez, so the young ‘uns have to take a club up to get into the picture for top level jobs.

  13. KKK says:

    Everyone knows the FA were avid supporters of Apartheid from 1932-1962.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Rous

    They just think suspending Suarez makes them perfect citizens now…

  14. supa phil says:

    I have never seen something as cannibalistic as the English media’s treatment of the England team. And that’s coming from a person who reads the news about the American Republican Party every day!

  15. Des says:

    Hodgson or not, we finally have a manager.

    This guy has more silverware than Redknapp would ever dream to amass, looks like a nice fella (unlike Capello), has experience managing outside, and seems a good manager for “smaller” sides -just what England is at the moment.

    Is good that the tabloids are having a laugh; they always pump up the Three Lions and then pounce when the team fails to win. Hopefully this time their miserable game will be reversed.

  16. lurker says:

    still think it should have been big sam. team england have been lacking creativity for years so why not put crouch and rooney up top and huff it up the pitch for 90 minutes? play to your strengths and what not.

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