Only ten more weeks to the 2015-16 BPL season

Noel Butler

Analyst, TSN Radio 690 Montreal

Archive

No it’s not the best league in world football. Why does it need to be? Nor do the Ballon d’Or nominees, let alone its recipients, gravitate towards the graft and grind of a Barclays Premier League slog. However, there is no league anywhere on Planet Futbol which possesses such a razor thin like competitive edge or provides an abundance of compelling action all season long both on and off the pitch. 

It’s hard to imagine the BPL is a domestic soccer league which is only three years the elder of Major League Soccer.

With the 2014-2015 season now done and dusted - in alphabetical order, some laced with a tinge of irony, here are my standout moments from a season just gone.

BYE BYE WOE MAN UNITED

It’s not often through the twenty-three year seasons of the BPL Manchester United have kicked off their campaign with a defeat at home, a defeat at that from one of the lesser ranked clubs. No matter what Louis Van Gaal ultimately and undoubtedly goes on to win with a club defined by two Scottish Knights of the Realm in Sir Matt Busby and Sir Alex Ferguson the history books will always record his tenure got off to quite the dubious start. When on 16^th August 2014 Swansea City was served up as LVG fodder, but the Swans refused to play to script. At the final whistle they left the red half of Manchester with the deserved three points. The only thing missing when the camera panned to the Manchester United bench was sight of the Grim Reaper or David Moyes up in the Directors Box with that chap who came round to Moyes’s house for a cup of tea and left with his successor already in fear his Old Trafford prospects. Van Gaal, though, is made of much sterner stuff. Whilst all around. Van Gaal’s charges were dropping like nine pins and those he bought in to showcase their undoubted Grade A talent suffered more let downs than an England World Cup campaign ever could, Van Gaal’s response was to dig deeper to ensure the winningest team in English football immediately returned to the ‘Euro Elite’ bracket. No trash from Louis, the BPL best serve warning. Everyone is richer with Manchester United on the trail of yet more glory.

HIP HIP ‘ARRY HOORAY

Or was it a pair of wobbly knees? Harry Redknapp has not ever been the type to suffer fools gladly or been shy to defer blame and responsibility to some other ‘mug’. One of most memorable resignations of a head coach in any sport occurred soon after the slamming shut of January’s Transfer window.  A brief phone to QPR’s owner Tony Fernandes explaining he was literally on his knees was all it took from Redknapp.  Who are we to suggest it had anything to do with ‘Relegation Certs’? Alongside a need for Redknapp to completely distance himself from that scenario as the old cockney curmudgeon bows out of the BPL. No one has managed as many BPL clubs as Wheeler Dealer ‘Arry - not even Tony Pullis the BPL’s Mercenary-In-Chief. We already miss you ‘Arry, and the BPL most certainly poorer in your absence. But heck at least we have Leicester’s Nigel Pearson to keep us fully entertained.

LOYAL SUPPORT PERSONIFIED

There is a very good reason why it is the word ‘supporter’ which is preferred over fan in jolly old England. Fan merely a shortcut for Fanatik, a word which comes with a plethora of ambiguous definitions. A supporter, and their role are defined along fully explicit lines. No clearer an illustration of than that of Hull City Supporters display of ‘Loyal Support’ to a global audience on the final day of the season. Their club relegated, not a dissenting voice in the sold out crowd, as the people of Hull, come the final whistle, give their home town team a standing ovation. Louis Van Gall, who has experienced all that there is summed it up fully, "The fans of Hull City supporting their players until the end - I have never seen that in Europe,” said Manchester united manager post-game. Hopefully see you back in the BPL sooner, rather than later Hull City. Tigers be damned.

SHOVE OFF

Stamford Bridge, late afternoon of Sunday, October 4^th and SW6 was getting ready to welcome Arsenal and securing the traditional three BPL points once again over an Arsene Wenger team. Although not a rivalry close to the Arsenal v Manchester United feuds of the recent Patrick Vieira and Roy Keane past - these two teams, their sets of supporters and the managers themselves have little time for one another.  Respect be a four letter word. In the early stages of that match in early fall the players had little regard for each other, not sure if it was kicking the ball or the opponent that was uppermost. Minute twenty and Gary Cahill did his utmost to slide tackle Alexi Sanchez into the fourth row of the stands.  At the point of contact Arsene Wenger had seen enough and with very little fanfare strolled over to Mourinho’s technical area with one thing on his mind.  The two handed shoved to the chest was worth the price of admission alone. There that day with my wife, she immediately wondered if this tye of thing happened often. ‘What Chelsea beating Arsenal or Wenger putting himself about?’ came my immediate sarcastically laced retort. The shove was worth the price of admission alone. That, and another wasted journey across London for the Arsene faithful.

THE BPL PODIUM WE SALUTE YOU

According to the media in early December, Chelsea apparently voyaged from the mythical ‘Invincibles Version 2.0’ to the delusionary football boredom threshold early in the new year. Which at its height - as the champions elect summoned more determination and will to toil out wins – drew irrational comparisons to that Arsenal team under George Graham. No matter what was thrown at Chelsea, from day 1 they had BPL Champions wrote all them. Disappoint they did not, rightful Champs absolutely. No one BPL player was more deserving of picking up the BPL trophy than John Terry.

Harry Kane of Walthamstow, London E17 is the undisputed King of White Hart Lane. A BPL stadium not a fifteen minute drive away from the home Kane grew up in surrounded by a large family of Spurs Supporters. Little did they know when King Harold of Tottenham was born back in late 1993 and at the very same the BPL was finding its feet that two decades later the local Spurs boy would be banging in twenty one goals in his debut season. With it securing Spurs yet another season of European football. To the English excuse-mungerers and politicians claiming overseas talent is depriving English players of starring in their very own domestic league I say simply this. Look around proper, do some fuller local research Harry Kane is no needle in a haystack. The same type of player exists up and down the country. The problem is you have abandoned local hope in favour of a much easier option - the international transfer market. Why bother developing your own local produce when you can cherry pick from the entire shelves and warehouses which make up planet futbol? Let Harry Kane be an example, the English Standard barer to all other nineteen BPL clubs. And please no more blaming Thierry Henry, Eric Cantona and Franco Zola.

Steven Gerrard BPL Player 29^th November 1998 – 24^th May 2015. Sixteen plus years at the very top, let’s sincerely hope the Liverpool lad returns to his ancestral Anfield home in much less time that it has taken Brendan Rodgers to win his first piece of silverware.  How fitting it will be if it is Gerrard who finally runs Rodgers out of his Liverpool neighbourhood. Next up for Gerrard is an 18-month tour of Major League Soccer.  I cannot urge you enough to go see him in an MLS match this summer or fall. See you there.

Noel.Butler@BellMedia.ca 
@TheSoccerNoel on Twitter