Toxic Web v4.0

…and a lot of the time it ends in a whimper.

so it is with Michael Vaughan announcing his, widely expected, immediate retirement from all cricket this morning, aged 34.

Not being able to rack up runs for Yorkshire, his inability to see out a day in the field – even a trip to Dr. Richard Steadman in Vail didn’t completely clear up that knackered knee – resulting in his absence from the Ashes squads announced earlier in the month pointed to this day coming sooner than he and many others would have wished.

Greatest England captain we’ve had? Well statistically yes with a record 26 wins (from 51 Tests with 11 losses), I’d say it was a joint position with Mike Brearley. Certainly one thing Vaughan had over Brearley was his ability with bat in hand, the formers test average being almost double that of the latter.

As elegant a batsmen as many have seen Vaughan touched genius during that Ashes tour down under in 2002/3, while scoring 3 centuries and amassing 633 runs, against the likes of McGrath and Warne. I’ve heard some say he wasn’t a great because his average is just above 40, which now in this day and age is the mark for a good player not a great one. But when Vaughan took over the captaincy from Nasser Hussain his average was 50.98, which is pretty damn great in a team that had just got back to winning ways.

But he took the captaincy, it took it’s toll as he moved down the order to third, when opening was his best position really, as his average in charge was just 36.02, reducing his overall Test avg. to 41.44. But it gave him the moment he will be remembered for more than the runs or the cover drive, swivel pull signature shots.

The Ashes victory in 2005.

As captaincy career highlights go it’s a bloody good one. Though with Vaughan injuring his knee again out in Pakistan it was the end of a great period for English cricket.

All that and in 2001 he played a big part in Yorkshire’s first County Championship since 1968.

The only real blot on the CV is one of the first lines – Born: Eccles, City of Salford, Greater Manchester.

…Stuart.

You didn’t really think you’d go on and beat the Germans now did you?

Come on Psycho, you’ve already sort of had your penalty redemption back in ‘96 against Spain, when you scored and we went through. Yes of course that was followed up by a semi-final penalty loss to match 1990 and then there was the last U21 finals – just over two years ago – against the Dutch, when even after scoring 12 spot kicks England still managed to suffer.

It all honesty England were lucky to get that far and on the day they were hugely outclassed by a far superior German side with the final score being a decent indication of the teams on the night.

Who actually thought when the hosts Sweden got two goals back, after going into half time three nil down, in the semi-final that England would be in the final. When they leveled it with 9 minutes to go there was only going to be one winner. England one dimensional, down to ten men, after Campbell’s idiotic sending off, even with some of the Swede’s out on their feet, it would take a great pile of luck to get through.

But then of course there was the wild card. Sat there in the stadium, headphones on, microphone in hand, providing commentary for all those listening on 5Live in those dulcet Geordie tones.

There was no way this wasn’t going to “pelanties” – thank you Chris Waddle.

Pearce had the redemption for 1990 mentioned earlier, poor old Chris never really did and it still seems create a verbal stumbling block with him.

But even with him again on the commentary team last nights final never really looked like it would decided by a pelanty shoot out. Lacking in so many areas of the park compared to their opponents, though England had chances hit the woodwork and had attempts cleared off the line the Germans really weren’t that troubled. Missing a real striker, Walcott up front on his own, didn’t really provide a good alternative and yet again flattered to deceive in an England shirt. What has he done since the hattrick against Croatia?

The midfield was seriously lacking in any guile, Noble, Cattermole and Muamba are all decent grafters – captain Noble didn’t have a great time, always seemed to be giving the ball away resulting in goals and it was a surprise to read that Cattermole who many see as a hot head only had four fouls against his name, that with European refs when you consider his red and yellows in the Premier League – but there’s no killer balls between the three of them, seriously missing a passer like the injured Huddlestone. So all too similar, one dimension and easy to combat by a well organised side like Germany. Also missed Lennon to compliment Milner, who had a good tournament, but then what’s the use of real wingers when there’s no one in the box.

Pearce has signed a new deal to stay on as U21 coach but I think he’s going to have to look at himself a bit, he seemed to let the final just go by him, didn’t try and change the game with substitutions or formation before it was far too late. Maybe he didn’t have the players available in the squad to do so but there just appeared to be no activity from him other than indicating he’d like to thump Boenisch when he committed a bad foul.

Most of these lot will be too old for the next tournament, so that was their final chance. Tough but in reality they did well to reach the final considering their main way of scoring was set pieces, a bit Greece 2004 really, not very inspiring.