Harry Harris (Ruud Gullit's autobiographer and writer of Out of Toon) today. Firstly distorts the stats to make it look like almost no one wants Shearer involved in England at all but comes out with the priceless "No one backs Keegan's selections which will come as an almighty blow to England camp which is desperate to remain buoyant after Malta". And Harris is doing his patriotic best to make sure they find out about it. This is a man who predicted England wouldn't get past round one in Euro96 and ended up with a photo mock up of him in stocks with rotten fruit being thrown at him by his own editor. He wanted to sue the paper. I HATE this man. However, when it's Mark Lawrenson and Glenn Hoddle defending Al, it may be time for the great amn to tell England to f..k off.

-- Anonymous, June 06, 2000

Answers

From 365 (Haven't reproduced all of it). CHEER UP, SHEARER!

Football365's Open Letter To The Sulking England Skipper

DEAR Alan,

WITH just seven days to go until your final flourish in international football, isn't it about time you cheered up and wound yourself up for one last shot at sainthood?

After a tumultuous second half to the season with Newcastle, you appeared to be back to your best, a roaming, rumbustious, destructive centre-forward who not only scored a huge number of goals but looked a threat whenever the ball went into the box.

But since pulling on the white shirt of England, you've turned the clock back nine months rather than four years. You now resemble the statuesque figure who epitomised all that was wrong with Ruud Gullit's Newcastle. Your post-match mutterings remain the same but your body language speaks a thousand words.

-- Anonymous, June 06, 2000

From The Euro Fiver

EUROTALK "Roger Lemerre's policy is that the best men play" - Zinedine Zidane blows France's chances by inadvertently revealing their secret plan. That's one less team for little Kev to worry about, then. * * * * * * * * * * * * * THE EURO-TORIAL He sticks his arse out, he flails his elbows, he shrugs his shoulders and, above all else, he falls over: is there no end to Alan Shearer's talents? England's totem forward (in more ways than one) is the subject of several critical editorials today, and the object of more than a little in- pub abuse. But as far as the Euro is concerned, everyone should lay off the whinging, balding, cynical, flair-free forward. It is, of course, traditional for the English to mock their best hope of scoring a goal on the eve of an international tournament. The washed- up Gary Lineker got it before Italia 90 (he went on to score four times, three of the goals proving crucial), and Shearer came in for the same treatment before Euro 96 (where five goals won him the golden boot). The argument always has something do with not scoring in friendlies, and questions over whether the player is really committed. As if we, perched on the edge of our bar stools, are in the perfect position to judge. The fact of the matter is that Shearer's remorselessly dull professionalism is not about to let him ease up in what he himself has decided will be his final international tournament. He may spend the whole time trying to hold the ball up in seemingly innocuous positions - but that's where all England's goals have come from in recent games. He may also spend half the time criticising officials - but that's part and parcel of modern football. What he also has is a strike record at international level which will only be matched in Holland by Oliver Bierhoff and Hakan Sukur. So let's all get behind Alan Shearer - he might fall over and win us a free kick

-- Anonymous, June 06, 2000

`Open` season again! Tedious isn`t it!(:o|

-- Anonymous, June 06, 2000

Very tedious.....

I really hope it stops after Euro 2000

-- Anonymous, June 06, 2000

It will stop after Euro 2000..... except .... The thing to look forward to is the end of the next World Cup qualifying.

Owen and Fowler are injured, Phillips is playing poorly in a relegation threatened side, and Heskey has shown no form for months. Papers need to find a great white hope, no one around lets have a go at Shearer for being so selfish and retiring.

-- Anonymous, June 06, 2000

I refuse to read any of this garbage and let these Laandaan based t*ssers get to me. Shearer was poor on Saturday but so were the rest of the team. Strange how nobody else gets slagged off tho'.........

-- Anonymous, June 06, 2000

"After a tumultuous second half to the season with Newcastle, you appeared to be back to your best"

I can hear Danny Kelly desperately trying to forget his wanky team getting murdered 6-1 at SJP in the Cup, and not daring to remember that far back. 2 goals passed Ian 'I'll never play for England again' Walker that night, you great tub of rancid lard. Does it still hurt? Diddums.

-- Anonymous, June 06, 2000

Softie, "Rancid tub of lard". SUBLIME!

-- Anonymous, June 06, 2000

"He sticks his arse out, he flails his elbows, he shrugs his shoulders and, above all else, he falls over: is there no end to Alan Shearer's talents"? Yup - he's actually a fairly decent scorer of goals! He's by far the leading goalscorer in PL history, has scored 28 goals for England, AND scored 30 goals as recently as last season.
Perhaps they should just start disallowing his goals everytime he commits the heinous crimes of shrugging his shoulders or falling over - then all these tossers would be completely happy and vindicated.

....as far as Euro2000 is concerned, everyone should lay off the whinging, balding, cynical, 'flair-free' forward.

This sort of undeserved verbal abuse of England's captain going into a major tournament is frankly an utter disgrace, and IMHO the perpetrators deserve to be sacked from their positions as journalists - they are a total waste of space.

B@ST@RDS!!

-- Anonymous, June 06, 2000

The weird thing is that the facts don't lie. In one of the Euro 2000 booklets from the papers at the weekend, they listed the leading goalscorers from each country during the qualification stages. Shearer (with six goals) was second to one other (Henry I think). Owen had ony scored one or two, as had Fowler.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2000

If falling over was a crime when wearing a white shirt then surely YMO would be standing on the scaffolds too...it was an outragous dive to win our penno vs Agentina.

Curiously, if you get red carded in major competitions (i.e. disgrace yourself, team and country) it doesn't take very long to be forgiven. Shrug your shoulders and complain about bad refereeing decisions is obviously a horrendous offence.

twats

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2000

I think the general public, us, have to accept some of the blame for the way the media act. We're very sensitive when it comes to one of our own, but we don't mind so much when someone else is getting it, whether it's Owen, Beckham, Seaman or Alex Ferguson etc. There are too many blind loyalties and hatreds in British football for any view to remain unbiased for long.

We also tend to judge people on their personalities too much. Shearer suffers from this, as does Beckham. We could all lay off the biased criticism a bit(and I'm as guilty as anyone). I happen to think that the qualities that have enabled Shearer to succeed over an extended period of time are exactly those qualities hated by the press - the dogged determintaion, imperviousness to criticism and squeaky clean professionalism with no vain, smarmy media-friendly nonsense.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2000