The European Islands Championships
Created | Updated Jun 21, 2003
So, the huffing and puffing are over once again, and England return to these shores having reaffirmed themselves as almost, but not quite, a power on the world footballing stage. The 34 years since we last won a major trophy will grow by at least two more before the barren run can be ended - though realistically, it's hard to see when this losing streak will end. What, then, can we do to bring silverware to our dusty trophy cupboard?
For decades we had the Home International Championship. This had two great strengths: it was played every year (so we had more chances to win), and none of the other countries involved had more than a tenth of England's population. However, the drawbacks eventually outweighed these advantages. Chief amongst those was that it provided the annual prospect of humiliation at the hands of Scotland, an opportunity our brave boys siezed all too often. The sight of a St.John or a Dalglish dancing past the Three Lions would then be repeated in Trafalgar Square, adding the outrage of the middle classes to the despair of the working classes. It was more than our national psyche could take. In the 1980s, it became clear that even Northern Ireland were getting better than us, so the Home Internationals were called to a halt, allowing England to concentrate their efforts on experiencing defeat on a wider stage.
Now we need to find a replacement, a tournament which England can have a fair chance of winning, which appears to have a wider scope, but without actually allowing too many strong teams to enter. One solution currently being looked into by the mandarins of Lancaster Gate is the "European Islands Championship".
The Islands Championship will see all of the major landmasses off the European mainland, from the Mediterranean to the North Atlantic, represented in a biennial tournament held in odd-numbered years. The competition will be fierce and the prize glittering, but two major factors will give the nation realistic hope: traditional nemeses from Norway to Italy, including of course the beaten-but-still-feared Germans, will be excluded thanks to their continental location; and the whole island of Great Britain will be represented by a single team - allowing England's left-side attacking weakness to be solved by Ryan Giggs, and enabling the appointment of a Scottish manager, preferably Alex Ferguson, rather than the tactically naive and/or motivationally weak Englishmen who have been at the helm since the days of Sir Alf.
Let's take a look at who would provide the opposition for this prestigious new tournament:
Iceland - hampered by a lack of grass for eleven months of the year, but their Nordic temperament will mean we have to beware a repeat of recent reverses against the likes of Norway and Sweden.
Ireland - clearly a threat, but another tactical masterstroke in this tournament's inception was in requiring the North to play in harmony with the Republic. Hopefully they'll be too busy kicking lumps out of each other to provide effective opposition.
Faeroe Islands - they caused Scotland some problems and could probably have troubled many recent England teams, but making each island in the group enter separately should divide their strength to a point where we can be reasonably certain of victory.
Of the Mediterranean islands, Malta were recently seen off (albeit narrowly), while Cyprus, like Ireland, suffers from internal divisions. Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica should be too unused to standing alone without their mainland partners to pose a major threat.
The Balearics might prove a dark horse (Real Mallorca are a growing threat in the Spanish Primera Division), and they have more experience than most potential opponents at dealing with hordes of drunken, rowdy Englishmen. The solution will be to hold the tournament during the summer months, when their locally-produced players are busy waiting tables and chatting up office workers called Sonia from Basingstoke.
The last, but by no means least, of the potential pitfalls for our brave boys will come from a "secret island". If you examine your maps carefully, you will see that a sizeable chunk of Denmark is actually an island by the name of Sjaelland, which includes the populous capital, Copenhagen. That's probably more than we can reasonably hope to overcome. Sjaelland will therefore have to be stripped of island status thanks to the land bridge joining it to the mainland - which goes above the sea, whilst the Channel Tunnel will be declared null and void because it, of course, goes below the sea. That should do it.
Hopes are high that this new competition will come into being. It should be an exercise worth undertaking, if only to see how those overpaid premiership wastrels manage to make a pig's ear of it.
