Learning by doing nothing

Day 17. Cue John Motson. "Free-kick England . . . Beckham . . . YEEEEEEES . . . Two Nil . . . and England look to be on their way to the second round of the World Cup." Soon after: "Oh no, Valderrama, 2-1 . . . oh God, Rincon, 2-2 . . . oh bloody hell, Preciado, 3-2 to Colombia and England are out of the World Cup." Na. But wouldn't you think they'd have learnt their lesson?

Turned the sound down at half time when it was Jimmy Hill's turn to talk; there's only so much pain and suffering one can take in a night. Not that it made any difference, Jimmy provided subtitles with his face. Smug subtitles. Then he launched in to the most extraordinary, bare-faced, revisionist speech about Darren Anderton which the Spurs lad will, no doubt, have a good chuckle at when his Ma plays it for him on the family video when he returns from France. Jimmy (who, just two weeks ago, berated Hoddle for picking a player who was permanently injured, i.e., Anderton) argued that Anderton had become a better player "sitting and watching" football all the time he was injured. "You mean learning by doing nothing, rather like us," asked an amused Des Lynam. (If this theory held water it should mean that those of us who have watched 48 World Cup games over the past 17 days would make Ronaldo look like a donkey if we donned our Predators and headed for the garden with a ball).

Regarding Beckham's free-kick, well, Jimmy couldn't resist. "I'm not being unpatriotic, but that wall, rather like the Maginot Line a long time ago, collapsed," he said. "Ooooh Jimmy," sighed Des. "Well, we are in France," said the dickie-bowed one.

Time for a quick look at the highlights of the first half of Romania v Tunisia, where the Romanians resembled a Star Trek XI after the entire line-up had their hair dyed yellow. "They deserve to beaten for the hairstyles alone," said a shocked Alan Hansen. Cue Jimmy.

"Do you know, that is not an idiotic idea," he insisted. "What? For them all to go blonde," asked Des, who perhaps feared Jimmy was thinking about having his own hair-do bleached. "Just listen. Just listen," snapped Jimmy. "When your head's down and your looking at a football you need a bright shirt to pass to and your vision is that much better - right? And a light head . . . you can laugh, you can laugh as much as you like . . . a quick glance like that, you see a head and you can lay the ball to it. The tiniest one per cent advantage in this game gives you a result." Ahem.

But everyone, after all, is entitled to their opinion. "Hoddle must put Owen in the starting line-up because against Colombia they must attack - you need young players who are up for it and really want to qualify," said Jean Gristi.

And who, pray, is Jean Gristi? Manager of Paris St Germain? Monaco? Auxerre? No. He's the manager of the laundry that washes England's shirts in France. And the BBC visited him yesterday for their Six O'Clock News and, while there, filmed a woman ironing young Michael's shirt. And very interesting it was too, although surely he's big enough to iron his own shirts by now. The same news bulletin showed us Prince Charles and Prince Harry heading for Lens for the match ("Here one goes, here one goes," as Sky newsreader Bob Friend put it). Had an awful feeling about this. What if Prince Charles had his named printed on his ticket, went up to the turnstiles, handed it over, only to be ejected from the ground. "Ah sure, veree funay, if you are Prinz Charles zen I am Napoleon. You zink I am a fool - go away, you fraudstour."

But, luckily, they let him in. Not sure if RTE's Tommy Gorman had a ticket for the game though. We saw the most intrepid of intrepidist reporters hovering around the ground before kick-off, interviewing England fans about the night ahead. Then who should he spot but Blackburn Rovers' manager Roy Hodgson, who was confident that England would progress to the second round. And then, with 45,000 England fans listening in, Tommy declared: "But if you get through and meet Argentina it's surely curtains." RTE last night paid tribute to Tommy and said he will be sadly missed. Hear, hear.