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Date: Mon Jun 22 07:35:52 GMT+00:00 1998
Mail: barry@www.red11.org


This Issue:
1. Scholes shies away from the spotlight (Times Article)
2. Media circus no place for Beckham the wounded lion (Times)

++++++=========+++++++========+++++++++========++++++++




From: Steve Fisher 
Subject: Scholes shies away from the spotlight (Times Article)

David Walsh looks at the emergence Special Section - Your
 Manchester United's talented midfielderCareer:
 A Guide to real virtuoso on the world stage Successful Personal
    Development Scholes shies away from the spotlight
                                        

THROUGH a week besmirched by street-fighting,
gashed heads and drunken mindlessness, 
reminder of what the World Cup could be about.
Paul Scholes. Talented, modest, decent.
performer who enters the arena, delivers a
virtuoso performance then disappears easily
into the crowd. An Englishman who adornsComplete list of World
world's greatest sports event and a remiCup links
that, for all the mayhem in Marseilles, this
tournament could yet end well for his coNext page: Media circus
Too much on a 23-year-old's shoulders? 

No place for Beckham the but this is no ordinary talent.  
He sits before a gathering of journalists at
England's training headquarters in La Baule in
northwest France, T-shirt hanging loosely over
bermuda shorts, complexion reddened by the sun
to the colour of his hair. But it is the
reserved expression and the empty bottle of
Vittel that are him: the look is his
trademark, the empty Vittel his prop - as
important to him as the baton to the
conductor. He wraps his hands round it,
fidgets with it while he awaits the questions
and then brings it up to his face when he
speaks.

Adulation bothers him. It threatens the things
that matter: his personal privacy, the
down-to-earth nature of his character, the
simple pleasures that go with both. Most of
all he fears acclamation will lessen his
chances of being the player he aspires to be.
Not only does he not blow his own trumpet, he
refuses to have the instrument in the house:
"Basically I am a very shy person. I don't
want a high profile, I prefer it the way I am.
I don't know why I am shy but I am."

For a lad who is shy, he has chosen a fairly
public career, suggested one of his
interviewers. "Yeah, it's a problem, innit?"
said Scholes, a deadpan expression masking his
sense of humour.

He is an engaging character. Reserved but not
boring. Straightforward but not unintelligent.
And what a smashing footballer. He came with
the extraordinary Manchester United harvest
that included Giggs, Beckham, Butt and the
Nevilles. But even in that company, there was
something that distinguished him from the
others: not better or worse, just different.

Brian Kidd, assistant manager at Old Trafford,
was one of the first to realise it. "Paul
Scholes had the best football brain I've ever
seen in a kid," he said. "I first spotted him
playing a little five-a-side locally and I
never had any doubt that he'd make it." Later
on what struck Alex Ferguson was Scholes's
attitude; he turned up for training on Monday
mornings without the scars of previous
battles. "With Scholes you never knew how the
last game had gone because he was always the
same," the United manager once said. "He
allows nothing to affect him. That way he is
very easy to manage."

The shyness that makes him chary of words off
the pitch disappears once he leaves the
dressing-room. "He's the biggest whinger on
the pitch," said the old United warrior Bryan
Robson last week, "wanting every ball passed
to him. Then after the game is over, you won't
get a word out of him." And so it often is
with great sportspeople. Lester Piggott needed
a racehorse to express himself fully and it is
commonplace for sporting heroes to lose their
assurance once they leave the arena. Scholes
feels comfortable on the pitch and knows what
has to be done. To make the most of what he
has, he must be assertive and vociferous.
Afterwards, he can be himself.

Throughout a career in which he has been
quickly and repeatedly asked to move up to
ever higher levels, Scholes has never felt
overstretched. "I don't think anything has
fazed me up to now but you never know," he
says almost nonchalantly. Naturally talented
and an instinctively confident footballer, he
has trouble understanding what the fuss is
about. For him it is a straightforward
business: "What are my strengths as a
footballer? I like to think I can make chances
and score goals. That's it really."

But on the pitch, how precisely does it work?
"First thing I do when I get the ball is look
to see what run the centre-forward is making
and, if he's in, there's no point in looking
for someone else when there's a chance of
playing him through. If that's not on I have
to make sure that I protect the ball and get
it to one of my teammates."

Routine stuff according to Scholes and,
remarkably, he can make it seem so on the
pitch. With excellent control and sweet
striking, his technique is very good, but it
is his vision that lifts him to a different
level. He talks of looking to see what's on
when he gets the ball, yet his gift is that he
knows without apparently having to look.
Occasionally he plays a first-time pass out of
this world, a possibility that only he had
seen and a reminder of what Kidd noticed all
those years ago.

The same vision takes him into goalscoring
positions. It was no coincidence that
England's best chances against Tunisia in
Marseilles fell to their attacking midfielder.
After missing two reasonable opportunities, he
converted one that barely seemed possible. His
recollection of the goal is, well, amusing.

"My first instinct was to play a one-two with
Paul Ince but my first touch wasn't good
enough and then it came up for the shot. I
just hit it." And one morning Leonardo da
Vinci noticed a brush and some colours lying
around and felt like painting Mona Lisa. Sure,
Paul.

They have never seen it like that at Old
Trafford and clearly Glenn Hoddle is not
buying it either. United have persuaded him to
sign a seven-year contract and Hoddle has
created a pivotal role for him in the England
side. Although he has taken Paul Gascoigne's
place in midfield, Scholes plays it
differently.

Gascoigne roamed all over the pitch, whereas
Scholes operates mostly inside the other
team's half and often inside the penalty area.
His role plays to his attacking strengths and
accommodates an asthmatic condition that
necessitates daily use of an inhaler:
"Actually I use two inhalers, one every day
and the other on match days."

Is there a difference between the two? "Yeah,
there is a difference but I don't know what."
His respiratory condition makes it difficult
for him to play end-to-end football but
Scholes refuses to fuss. It is not in his
nature. Claire, his girlfriend, rings him
after a Manchester United game and, unless she
asks specifically, he will not tell her how
well he played or if he scored. But she seemed
on his mind when he was asked where he saw
himself in 15 years: "Hopefully settled down,
with a few kids." Little redheads, no doubt.

Once during the interview, he became very
serious and made eye-contact with his
questioner before delivering a quiet but
emphatic "no, no". He had been asked whether
he could ever see himself driving a Ferrari.
"Not your typical footballer," his United
teammate Teddy Sheringham said earlier in the
week.

"Did he give a reason for saying that?" asked
Scholes. "He said you don't go to Portugal on
your holidays," murmured one of the
journalists.

While Sheringham lived it up in Portugal,
Scholes was relaxing at home. Well, not
totally relaxing. He had things to do with his
house, fellows calling to quote him for
different jobs. How much to tile that
bathroom, wallpaper that hallway, put shelves
on that wall?

You can imagine him barely daring to haggle,
unsuited to the rough and tumble of domestic
commerce. But a week before the greatest
challenge of his sporting life, it was where
you would have expected Paul Scholes to be.




Subject: Media circus no place for Beckham the wounded lion (Times)

IF GLENN HODDLE thinks Darren Anderton can do  
a better job than David Beckham, that is the   
end of the argument as far as the selection
of the England team is concerned. I disagree   
with Hoddle's interpretation of the evidence   
but, obviously, I recognise that during the    
World Cup a club manager's opinion doesn't     
count. What bothers me is the way the
upsetting effect of being dropped has been
made more painful for the boy by some of the
things that have happened since in the
England camp. Why was Beckham put forward for
a mass interview with the media while he was
still reeling from the shock of being left
out of the team for the match with Tunisia?
Those in charge of the squad's press
arrangements should never have considered
that, and David himself should not have
agreed to do it. He must have been devastated
emotionally and asking him to bare his soul
in public was not likely to help anybody but
the headline-writers. It is something I would
never have allowed.

The first priority in such circumstances is
regard for the player's state of mind.
Beckham had gone, at a stroke, from what
seemed to be star status in the team to
kicking his heels as a reserve. No footballer
should ever think his position is
unchallenged but Beckham could be forgiven,
after the regular use Hoddle had made of him
and the glowing tributes he was receiving
from the coach not long ago, for believing he
was established as a member of the
first-choice XI. Right or wrong, that was an
understandable attitude for a 23-year-old to
develop and, when the decision was taken to
drop him, there should have been careful
consideration of how it would affect his
morale. Was there anything likely to put more
pressure on him than being questioned by a
roomful of reporters? Even if he wanted to do
the interview, he should have been talked out
of it.

There is a duty to communicate but the
welfare of the team takes precedence every
time. The whole emphasis should have been on
giving Beckham private encouragement to face
the biggest disappointment of his
international career in a positive way.
Getting him to buckle down and try to regain
his place is essential for him and for
Hoddle, who must want Beckham eager and ready
to step back into the team if picked. Going
over the details of his disappointment at a
press conference, opening up the wounds all
over again, wouldn't be my idea of the best
way to focus his mind on battling to convince
the England coach that he is the best man for
the right wing-back position.

Hoddle's preference for Anderton was bound to
be controversial. I felt there was a real
question about whether the Tottenham man
should even be in the squad after missing so
much football because of the injuries he has
suffered over the past two years. Though I
have never doubted his quality, I couldn't
convince myself that he would have the depth
of fitness or the competitive edge required
for a World Cup. But you could always tell
that this was a player who had a special
appeal for Hoddle and that Glenn was keen to
believe the lad could come through all his
troubles and perform well in France. As a
coach, you come across players who strike a
chord with you, who fit your sense of how the
game should be played and make you feel you
would always want them in your team. Maybe
that is how it is with Hoddle and Anderton.

If so, it is understandable. But in any
objective comparison of the abilities of
Anderton and Beckham it would be hard to
argue that one is substantially better than
the other. So why reject Beckham, who is
hardly ever injured and has tremendous
stamina, in favour of somebody who is still
trying to find his top-level game after long
spells on the injured list? At a World Cup,
when you may be intensely involved for more
than a month, playing frequently and training
most days, you want to be rich in the kind of
players who are always available for
selection. If there are four or five who have
a record of injuries and tend to have doubts
hanging over them it puts a strain on your
resources. Beckham is definitely in the first
of those categories and, unfortunately,
Anderton must be included among the doubtful
cases. Clearly Hoddle has faith that the Sick
Note nickname has been left behind, but it is
risky to try to prove the point in the World
Cup.

My own respect for Anderton was demonstrated
when I tried to buy him for Manchester United
after we sold Andrei Kanchelskis. I think he
has since admitted that it was a mistake on
his part when he didn't make use of the
release clause in his contract at Tottenham
and instead decided to negotiate a new deal
with Spurs. Fortunately for us, Beckham made
his breakthrough into the first team earlier
than expected and the gap we had wide on the
right was filled. But I didn't lose my
admiration for Anderton just because we
didn't sign him. I always liked the cut of
the boy on the park.

The last time it was fair to judge Anderton,
about a couple of years ago, his contribution
as a player wouldn't have differed a lot from
what Beckham gave to a team. Anderton at his
best (and he looked a long way short of it
against Tunisia) was impressively athletic,
moving well with a good long stride, though
never with the exceptional acceleration of
someone like Ryan Giggs. He is comfortable on
the ball and probably has more ability to
beat a man than Beckham. But Beckham is just
about the best crosser of a ball in British
football and he would be more likely than
Anderton to score a goal for you. Add those
assets to his stamina and his remarkable
record of fitness and it isn't surprising
that so many people have suggested that
Hoddle's preference for Anderton cannot be
justified in purely football terms.

There has been speculation about whether
Beckham's involvement in the celebrity
lifestyle of his fiancée, Victoria Adams of
the Spice Girls, is seen as a problem by
Hoddle. Any coach might worry about the
danger that the distractions of that world
would be strong enough to reach all the way
into the closed camp of a football squad. It
will be sad if Hoddle has in fact decided
that Beckham's concentration on football is
suffering because he cannot shut himself off
mentally from his social life. I think the
lad is beginning to have his own concerns
about the pressures created by mixing with
the showbusiness millionaire set. We happened
to fly back to London from Nice on the same
plane a few weeks ago after he had been out
at Elton John's place on the Riviera and it
was frightening to see how he and Victoria
were hounded by reporters and photographers
at Heathrow. I was walking near him and I
have never been so happy to be unrecognised,
or at least totally ignored. I have been in
professional football as a player and manager
for 40 years and I cannot imagine ever
wanting to give over a minute of my life to
the sort of nonsense that surrounded David
that day. When he first started being exposed
to all that stuff, David naturally enough
found it all pretty exciting. But I get the
impression that he has come to hate it.

I think he realises now that being a
celebrity means you are never given a
moment's peace. And he is at a stage of his
football career when he could do without that
kind of pestering. He should be concentrating
his thoughts and energies on moving his game
beyond the high level it has reached. Nearly
all really gifted players hit a plateau
during their development. It represents a
standard that would be considered outstanding
for the vast majority of footballers but that
elite minority cannot afford to get stuck on
it. They have the potential to lift their
performances to further peaks. Ryan Giggs was
on the plateau for a while but accepted all
the challenges his life was throwing at him
and now he is moving on, maturing all the
time and looking more and more like the
finished article. Beckham needs to follow
that example and make sure he does justice to
his talent.

As the man responsible for supervising his
club career, I am glad that he has Gary
Neville, one of his closest friends at Old
Trafford, to help him handle his present
troubles with England. Gary himself took a
blow to his pride when he was left out of the
team for the Tunisia match. But he has the
inner resources to deal with his
disappointment and still have something left
over to support Beckham and cheer on Teddy
Sheringham and, of course, Paul Scholes, who
did such an excellent job in midfield against
the Tunisians.

Gary is not just a terrific defender, with a
priceless instinct for smelling danger. He is
a born leader, captaincy material if ever I
saw it. He is not immune to hurt but he is
exceptionally strong. During the most
miserable days David Beckham has known in
football, he will find Gary Neville behaving
like a true teammate.

* Alex Ferguson was talking to Hugh
McIlvanney



             
 
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