England aim to limit the damage

The qualities demanded of the next England coach are simple enough. He should have the wisdom of Solomon, the wit of Oscar Wilde, and the rhetoric of Edmund Burke. He should also possess the tactical acumen of Napoleon Bonaparte as well as combining the showmanship of Phineas T. Barnum with the humility of Pope John Paul II. It would also help if he enjoys the luck of Lucifer.

Alternatively, the Football Association should appoint someone who can win enough matches to take England to a major tournament once every two years and then bring them home with a reasonable excuse after they have gone out to the first half-decent opponents to cross their path.

Of the eight men who have been in charge of England teams over the past 37 years only the first, Alf Ramsey, has won anything of significance and to a large part of the nation's football followers the World Cup triumph of 1966 is now as remote as the relief of Mafeking would have been to those involved in the D-Day landings.

England have never had a tradition of success in international football. For years there was a myth of invincibility born out of an unbeaten home record against overseas teams, but the Hungarians of Ferenc Puskas and Nandor Hidegkuti ended that when they won 6-3 at Wembley in 1953. In World Cups the English mood has swung between the numb disbelief which followed the defeat by the United States in 1950 to the unbridled joy of 1966, a feeling reawakened when Bobby Robson's team lurched to the semi-finals in 1990 and echoed after Terry Venables' side reached the last four of the 1996 European Championship.

The next England coach will be saddled with the phenomenon of cool scepticism quickly giving way to hysterical optimism once his team comes within sight of a final. The media conduct this change of mood rather like Arturo Toscanini used to break into song when the passion of the music overtook him. And when the team fail the press react with the dignity and restraint of the last night of the Proms.

In the immediate term England need someone to limit any damage caused by Glenn Hoddle's unscheduled departure. Continuity is the key word here. It may be provided by Howard Wilkinson extending his caretakership to cover the European Championship qualifier against Poland on March 27th and beyond that if the players respond well.

Failing that, the simplest answer might be to reappoint Terry Venables who only left after Euro '96 because the FA international committee, worried about his complicated business affairs and his legal wrangles with Alan Sugar, had been reluctant to give him a new contract six months earlier. In organising football teams for specific tasks Venables still has few peers.

The problem of having to change coaches in mid-stream is that there is little time to check the suitability of candidates before the next important match. And if selection is to be based on success at league level than the field is bound to be restricted because managers like Alex Ferguson and Kevin Keegan are locked into their clubs and reluctant to move. Venables and Roy Hodgson, moreover, are only free because the teams most recently in their charge have been losing matches. Either they are between jobs, like Hodgson following his departure from Blackburn Rovers, or posts have been invented for them, like Venables' consultancy at Crystal Palace.

No England manager has better understood the inner workings of footballers than Ramsey nor won greater respect from the players. His antipathy towards the press is legendary but with journalists he trusted he was affable and worth listening to.

Joe Mercer's caretakership of 1974 was a tranquil intermission interrupted only by the beating-up of Kevin Keegan at Belgrade airport. Revie, media-friendly and fresh from winning the championship with an outstanding Leeds United side, was welcomed by some, but not by those who remembered the cynical approach of his teams at Elland Road.

Superstitious and suspicious, Revie built a good-looking England side around Keegan and his young captain, Gerry Francis, but lost the plot after Francis and the outstanding Colin Bell suffered long-term injuries and scuttled off to the United Arab Emirates in the summer of 1977.

Ron Greenwood found himself managing England by default, but within two years had produced what remains one of the best sides this country has ever seen. In attack he had Keegan, Steve Coppell and Trevor Francis, in midfield Trevor Brooking. In goal his choice lay between Peter Shilton and Ray Clemence. Yet England flopped in the 1980 European Championship and the following year Greenwood wanted to resign because of the media pressure which had accompanied a faltering start to the 1982 World Cup qualifiers. The players persuaded him to stay and eventually he retired with honour, if not honours.

Greenwood was the first to be keelhauled by the newspapers. Robson, although easily the most popular England manager with journalists, was vilified after the European Championship failures of 1988 and crucified shortly before the 1990 World Cup when he announced that after the tournament he would be leaving to manage PSV Eindhoven, the FA having refused to guarantee him a new contract following revelations about his private life.

Taylor had only been England manager for a year when he declared that the job lacked respect. So mortified were the press that the following summer they made him into a turnip. Venables produced a good-looking team for Euro '96 against a background of media rumour and innuendo about his business life. Hoddle's England career never recovered from Eileen Drewery and his World Cup diary.

IF the FA could combine Ramsey's ability to inspire players with Greenwood's high standards, Robson's powers of survival, the organisational skills of Venables and the strength of Hoddle's resolve it would have its ideal man.

In fact, there is already one such manager who has achieved considerable success in English football in a relatively short space of time. He has taken over a team thoroughly ingrained with a certain way of playing and introduced new concepts without sacrificing the best aspects of the earlier style. Under his management journeymen have revealed talents which they themselves did not realise they possessed.

Anyone who can persuade Steve Bould to pass the ball out of defence to a friendly shirt instead of whacking it up the field would surely find taking over from Hoddle a relatively simple business. We are, of course, talking about Arsenal's Arsne Wenger, the best manager England could have but will probably never get.