We're - Gonna - Score - One (Four - for - you).... ENGLAND!

This is an interesting analysis of the national psyche when it comes to supporting, and explaining the rationale for supporting, the England football team.

Many reasons have been offered as to why England crashed out in the second round (I nearly wrote "crashed out early" then, but realised that use of the word "early" would have been a perfect demonstration of what is often said about English supporters - that we consider ourselves as having some pre-destined right to progress to the final stages, if not win the entire thing).

For what it's worth, my own view is that the players rather than the manager are to blame. Capello managed to take a group of players who were not performing, and get them into shape for what was a very successful qualifying campaign - but then it was they, not he, that fell apart when the main event started. Once the game starts, there is surely little that he can do to affect the result beyond substitutions.

I also think that the media frenzy of the English tabloids creates an atmosphere of admittedly admirable national unity that, for whatever reason, seems conspicuously absent from daily life for most of the rest of the time. But this serves then to create an extreme level of pressure on the players to perform. They are ridiculously overpaid, and should not be paid at all to play for the national side, but there is no proof that money engenders an ability to overcome feelings of pressure and nervousness. The point made in the article linked above about the difference between the reaction of a goal-scoring English player compared with any other player (namely a release of built up aggressive tension versus simple jubilation) is well made. I suspect that starting with a bad performance, as England on the whole did against the USA, only serves to pile on even more pressure to perform match on subsequent match. Nobody operates at their peak when under great stress.

The arrival of Rhys on the day that the World Cup began has meant that this time round the tournament has largely passed me by - save for the England matches, I have had little interest in watching any other game. So in a way I am glad that this wasn't the tournament that would replace 1966 as the one that gets spoken about for decades to come. There's always next time.

But between now and then, I hope (but doubt) that players can become more like players again, rather than the overpaid, vain celebrities that their wives and girlfriends are also so frequently labelled.

I hope (but doubt) that next time we will have a manager who is English, rather than Italian (whether Capello stays or goes, the fact remains that when he eventually ceases to be England manager and then immediately picks up the inevitably equally well paid next job somewhere else in Europe - why is that so inevitable by the way? - he will surely take no time at all to cleanse himself of his "Englishness").

I hope (but doubt) that The Sun takes a more tempered approach to stirring national pride.

And finally (since Jack was adamant, the morning after the England defeat, that I was not going to be able to do this since having taken him to the pub to see his first public game last week), I hope that I am allowed to go to a pub again at least once before the next World Cup in 2014!

Football... but not yet the Facts of Life

Last night, for a treat, I took Jack with me to watch England attempt to salvage their World Cup campaign against Slovenia. We went to a bar called Nezasaussi (I think that's right) at the Al Manzil Hotel in Dubai. A bar that could claim to be both a sports bar, and at the same time a family bar (entirely smoke free which, despite the smoking ban in the UK, is still somewhat of a novelty in Dubai).

And they had a limited entry policy so that it was comfortably busy, without being '4 deep at the bar' busy. Which of itself would not have been a problem anyway, what with the waitress service that is common in all bars here!

Anyway, the occasion was one long question-fest for Jack, whose eyes were as big as saucers for most of the evening as he soaked it all up (the atmosphere, not the beer - even though he did ask for one!). And it didn't take long for my 5 year old to develop the intricate art of football punditry, albeit tinged with an element of grand-standing: "Daddy, when I'm a professional footballer, I'll pass it more and score all the goals."

When you take Jack out by himself for such a male-bonding type event, I always know that he will be on his best behaviour. He was happy to watch the game, with his arm slung round my shoulders at times (like the definitive late night drunkard being propped up by his mates). One of those moments I will remember forever I think. The result of the game was almost an irrelevance.

This weekend: Emma's 3rd birthday party. Life does seem all about the kids these days!

The Watkins Family: Now available in Widescreen!

So today, 4 became 5 with the birth of our second son, Rhys Daniel Watkins (weight 7lb 8oz for those to whom this matters).

To attempt to describe the miracle of childbirth is to belittle it I'm sure, because it really is an indescribable feeling to see one's children come into the world. And the shameful irony is that the one doing all of the work, namely Michele (although I am quite proud of the all important hand holding, hair stroking duties that I feel I performed admirably), is the one who never gets to witness it 'close up' so to speak.

When the head emerges first the face is eerily peaceful in its expression. It is as the remainder of the body follows, like perfectly packaged flat-pack furniture, that the release from its wombed restraint suddenly causes the little body to come to life, and the all important first infant cry breaks what you have to then not actually realised was quite a peaceful atmosphere (Michele, to her credit, has never once screamed on the birth of any of our children - although I think the gas and air that she was sucking up in great lungfuls may have had something to do with that).

Regardless, even after 3 children (and there will be no more), the moment of realisation that this little person is your sole responsibility to mould, educate, develop and grow is an incredibly powerful one.

But so too is the feeling that I was already experiencing whilst driving home, that was so aptly soundtracked when my ipod found The Verve's song - "Lucky Man".

Indeed I am.

Welcome to the world Rhys. I hope we do you proud.