A few years ago I was queuing up at security at Heathrow airport about to fly out on holiday with my family. As usual, my kids were charging all around the place, creating havoc. Suddenly, behind me, someone said, “Little wascals, aren't they?” and chuckled.
Instantly recognisable, that voice. I turned around and re-introduced myself to Roy Hodgson, at the time the national manager of Finland.
He was midway through a very successful qualifying campaign which almost culminated in the Finns reaching their first major finals. As we shuffled forwards toward the X-ray belt, he was fascinating and energetic company, talking to me about the qualities of Jari Litmanen, and of football in South Africa during the apartheid years.
It took me back to my first meetings with him, at Blackburn Rovers’ windswept training ground, where he amazed me by quoting Kierkegaard’s subjectivist theories when previewing Rovers’ relegation clash against Middlesbrough. I struggle to remember his argument now, but as I recall, I think he was raging against the fatalism infecting his team. “If you think you’re going to walk out in front a lorry, you probably will” was the gist of it.
Another time, I recall passing the time of day with him swapping the names of Czech existentialist writers of the 1980’s. As you do.
Hugely pretentious of me, of course. But from him, well, it was just refreshing and natural and fascinating..
But don’t be fooled for a second by Hodgson’s professorial demeanour. He’s a football man, following a career forged, in common with so many other of our greatest managers with the passion kindled by unfulfilled ambition as a player, unless you count Tonbridge and Maidstone as the zenith of achievement.
I was a little surprised when Fulham called on his services to pick up the broken pieces of their season in 2007. I worried that he would not be the man to galvanize a turnaround in their fortunes…after all, at Blackburn, he’d failed to come to terms with a dressing room full of glowering egos.
How wrong. In my eyes, his achievements so far at Fulham in saving them from the drop and then leading them into Europe stand alongside anything achieved by any other manager in the English game over the last 10 years.
I am not a Fulham fan. In common with most neutrals it’s hard to muster any strong feelings either way about the club with the posh address on the river. But I am most decidedly a Hodgson fan.
There’s a frighteningly long road ahead of his team between here and the final in May, but what better tribute to a significant contribution to our game than to see the man from Croydon clutching the big shiny vase. Sometimes the good guys should get to win.
Fulham v FC Basel is the second part of a Europa League double-header on ITV4 and ITV.com on Thursday. We will be showing Werder Bremen v Athletic Bilbao at 6.05pm, followed by all the action from Craven Cottage at 8pm.
