The Wembley Pitch

Ah yes, another cycle of blame from the losing sides occupying the ever-in-progress Wembley field of dreams. This time it's Sir Alex and (to a lesser extent) Monsieur Wegner who are levying charges of unplayability and unsuitability for the tushes of their multi-miilionaires. Of course, once the big four raises their whinnying voices about anything out of sorts that, incidentally, only affects their side, the FA make a big, blustery show of relaying the turf and promising nary a future ankle tweak. While the immediate cause of the FA's eagerness to take action (yet again) can be apportioned to the BPL's moneymakers throwing a conniption fit, I believe the true impetus is a nation striving to hide its burning embarrassment in the face of yet another "pride of Britain" infrastructure folly. As if Heathrow's vaunted Terminal 5 (We will lose your valise with unprecedented haste!) and the ridiculous skyrocketing costs of the 2012 Olympics (Lisa Simpson giving unsolicited "favors" notwithstanding) weren't enough to curdle everyone's milk, Wembley expectorates an abomination of a pitch (behind schedule, over cost, to boot). It's an affront to a nation once beaming with the influence and might it wielded over its cross-Channel neighbors and the FA can scarcely do anything about it. The pitch will be resodded and torn right up again by Oasis' perpetual Relevency Tour (with guest pointy-ball performer: the Detroit Who Gives a Damns) and Britain's pride will continue to erode faster than Berbatov's Tottenham legend. This is not the whimpering of beknighted managers, this is the very basis of English snobbery at stake.

Or it could be that the pitch just really sucks moose balls and that's all there is to it.