Matt Maher: Lee Carsley hits the right note amid anthem furore
A couple of summers ago, as the anthems were being played before a hockey match at the Commonwealth Games, a colleague stood up in the press box and sang Jerusalem.
It sticks in the memory, simply because it was so unusual. Press boxes are professional spaces, for the most part free of emotion, not least when the national anthems are being played.
Yet presumably, there were several members of the visiting press who held hands over hearts and belted out God Save The King at the top of their lungs prior to England’s Nations League match in Ireland last Saturday.
That’s unless they wanted to be accused of hypocrisy, having branded Lee Carsley unpatriotic and unfit to become England’s permanent manager after the interim boss, capped 40 times by the Republic of Ireland, confirmed he would not be singing it.
If nothing else, the daft anthem debate will have taught Birmingham-born Carsley, who for the record did not sing The Soldier’s Song either during his playing career, that the England manager’s job is about far more than merely football.
It is the latter part, mercifully, which remains the most important aspect and on that note the 50-year-old made a pretty decent start to his trial period.
Though Carsley might be reluctant to explicitly go on record in stating he wants the job full-time, his actions from the moment he named a squad which included five uncapped players suggest that is very much the case.
One of those players, Angel Gomes, earned rave reviews for his performance in Tuesday’s 2-0 win over Finland.
Caution, of course, comes with noting the last word of the previous sentence. Neither Finland, Ireland or Greece, England’s other opponents in their Nations League group, qualified for Euro 2024. It is a problem for the FA there is no serious test of England’s progress on the upcoming schedule.
But that is not Carsley’s concern. All he can do is keep doing the best he can as he adjusts to the kind of scrutiny inevitable when the weight of a football nation rests on your shoulders.
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