The game is here and England WILL win. Fighting talk?

Finally. The match that has been a stand out on the domestic fixture list for the last 7(seven) months is here. England take on Wales today. But will there even be a game?

Of course there will although the morning after the night before, with 36 more arrests after further trouble and tear gas, could UEFA come anywhere close to their threat of sending Russia and / or England home?

Russia going down to Slovakia yesterday has aided their chance of a natural return home but, surely, England will have too much in the tank for the Welsh? Qualification for the second round a certainty. I don’t predict much but I’m predicting this. 2-1 to England.

Matt Dyson – guru

“A small number of supporters seem hell bent on getting Roy Hodgson’s team thrown out of EURO 2016.” Not my words but those of news guru Matt Dyson on this morning’s Absolute Radio Christian O’Connell breakfast show. An over reaction or genuine fear?

Fear not helped by Wales manager Chris Coleman predicting the game to be “an old fashioned dust up”. Probably not the best choice of phrase amidst all the fighting talk in the build up to the clash. Again, probably not the best choice of phrase etc etc etc …….

Whatever the cause and whoever is to blame, the scenes we’ve been shown back home are pretty horrific. Billy Grant and Stan Collymore (a pairing I never thought I’d put in the same journalistic related sentence) have been doing their thing over the last few days. Brentford supporters’ Dave and Billy’s Beesotted page continues to pump out the blogs (with their YouTube footage going viral) whilst Stan has been running the gauntlet of ‘supporters’ and accusations of being a ‘snitch’ as his video links on Twitter are starting to take on a life of their own.

There’s not too much else to say today. I have genuine excitement about the game but, at the same time, it is tinged with an uneasy feeling of awkwardness.

Not about Wales winning – although if the reaction is anything like Gareth Bale’s pre-match mind games that will be horrific. Max Boyce and Manic Street Preachers all over the radio; Welsh footballing icons such as Vinnie Jones and Robbie Savage giving it large. Possibly.

Vinnie Jones – Welsh

Should they win then it will, no doubt, be deserved. Likewise, congratulations offered. But they won’t win.

The awkwardness isn’t even the underlying worry that, with French Police ready to wield the tear gas and Ingerland supporters displaying their penchant for bawling out God Save The Queen in Town Squares, something is going to give. And then UEFA are gong have to make an unpopular decision one way or the other.

No. It’s something worse than that. With an England game just hours away, the ‘alleged’ supporters band will be tuning up and polishing their French horns.

Nobody wants anymore violence, that’s for sure. But if I hear ‘that band’ doing their thing then I won’t be held responsible for my actions.

Nick Bruzon

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Dear BBC. Please don’t do it, however good the cause

Brentford haven’t even faced this Friday’s trial by TV against Gillingham yet already our next ‘on air’ encounter has been announced.

Not surprisingly the visit to, current, League One top dogs Leyton Orient has been brought forward to accommodate our friends at Sky. Thankfully, from some respects (the boat crew may not agree), rather than a shift to Friday night it remains on March 15th but is now a lunchtime kickoff.

Realistically, this was always going to happen. Brentford and Leyton Orient are the top two sides in League One and so this could end up being a real six-pointer (along with a chance for Sky to crank out all those East meets West type lines).

To me, it makes no difference. The number of travelling supporters will, one would imagine, remain largely the same regardless of 12.15 or 3.00. It’s too big a game  – it can’t be too often you say that about Leyton Orient  v Brentford!

Interestingly, chief executive Mark Devlin took to twitter immediately after the announcement to discuss ticketing and canvass opinion. It seems we have a choice between an allocation of 1600 or 3700. The former figure, surely too low, but is the top whack optimistic?

In my opinion, no. It’s a table-topping clash and Leyton Orient IS an easy away ground to get too. If you aren’t taking the boat trip then its simply a case of jumping on the Central line at Ealing Broadway and putting your feet up for an hour – not literally, keep those seats clean please.

The other TV news yesterday was one which, being honest, upsets me somewhat. The BBC have announced that David Beckham is to appear in a one-off return of Only Fools and Horses.

I loved this show when it was originally shown – although I think we’ve all seen the clip of Del Boy in the bar perhaps once too often (spoiler alert – he falls over). However, it’s not been on for over a decade and for good reason – it ended on a high whilst the cast are, to be polite, getting on a bit.  It’s going to be impossible to resist a trip down memory lane and take a look but I fear a car crash. Moreso, when you then add Mr Beckham into the mix.

The BBC have announced the return of Del Boy and…David Beckham

The man who singlehandedly secured the 2012 Olympics for Great Britain loves doing his public bit and, with this in aid of Sport Relief, it’s natural he’ll be involved. But a good cause doesn’t necessarily justify resuscitating the long dead corpse of one of the nation’s favourite programmes.

Equally, everybody knows  – footballers can’t act.

We’ve all seen Figo doing his ‘Just for men’, the classic ‘Escape to Victory’ (“We can win this”), Eric Cantona is currently masquerading as a French farmer but the king acting stinker is, of course, Vinnie Jones.

To be fair, the former Wimbledon man set the bar high with his surprise debut in ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’, but its been downhill since there. Very much a case of the law of diminishing returns, he was single handedly responsible for destroying X-Men: The Last Stand whilst has also flexed his acting muscles in a range of films that includes ‘Swordfish’ and ‘Garfield: A Tail of two Kitties’.

Hey, I’ve no problem with a wooden, bad, actor. Just look at Jason Statham – a 21^st century Steven Seagal. He does what he does, and does it very well. But, with footballers, it just stretches the bounds of entertainment that bit too far.

Sadly, things seem too late for Beckham and ‘Only Fools…’, judging by the publicity stills already published. I can only cross my fingers and hope we don’t have another Vinnie – ‘Gone in 60 seconds’ moment….

Dear Andy Ansah. If you aren’t at the World Cup……

There doesn’t seem to be a day goes by without talk of the Qatar World Cup being moved from its traditional summer home to a winter tournament. Only after awarding football’s greatest honour to the Gulf State, does the penny seem to have dropped with FIFA that to hold the competition in 50 degree heat may prove somewhat of a logistical problem. Switching it, though, presents as many new issues – the least of which being it will cut directly through numerous domestic campaigns. By the time you factor in a warm up period, the competition itself and then some post event R&R it means a break of about four months. Hardly conducive for a, traditional, league system.

But lets go with it for a moment. If this does happen then there’ll be a lot of players left kicking their heels. What do they do with themselves?

To read the rest of this article, season 2013/14 is now available to download onto Kindle, in full. Containing previously unseen content, you can do so here for less than the cost of one matchday programme.

 Thanks for reading over the course of the campaign. For now I need to make space on this page for any follow up.  The ‘close season’ / World Cup columns continue in full, further on in this site.