Was anyone really surprised when the England football players wrecked the upper deck of Cathay CX251 from Hong Kong to London this week? It is said that the thick-headed, pot-bellied one known as Gazza - Paul Gascoigne - kung-fu kicked one of the seat TV sets into oblivion. He really must have been excelling himself. Poor lad has probably suffered a knee injury with the exertion. Then when he dragged himself through Heathrow he was drunkenly mouthing obscenities at photographers. The cream of British youth, what? If British football hooligans ever wanted someone to emulate they don't have to look far. In his right hand he carried a small bouquet of flowers some idiot had given him for his birthday. The only thing missing was the lager can - and they were strewn across the floor of Marco Polo class. Next week that same England team begin playing in the European Championships and nobody, to be honest, is expecting much of them. While they have been bingeing in Hong Kong their competitors have been locked into training camps across Europe. No, there was something totally crass about the way England, and we must be careful not to say Britain's, so-called sporting ambassadors behaved. Even their managers were much too ready to jump in with excuses as Cathay faxed the FA with their GBP5,000 (HK$59,350) bill for damages. The administration of the England team is just as lacklustre, as clumsy as their players. Sure there were newspapers strewn across the floor where the young men had been sitting, they said. But it had been a long flight, said their sycophantic managers. It was down to high spirits, said their agents as if we have to accept such vandalism as the new norm. We read that the night before the aircraft incident the team had been for a meal at the Jumbo restaurant in Aberdeen harbour. Then they ditched their official suits and headed off to the China Jump nightclub in fashionable Causeway Bay where, when they were not drinking beer, they were hosing each other down with it. Gazza apparently tore the shirts off several of his teammates and most of them went back to their hotel topless. And believe me that this appears all the more shocking from the English end. For weeks now we have been reading of a police clamp-down on potential hooligans ahead of the championships. Local newspapers in the northeast of England are running photographs of wanted hooligans so they won't foul up Euro '96. Their mothers are turning up at police stations to inform on their sons. Yet England's football administration accepts all this hooliganism. FA spokesman Steve Double commented: 'This was normal Paul Gascoigne behaviour'. A good few of these 'stars' would probably be behind bars of the incarceration variety were it not for their ability to kick a ball in approximately the right direction on occasion. Yet despite all protestations Gazza remains a role model for many, an icon of those who will no doubt be fighting against 'krauts', 'wops' and 'frogs' during the championships. If he can get away with anything - and he patently can - then it is a signal to those hooligans who have vowed to stop the championships that they needn't worry too much about authority either. All this was in a week when the British Government announced that it was going to emulate New York in bringing down street crime with a 'zero-tolerance' to graffiti, anti-social behaviour and petty criminality. I guarantee no one will have the moral fibre to transform the disgraced ambassadors of sport into diplomats worthy of the name.
