England-Malta: it starts here

Day -624 #WorldCup2018

In case we (you) have forgotten amongst all the Sam Allardyce hoopla yesterday, managerless England's next match is a World Cup qualifier against Malta on October 8th.While Gareth Southgate has been named interim manager for England's next 4 matches as the hunt for a straight, clean, whiter than white permanent replacement starts, this match against Malta is perfect ammunition for the "even _____ could mange England to a win over Malta". Anything or anyone from the Prime Minister's children (does she have any?) to Victoria Beckham's personal assistant to the FA mascot could fill that blank. I would even offer that I could sit in that England dugout, tweeting and facebooking live updates, yelling out a few instructions (pass, shoot etc) and doing that fancy thing that all managers do with their dancing fingers and still England would win.

If Southgate gets invited to something better on that Saturday evening and the job is given to somebody else for the day they will be all out to better Allardyce's record as England manager: a 2-0 win will mean a 100% winning record but with more goals scored and a better goal difference.

It'll be good to point out now that I am fully behind the Malta team and dream of an incredible upset. It is unfortunate that this comical moment in the history of English football had to happen just before they play Malta. The humour material is just too easy.

It will also good to mention that in my moments of feeling like a 12 year old again I'm hoping that the FA do have one of those "manager for a day" competitions and me, the winner, gets to be at Wembley on October 8th. Yes, in case you wondered, right now there will be no live updates from Wembley from me.

I also think that the Malta FA should run a competition for one lucky winner to be there. The conditions for entering said competition should be:
-Must be Maltese, but one parent (preferably mother) must be English
-Must be currently living in Toronto, Canada
-Must have attended the Malta-Jordan match in April, 1985
I believe I would stand a pretty strong chance of winning.

I did try the more conventional method of getting to Wembley. Forget the small matter of crossing the Atlantic, I tried looking into tickets. I say tried becasue it seems even the FA website is conspiring against my presence. After trying every way possible of signing in (facebook, twitter, email) to buy tickets as an away supporter the website kept stubbornly refusing to take me any further.

This could be an excuse for an interesting social experiment. Crowdfunding. Could it work? Could I even think about it for the sake of getting to Wembley to watch Malta play England? Hmm.