Some topics for radio shows have great promise but don’t deliver. It’s these I specialise in. I had an idea the other week that I was certain would fly on Radio 5 live but didn’t, for reasons I should have seen coming. I still consider it too good to waste, so I rehash it here for your consideration. It followed the American owner of Chelsea football club daring to have a bright idea about the Premier League having an all-star game with the best players from the northern clubs playing the best from the southern clubs. Nah, rubbish, we all said. However, I have always been interested in who produces the best players, the north or the south. If a northern-born team played the southern-born, who would win?
A ruling on where the north-south border should run had to be made. This was tricky enough but, as this was the British Broadcasting Corporation, in the interests of inclusivity we felt Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland should be part of this. The road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions. It turns out that dividing the United Kingdom by drawing a line between the Dee estuary in the west and the Wash in the east is to invite derision and division of Brexit-like magnitude. The Welsh didn’t want to play for the south, and nor did my fellow Midlanders, who called for me to be treated like the traitor I was and be strung by my ankles and dunked in Birmingham’s filthiest canal.
Amid all the fury, about six callers actually bothered to suggest players. For the vanishingly few who remained interested, we ended up with the following XI representing the north. Gordon Banks (born in Sheffield, before you write in); Gary Neville, Alan Hansen, Jack Charlton, Andy Robertson; Denis Law, Graeme Souness, George Best; Kenny Dalglish, Alan Shearer, Wayne Rooney. The Southern XI were Neville Southall; George Cohen, Bobby Moore, Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole; Gareth Bale, Glenn Hoddle, Stanley Matthews, Frank Lampard; John Charles, Ian Rush. I’ve got it down as a 2-2 draw. And I won’t be taking any more calls on the subject.
Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist
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