The (Perpetual) Curate's Egg

For England manager read Parish Priest... from an excellent article by Matthew Syed...

But why? Why do we cling to the cult of the England manager despite all the evidence to the contrary? It is at this point that we must turn to anthropology, for, as my colleague Simon Barnes has wonderfully pointed out, the whole phenomenon is explained in TheGolden Bough by Sir James George Frazer.

Frazer tells us about the temporary king, a ruler who has ubiquitous rule, and the liberty to command the winds, the rain, and the crops. But his real function is “not to rule, but to die”. When the crops fail, as they inevitably do, the temporary king is sacrificed so a new king can be anointed. And so the ritual of cleansing, hope and expectation can begin all over again.

That the king has no power to command the crops is neither here nor there. It is as immaterial as the impotence of the manager over the results he is held accountable for. The purpose of the temporary king is deeper and more primal. He is merely the receptacle for our hopes, and the scapegoat upon which we purge our despair. In his immolation we find redemption, and can start the search for his successor, while sowing for next harvest.

In that sense, the England manager is pre-eminently the temporary king of the modern age. When we lavish praise upon him; when we discern his almost magical powers to take our players to the uplands of World Cup glory (despite him seeing them only once in a blue moon); when we vilify and immolate him (just look at the back pages when any England manager is ushered out of the door), we are re-enacting an ancient ritual, albeit in a thoroughly modern guise.