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Historically, or should that be hysterically, British football has always been at the forefront of the game, catapulting such great players as Bobby Moore, Bobby Charlton, George Best and David Beckham into the realms of superstars, both on and off the pitch, and always leading the way in the rules, and spirit, of the game.

The profile afforded to the UK when it comes to the beautiful game is huge, creating great pressure on the national sides to perform, and succeed, at the highest level. However, there have been times when we have looked to the past, rather than the future, for our greatest achievements and I believe that the future of the UK national sides is grim if the problems of grass roots football is not assessed.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland suffer less with the double edged nature of this issue. Whilst the passion, spirit and commitment of these nations is huge, they are not burdeoned with the weight of expectation that the England team are. They are capable of re-assessing their expectations to more realistic levels given the talent at their disposal, and should always be congratulated on the success that they do achieve. Please do not read this as belittling these countries - they are in the stronger position of realising that they are not going to set the footballing world alight, but do a great job of encouraging their fans and performing to their abilities. The future of these nations is almost set in stone - to continue performing to their lower expectations.

England, however, are guilty of being too big for their boots. We "expect" to succeed. "WE ARE ENGLAND" is a phrase that we hear a lot around qualification and tournament time. But the fact is that our administrative prowess and "history" to not make opposing teams quake in their boots, or fear us.

This is because we have an England set up that thrives on nostalgia and image, rather than talent. Much effort has been made to secure the Premier League as the best league in the world. Successfully. However, the resources required to achieve this, and the reliance on non-English managerial and player talent, has diluted the strength of the English impact on the league and has starved the grass roots of football of funding to develop English players and offer them potential to develop as strong professionals.

We constantly wonder why the number of great English players coming into the Premier League is declining. The truth is that there are not any great young players to come through! Many, many, talented youngsters are starved of the expertise to help them develop properly, so we have a plethora of good standard footballers, who ply their trade in the Football League, but a very small minority actual develop the potential to make an impact at the higher level. As a result, the pool of players with which to populate the England team is diminishing.

Worryingly, the players seem to have noticed that the opportunities are not there. Many are happy to earn 50,000 per week in the Premier League but not push themselves to try to gain an England shirt. Granted, the strange selection policies of the last 2 Head Coaches did not encourage development, but the likes of Woodgate, Dunn and Downing don't seem to move themselves forward with any conviction, safe in their earning potential at club level.

Until this resourcing imbalance is corrected I fear for the long term future of the UK sides, certainly in terms of achieving to our expectations and actually giving us something to cheer about. The age of the "plucky loser" will never end!

Thanks for reading.

Learn more about this author, Stephen Bate.
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