Tuesday, October 31
Steve McClaren's Half Term Report

It was half term last week and Football England are delighted to bring you an exclusive view of Steve McClaren's first school report from his new headmaster Brian Barwick.
We found the report in a hedge just outside his school, young Steven obviously didn't want his parents to see it. Read on, you will understand why.

Squad Selection: B+
Steven upset all the girls in the class by leaving out the remarkably good looking boy who impresses them all with his keepy uppy skills and this did seem a mistake as he obviously didn't trust the little boys from the year below when it came to the crunch against the nasty school from the council estate. On the whole, however, he has picked the boys everyone else in the class would have chosen. (except for little Johnny at the back of course who picked himself, his dad and his brother as well as Jean Claude Van Damme in his squad)

Formation: C-
Steven started by just copying what the last teacher had left on the blackboard. Then he got all creative with disastrous results; paint all over the foor, little Johnny embalmed in crepe paper and the class guinea pig dead after being force fed an orange crayola when it moaned about being played out of position at wing back.

Motivation: D-
Steven found it difficult to instill enthusiasm into the other children when he started asking them to do something different and there were hints of open rebellion after the unsavoury incident with the guinea pig. Asking little Johnny to give a rousing speech to the class also backfired when he got a bit carried away and started butting the blackboard and eating copious amounts of chalk.

Personality: D+
Steven smiles a lot and is very nice to everyone when the general mood is good but when there is a problem the combination of forced smile (which makes him look like he's had one facelift too many), desperately pleading eyes and deeply furrowed brow seems to definitely scare the other children.

Leadership: D-
Steven doesn't appear to be a natural leader. His decision to stay in his seat when the classroom burst into flames in the apparent belief that the fire would sort itself out was not the most inspired decision ever taken. Fortunately little Johnny decided to run back into the room when the flames were at their most intense and dragged Steven out, slightly singed, with his teeth.
Steven then decided to send the three smallest, newest members of the class back in to sort out the problem. They weren't able to.

Results: D-
Steven did exceptionally well in the early tests set but these were carefully designed to be so simple that only a genuine, bona fide idiot could have failed them.
When the tests were made a little harder Steven just about passed the first one, although we think there may have been copying going on as he and little Johnny got exactly the same answers right and they both thought that when the hands on the clock are pointing at five to one it meant something very rude indeed.
The last two tests we set Steven failed miserably and in the second of these he managed a result that was the worst produced in the school for the past 30 years or so.

General Comments;
Making Steven headboy seemed to have been a really good idea at first. The school didn't have many English candidates to pick from and we couldn't give it to the school bully Samuel.
Everything went alright for a while but when his duties became a bit more taxing Steven seemed to lose all confidence and direction. The incident with the guinea pig cannot have helped and it is uncertain whether he retains the respect and trust of the other children even at this early stage of his tenure. We are hoping that Steven will get better, or that his classmates simply bale him out, and we are at least relieved that unlike our last headboy he hasn't been caught kissing any of the girls yet or talking to any other schools about taking over as their headboy.
God forbid he ever did that, we'd have to pay him far more money.