Here's a quick afternoon quiz: Did England (and the rest of the 'home nations') fail to qualify for next year's Euro 2008 so-called football, so-call competition because:

a) Appalling management.
b) Lazy, self-satisfied players.
c) Ancient and broken training techniques.
d) Videogames.
e) Hilarious goal-keeping blunder of comedy clown hands variety.

West Ham goalie and England hopeful, Robert Green, thinks he knows the answer- and he chooses, (d) Videogames.

Yup, if it wasn't for those evil videogames, England would obviously have the best team in the world, and would have avoided a 3-2 defeat at the hands of Croatia (population 12).

"We would have the best team if we could go into every household and throw away every Playstation, Xbox and video game", said Green.

No mention there of the Wii, however. It's just Sony and Microsoft, with their sit-down games that are stopping our children gadding off to the park to kick a footer about. Maybe a spot of Wii-ing in his spare time would have improved Scott Carson's appalling coordination and Frank Lampards general disappearing act.

"Other countries seem to bring on world-class players, countries like Argentina and Brazil where often it's football or nothing", Green went on. "It's contrast we live in a country where we have choices and perhaps the will to do it, the need to escape your own situation, is not so clear."

So, there you go . He also laments the fact that we don't live in a country where the only alternatives to being a professional footy player are living in barrios in desperate poverty or crime.

Oh yes, don't forget Third World countries like Italy, Germany and France where everybody lives on the streets and eats rats; and nobody owns any video games machines outside of an Amstrad PCW.

SPOnG's beginning to suspect that there's a spot of anti-gaming prejudice in the air over in West Ham. Not so long ago the club's former manager, Harry Redknapp, was spouting similar sentiments to Green. Watch out, West Ham gamers, they'll be rounding you up in the stadium for 'work' soon...

^{Source: thisislondon.com}