Wilshere for England

The other day I watched from the Old Trafford stands as, late in a game against Liverpool, David Moyes brought on a late substitute, the young Belgian winger Adnan Janujaz.  A slight stick-like figure, uncannily similar in shape to the young Ryan Giggs, Janujaz received the ball wide on the right, faced the defenders in front of him with a wiggle of the hands as if to say, "Come and get it if you can", shaped left and right, then with a shift of his hips left them all standing.  He might be a wunderkind - it's too early to say - but he looks at the very least a good prospect.

And he might just play for England.

How can this be? Janujaz was born in Belgium, but could also play for Albania via his parents or Kosovo (if they had a senior team: they don't).  He turned Belgium down when offered, and has said he would prefer to play for Albania.  But Roy Hodgson has said the FA are monitoring Janujaz with a view to calling him up to play for England in due course, taking advantage of a 5 year residency rule - news which caused the Arsenal and England midfielder Jack Wilshere to comment a few days ago, "The only people who should play for England are English people . . . If you live in England for five years it doesn't make you English. . . If I went to Spain and lived there for five years I'm not going to play for Spain".

Wilshere is largely right (though I suspect that the unlikelihood of his playing for Spain rests less on personal preference and more on not being good enough to attract a Spanish domestic club in the first place).  But of course the key is, who exactly are English people?  Janujaz, who has been at Man U for two years, hardly qualifies.  But what about other British sporting greats?

Mo Farah came to England when he was 8.  That seems fair enough. Kevin Pietersen didn't come to Britain till he was 19, and opted to play for England to avoid the racial quota system in his own country. He's South African.  So are Jonathan Trott, who came here aged 20, and Craig Kieswetter.  Chris Froome has raced under a British licence on the basis of his father's nationality but otherwise has almost no personal links with the UK.  Bradley Wiggins on the other hand, though born in Belgium, went to school in North London.

Why is any of this important?  Because international sportsmen represent their country.  When England run out onto the pitch we want to know that however rubbish they may be they are nevertheless a product of the same climate, language, diet, geography and culture as we are.  Otherwise we can't identify with them. Simple as that.  Even though Monty Panesar wears a turban and has a brown skin, he's very obviously much more English (ie, bad at fielding) than KP, who frankly I wouldn't have in my house.

In an attempt to refute Jack Wilshere the journalist Paul Hayward, writing in the Torygraph this morning, cites the examples of Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis, who, startlingly, is apparently "mixed race".  Who knew?  But as we've seen Farah came here when he was 8, and as for Ennis, she was born in Sheffield and no-one gives a bugger about race any more (at least not in sport, a results based business): truly I have never, not once in many years spent haunting football terraces, ever heard anyone say, "So and so shouldn't play for England because he's black".  Never.  So in a way it is heartening to see that Wilshere has reservations about Janujaz, who looks white to me, because he is not English.  

You don't have to be born in England to be English.  But having grown up here certainly helps.