21st May 2012

Because we had a family party on Saturday to celebrate a 40th Birthday I missed the Chelsea - Bayern match.

However because the game went to extra time when I got home I watched the last thirty minutes and the penalties.

I guess I am pretty neutral about Chelsea but it was good to see a Premiership side beat a bundesliga side in such dramatic style and the European Cup come back to the UK for a season.

It was a good result for the Chelsea manager who may or may not be confirmed in post but Chelsea is an ageing team which needs to be rebuilt if it is to compete in the Premiership next season.

Meanwhile the Prime Minister was caught on microphone criticising John Terry in an exchange with Angela Merkel.

But then Mr Cameron appears to have sent a stern warning to the EEC generally to pull their socks up and sort themselves out.

I imagine that the new French President is still wondering how to deal with the snub he received when he visited Britain recently, although the best riposte would be to introduce a whole raft of socialist policies, to invest in growth, lower the Pension age, create more jobs in the public sector including and especially in education and stand back and watch the French economy outstrip the rest of Europe.

Somehow it seems that Mr Cameron's view of a big society simply doesn't extend to Europe, he wants to be in it and not in it, to stand on the touch line and question the referees decisions. The referee of course being Ms Merkel who has the authority, and the strong economy, to step in and sort the whole mess out.

Life is not as simple as football, as Kenny Dalglish has discovered as he embraces retirement once again.

But there is, I think, the glimmer of a workable analogy in the story of Chelsea's season.

The new manager enters full of technocratic ideas with a mission to challenge the dressing room, rebuild the team and start winning competitions.

Sadly instant success eluded him and faced with the beginnings of a coup in the dressing room where the established and senior players mounted a challenge to his authority he was as the expression has it, 'let go' presumably reluctantly and certainly expensively.

The caretaker manager then manages the impossible, he beats Barcelona.

So suddenly Chelsea find themselves in the final.

Bayern Munich were of course pipped at the post famously by Manchester United and somewhat against the run of play they were pipped at the post again by a Chelsea team without their talismanic Captain.

So the impossible becomes possible and the Blue Buses bear the team through West London carrying the Cup on which their name was engraved only after the last penalty has stretched the netting at the back of the Bayern goal.

All it took was belief and the investment of huge amounts of Russian money.

The analogy is in the unstated view that austerity doesn't win Championships.

If the owner had not invested there would have been no growth.

But Mr Cameron refuses to accept the truth of this. He insists that there is only one way. He positions himself outside the sphere of influence in Europe.

There is a huge challenge ahead for the European economy and Britain should be in it learning lessons in order to be better positioned to benefit from the upturn when it comes.

What is certain is that the collapse of the Euro could well drag UK plc with it, as markets collapse, customers turn away and earnings are dramatically reduced if that does happen it will be an own goal for which we will all pay the penalty.