WHEN Scott Carson was growing up, he must have dreamed of winning the FA Cup or the World Cup like the rest of us.

But in the back of his mind, there would have been the thought of it all going wrong on his big day.

That nightmare would have undoubtedly have included the line that's more Frank Carson than Scott Carson', delivered right on cue by BBC co-commentator Mark Lawrenson as England's Euro 2008 hopes fell apart against Croatia.

Aspiring goalkeepers called Tarbuck, be warned. You are next.

I tried to get worked up about the Croatia defeat but I just couldn't. The whole thing was just too farcical.

As England stood off Mladen Petric - a renowned pot-shotter if anyone had done their homework on him - and allowed him to score the crucial third goal, it all seemed too surreal. It seemed more like a Mike Bassett film than what was actually happening - but even Mike Bassett wasn't this far fetched.

In their wisdom, the FA had decided to allow the NFL - those fine contributors to British sport over the years - to turn Wembley into a quagmire.

When I was a kid - being of the slight but skilful disposition - my manager used to take one look at such a pitch and one look at me and say, Take a rest today, that pitch isn't for you.' Maybe Steve McClaren might have liked to do the same with some of his players, although the likes of Luka Modric and Ivica Olic seemed to manage all right.

But to be fair to the Wembley groundsman, he'd done a fine job to even get the pitch into that condition after the state it was in after the American nonsense.

Then there was the warm-up friendly for the tournament we were never going to get to.

Inevitably, Michael Owen was needlessly injured in Austria and McClaren decided to ignore what they done there - surely that friendly was to get a vague idea of what you were going to do against Croatia rather than then change everything?

So, as he did in Zagreb, the grinning one wheeled out a new formation on the day of the game and it all fell apart from there.

Injuries played their part and left them with several average players on the pitch - Joleon Lescott, Gareth Barry and Wayne Bridge to name a few - and England might have been better off had one quality centre back, Jamie Carragher, not taken his ball home in a huff a few months ago.

But McClaren was always going to be the new Graham Taylor and so it proved. If we had qualified it would have been in spite of him, not because of him.

We really should learn not to get carried away just because we've beaten Greece 4-0 in a friendly.

But the point is this. When we have a decent coach, as we had in Sven Goran Eriksson, we should try not to hound him out next time. Look where it has got us.

Many thought three consecutive quarter finals were a failure. I only hope the last few weeks will make some realise what an achievement that actually was.

* Was I the only one who found it highly amusing that Steve Bruce's move from Birmingham to Wigan was held up by, of all things, image rights?

Just how much is that nose really worth?