You would expect Fifty Shades of May to champion the cause of the old geezer.
So it will come as no surprise that FSoM is keen to buttonhole England manager Roy Hodgson, grab him by his jacket lapels and ask why the hell he didn’t pick Rickie Lambert for the squad to face Brazil at Wembley.
Once Jermain Defoe followed Daniel Sturridge and Danny Welbeck in pulling out of the England squad, it left Hodgson with Wayne Rooney and Theo Walcott as recognised strikers.
As most Premier League club managers welcome international friendlies – even those against Brazil – about as much they would a dose of piles and pull their players out with Rizla-thin excuses, why not call up somebody who would relish the chance to shine on the international stage?
My suspicions are that Hodgson has left the Southampton striker out because his name would be potentially tricky to say.
One thing for sure, if Premier League goals are the yardstick for England selection, Wickie Wambert certainly deserves consideration.
Wambert is the joint top English goalscorer in the Premier League, tied on 11 with Walcott.
Rooney and Defoe both have ten, and from there the Premier League scoring rate of English strikers goes downhill faster than Franz Klammer.
The much-vaunted Sturridge has four Premier League goals this season, Andy Carroll, Darren Bent and Carlton Cole two each (Carroll has spent most of the season in the treatment room so he can be excused).
Welbeck has one lonely little Premier League goal this season, so he is hardly likely to provide a quick fix to England’s goalscoring problems.
Some of the other strikers who have earned England call-ups recently would prompt the same eye-rubbing disbelief if Kelly Brook decided to do her Lady Godiva impersonation on Shergar.
We can only assume that Fraizer Campbell’s karaoke skills or nice-smelling choice of shower gel got him in the squad for the game against Holland last February.
It surely cannot have been a goal scoring record that yielded six Premier League goals in four years and would probably have been bettered by either Frazier Crane or Naomi Campbell.
His critics say that Wickie Wambert is too old and too slow. At 30, he’s the same age as Defoe, but I present as Defence Exhibit A, m’lud, one Teddy Sheringham.
Like Wambert, Shewingham (as Roy would have called him) made his bones with unfashionable clubs in the lower leagues. He started at Millwall and had loan spells at Aldershot and Djurgarden in Denmark.
When he got into the top flight with Millwall, he scored 15 in his first season – a target Wambert is well on course to reach.
He was 27 when he got his first call-up to an England squad managed by Terry Venables.
Sheringham was 35 when Sven-Goran Eriksson named him in England’s 2002 World Cup squad and the candle count on his cake had risen to 36 by time he played his last England game, ironically against Brazil in the quarter-final defeat.
Of course, the London media who loved Eastender Sheringham, pooh-poohed those who criticised him for his lack of pace.
“Who needs pace?” they cried, “when you have a brain as quick as Teddy’s?” they added, extolling his skill at finding space by standing still while the maelstrom swirled around him. The same skill Matthew Le Tissier employed only to be branded as “lazy”.
If nothing else, Wickie would offer something different. Like Sheringham, he has that happy but unteachable knack, of finding space. Like Sheringham he is good in the air, and like the Tedster, he is a good pivot for bringing others into play.
Perhaps Wambert is destined to fall victim to that maxim that cynics apply to national football and cricket teams that once you are in, it’s harder to be left out of an England squad that it is to get in in the first place.
On another quick note, as somebody who is fond of a Sunday afternoon spin in the old Austin Allegro, FSoM is puzzled by Peter Odemwinge.
Just why did he drive all the way from the West Midlands to West London, only to be told to turn around and drive back?
FSoM at least makes sure the Tea Room and toilets are open if he’s out for a spin.
Poor Peter. They wouldn’t even let him into Loftus Road for a pee. They couldn’t risk breaking FA rules.
After all, nobody at QPR had spoken to him. Hoops’ chief exec Philip Beard was adamant that they could only talk to Odemwinge once the two clubs had reached an agreement, and as that hadn’t happened he wasn’t allowed into Loftus Road, and they had no idea what he was doing there in the first place.
FSoM would like to make it clear that illegal approaches or tapping up players up does not happen in the Premier League. Clubs just don’t do that, not even through agents.
And as his grandmother once danced a Samba at a wedding, Rickie Lambert has earned a last-minute call-up to the Brazilian squad.
Sheringham was lauded as the prime example of a late developer, the sort of player who gets better with age and is thus loved by FSoM like a favourite, moth-eaten cardigan.
By John May
@maisy68
This photograph was provided by Kiloran.
