WILL WE ever learn when it comes to giving our youngsters a chance?

With the embers from the funeral pyre created on England’s demise in the World Cup barely cold, some of the media seem to have set about giving our hopes of future international footballing success a good kicking.

England slipped out of the European Under 19 Championship at the semi-final stage beaten 3-1 by a Spanish side who from all accounts have the potential to be just as impressive as their World Cup winning seniors.

So do certain members of the English media regard this as a step on a long learning curve? No, what they do is pronounce the youngsters to be just as hopeless as the current first team.

While critical points need to be made, just dismissing this group of England players as ‘having the same shortcomings’ as their elders is destructive.

But one wonders just what comes their way from within the England camp.

The revelation that Paul Scholes had just two hours to make up his mind if he wanted to be on the plane for South Africa was worrying enough, but to find out his ‘call-up’ was not even delivered by England manager Fabio Capello in person makes the whole scenario seem a farce.

While I do not believe that the Red Devils’ provider of slide rule passes could have made a serious difference to England’s chances, you would have thought if Capello felt Scholes was the man to have a big influence on his side’s chances he might have got on the blower himself.

While I can’t claim to know what Scholes was thinking, faced with two hours to make a decision you would have to feel he spent the 120 minutes asking himself ‘How much does this man want me if he can’t ask me himself?’