I WATCHED all of England's World Cup matches and one word sums up our performance from start to finish - pathetic.

The biggest mistake was made by the coach before the tournament even kicked off, regarding the captaincy.

What was said in the papers had no bearing on John Terry's captaincy or footballing ability. But he, the coach, disposed of his armband and we never had a suitable replacement to rally the team during vital periods of any matches. The way England players performed was puzzling.

It seemed as soon as a player received the ball, he wanted to get rid of it, thus instead of advancing towards the opposing goal, the ball was passed backwards.

After all these years of copying other teams' style of football, it's time to return to the old English style ie goalkeeper/ two full backs/ three half backs and five forwards.

Thus we will once again use the whole of the pitch and not just churn through the centre pitch or pass back to the goalkeeper. Perhaps then we may win something, instead of just making up the numbers.

GORDON KEMP Ealing