Ben Herd: I'd never turn down the captaincy at any level

English Football League / Ben Herd / 25 March 2009 / Leave a Comment

The Shrewsbury full-back on Ledley King's England call-up, Roy Keane's style of captaincy and masquerading as a Premier League footballer for a summer.

Ledley King seems to have caused a bit of a stir this week when Fabio Capello called him up to the England squad. That inevitably led to many a pundit referring to his inclusion in the squad as nothing short of a farce.

To be honest, I can kind of see where they're coming from. After all, Ledley's persistent knee injury prevents him from doing pretty much any training at all - he literally just plays games.

For me, a fit Ledley King is the ultimate centre-half. Obviously I'm a bit biased as a Spurs fan, but think about the attributes needed for a modern day centre-back: good pace, decent in the air, composed on the ball, good communicator, and most importantly - just being able to defend! Ledley seems to have all of these in abundance. When Thierry Henry states that King is the best opponent that he has ever come up against, surely this holds some water.

I certainly hope that King's England career will not be cut short, or for that matter, his Spurs career. As harsh as it may sound, he needs to get his knee sorted once and for all, or heaven forbid, call it a day. From a Spurs' point of view, long live the King!

It's interesting that since Harry Redknapp relieved Ledley of captain duties at Spurs, he's not only played more frequently than usual, but the level of his of game seems to have been raised a notch. Whether this is purely coincidental or not doesn't matter because when he plays well, Spurs play well, such is the influence of the man. It just makes you wonder how much better a team Spurs would be if he was always available to play.

Just like with football managers, different captains do things in different ways. At one end of the spectrum is a David Beckham-type, who led by example through his own play. By running his socks off, chasing everything down and contesting every ball he was urging his team-mates to do the same. At the opposite end of the spectrum would have been a warrior type like a Roy Keane, who would bark out orders and tongue-lashings left, right and centre. It's fair to say that there was an element of intimidation in the way he went about captaining his side. But both Beckham and Keane were true to themselves in the way they went about the job and you can't say fairer than that.

The type of player I am has come in part by being influenced by Stuart McCall. I remember watching him play for Sheffield United when I was a youth-team player and his tenacious work rate and sheer determination was something I aspired to introduce to my own game. In my recent outings in the reserves, I've been made captain and, to be honest, even at reserve team level you do feel a responsibility on the pitch to set an example and lead the lads, especially the young ones. From my point of view, I enjoy the responsibility and would never dream of turning the job down.

Now that Ledley King has withdrawn from the England squad, he will probably be able to sneak a week's holiday somewhere. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to book my summer holiday just yet due to the possibility of us being involved in the Play-Offs. This isn't a problem for me as I am a lastminute.com man, but my missus seems to be having kittens about it.

My best summer on the holiday front so far was after my first season at Shrewsbury Town. Luckily for me, it was my 21st birthday in the middle of June and my girlfriend treated me to a trip to Barcelona, Camp Nou and all. Then my Nan treated my Mum, my missus and I to 10 days in Disney World, Florida. To round it off, I took my missus to the Maldives for two weeks for her 21st birthday - talk about jet set! That's meant to be how Premier League footballers spend their holidays, not League Two players, so suffice to say I made the most of it. This year I'll probably be heading to Spain as my missus and I are quite fortunate that her Mum and Dad have a nice villa in the Costas; plus there is a recession on if you hadn't heard!

This weekend sees the return of World Cup qualifiers and Vicente del Bosque's Spain take on Turkey. Watching Spain in Euro 2008 was mouth-watering at times, some of the football they played was on a different level altogether. I loved the way the full-backs, and in particular Sergio Ramos bombed forward at any given opportunity, which put serious pressure on the opposition's full-back and forced the winger to be committed to defensive duties of his own.

For me, one of the vital cogs in that team was Marcos Senna. His ability to sense danger and his positional sense was severely underrated. Don't get me wrong, the David Villas of this world deserved all the plaudits in the summer of '08, but Senna's contribution should not be understated.

International games seem to be getting increasingly closer these days whoever you're playing. Despite the fact Spain are the number one ranked team in the world, I don't think the floodgates will open in their clash with Turkey so I'm going for under 2.5 goals at [2.02]. I can't see Spain conceding on home soil and they'll do well to score three of their own against a Turkey side that did after all, reach the semis in Euro 2008. If you want to push the boat out a little in terms of a bigger price, I wouldn't put anyone off backing a sending-off in the match at [4.8]. There's a lot of truth in the argument that referees outside England are far less lenient and this could turn out to be something of an ill-tempered affair.