FORGET financial meltdown, credit crunch or the missing data debacle - there's only one crisis that matters, and that's the England football team's failure to qualify for next summer's European Championships.

An emotional rollercoaster ride (sorry, but Brussels insists on a quota of cliches for any football-related articles), ended with a bunch of overpaid underperformers crashing to earth beneath the modern folly that is Wembley's arch... and, well, it's the end of the world, isn't it?

Why else would grown men blub like babies? What else could consume so many column inches or demand so much air-time?

Bluetongue, foot-and-mouth, the Diana inquest, Iran's nuclear capability and even I'm A Celebrity... are mere frippery compared with the quest to find a successor for the hapless Steve McClaren.

Should it be Jose Mourhinho, for example? That would certainly win the women's vote. But the Portugese man o' phwoar wouldn't be able to call on Roman Abramovich's billions, and he didn't even pick Wayne Bridge or Shaun Wright-Phillips, two of England's less impressive players against Croatia, when he was their club manager.

Arsene Wenger? Sorry, but there's rarely an English player in his Arsenal side, and unless he can pull a few strings at the Home Office and get citizenship for Cesc Fabregas and Emmanuel Adebayor, then the urbane occasionally one-eyed Frenchman isn't really an option.

Sir Alex Ferguson is a proud Scottish patriot who would probably rather enter into a civil partnership with his arch nemesis Wenger than pull on an FA tracksuit.

Suddenly Sven, overseeing something of a revival at Manchester City, albeit with a bunch of Brazilian imports, is looking like a tactical genius again - but Nancy won't let go, and it's difficult for secretaries at Soho Square to get on with their work when the amorous Swede's around.

Kevin Bond still has a big job to do at Dean Court, especially now the mighty Barrow have finally been vanquished. That leaves Martin O'Neill, already interviewed and rejected, and Big Sam Allardyce, hardly setting the Tyne on fire.

What's needed is some blue-sky outside-the-envelope thinking (enough cliches, yet?) If FA chief exec Brian Barwick and the other suits are looking for someone English, then why not tap into that famous Geordie passion and sign up not one, but two people with all the right credentials.

They're young, smart, media-friendly. They live and breathe Newcastle United. They've got lots of celebrity mates, so they'd fill the empty corporate seats, so often a Wembley embarrassment, no trouble.

It would cost a fair bit to get them out of their current commitments, of course, but it would be money well spent.

Yes, it's a double-whammy, win-win, dream-ticket situation (surely I've fulfilled my cliché quota by now.) England needs you! Your time is now! Step forward... Ant and Dec!