IT'S the end of son of York Steve McClaren as England coach. Press sports reporter STEVE CARROLL reflects on an inglorious reign.

THEY were branded the golden generation.

So as Steve McClaren carries the can for England's failure to qualify for Euro 2008, maybe it was his ultimate inability to inspire the nation's pampered stars to success which will be the enduring memory of his short spell in charge.

With players of the ilk of Steven Gerrard, Wayne Rooney, Frank Lampard and Rio Ferdinand, it would be crass to lay the blame for England's demise entirely at McClaren's door.

These overpaid, over-indulged Premiership performers have to be as culpable as the York-born former Middlesbrough boss for this qualification calamity.

Unable to take responsibility on the pitch and unable to play any formation which wasn't 4-4-2, McClaren must have been tearing his hair out looking for ways to make his players click.

But the statistics, for a man who will go down in history for enjoying the shortest tenure of any England coach, make grim reading.

Of McClaren's 18 games in charge, England won only nine. They could only draw against Macedonia and they lost on five occasions - meaning McClaren has the worst losing percentage of any England boss.

Bizarre moves also abounded under the former Nunthorpe School pupil's charge.

Putting Scott Carson between the sticks for Croatia will now, in hindsight, be regarded as big a blunder as Graham Taylor's decision to substitute Gary Lineker against Sweden in Euro '92.

His blind devotion to the Lampard-Gerrard axis, even when it became obvious to the most casual of football watchers that Gareth Barry was a better performing midfield partner for the Liverpool captain, saw him rightly criticised.

And his axing of former skipper David Beckham, to then restore him to the side when things were going badly, only served to suggest a coach running out of ideas.

Tactically, McClaren was also suspect.

His five-man defence in Croatia was shredded by the savvy Eastern Europeans and, on Wednesday, 4-5-1 screamed of a side hoping to pick up a point rather than assert their authority with a win.

Of course, it could have all been different.

McClaren's first game in charge, a 4-0 demolition of a sorry Greek side at Old Trafford, saw England play the kind of fluent, attacking football that had been missing all too often during Sven-Goran Eriksson's dour time in charge.

But when it mattered, in the competitive arena, England became timid and tentative.

And the sight of the country's finest lumping balls up to Peter Crouch in a pub-team effort to snatch an equaliser against Croatia was a depressing image.

To his credit, McClaren refused to make excuses for his failure.

Those looking for some could point to an appalling injury list - England were without John Terry, Michael Owen, Rooney, Ashley Cole, Gary Neville and Ferdinand on Wednesday, all of whom would probably have played if fit.

To put that into context, England could have fielded an entirely different back-four and were missing their first-choice strikeforce. That's a big blow whoever you are.

Imagine Brazil without Kaka, Ronaldinho, Robinho and Gilberto and you get the drift.

It's a results business though, as McClaren himself said on his appointment, and England have fallen short.

That means few fans will mourn his passing.