Cheating again

I was driving home on Wednesday night listening to the Arsenal v Celtic game.  As you might expect it was a little dull and a little one-sided.  Arsenal missed a few easy chances then got what the commentator and pundit both called a ‘cheap’ penalty.  What they meant was a blatant dive – which seems so acceptable that the manager was utterly outraged that UEFA invoked a rule of the game and thought it was time to make a stand and punish the diver.

 

I must admit I am entirely with UEFA on this one.  If players blatantly cheat to confuse the referee – then they ought to be punished – especially if the cheating has an obvious effect on the game. 

 

The trouble is – where do you draw the line?  In football, cheating is both rife and endemic.  It’s just hat some forms of cheating, pushing, shoving and holding for example are considered part of the game.  Whereas diving or spitting seems to get professional footballers all hot and bothered.

 

There was a particularly unusual and blatant bit of cheating in a Crystal Palace game the other week.  Place got a goal – but the referee and linesman missed the ball rocketing into the net and bouncing back out from the stanchion.  Well it did happen a bit fast.  Most if not all the opposition knew the ball had gone in – but they were all too happy to pretend it didn’t.  Perhaps the entire team ought to be suspended for two games.

 

However, cheating in football was all put into perspective by the stream of revelations from Bloodgate.  Apparently those nice rugger chaps think nothing about dipping into their socks for a sachet of fake blood if it helps bring someone else on to the field. I particularly liked the fact that the coach who orchestrated this gross distortion of sport was an ex-policeman.  But then he was a bit of a thug when he played.

 

All in all a sorry week for sport.  And I still haven’t recovered from the Ashes hype when it was conveniently forgotten just how much blatant cheating England stooped to in avoiding defeat in the first test.  After that I lost interest – and I suspect I am not the only one.

Sporting Sportsmen

A big week for British sports this.  The Open and the Lords Ashes Test start on Thursday – and accusations of cheating are in the air.  That crusty old golfing Scot Colin Montgomerie has had his preparation well and truly interrupted.  He has been accused of cheating by another grumpy golfing Scot.  

Allegedly, a few years back he misplaced a ball.  Sounds painful – but not much of a crime surely, even if true.  Yet who can blame him for being cross, golf is one of the few, if not the only sport I can think of where honesty is de rigueur.  Meanwhile our brave cricketers cheated quite brazenly – and nobody seems to care very much.

Can you think of another honest sport apart from golf?   Many sports seem renowned for their brazen cheats. The phrase ‘it simply is not cricket’ is decades out of date – cheating is mandatory – even if the Aussies are still sore about being cheated out of a win last week

Football?  Well everybody cheats at that.  And not just the sly shirt pulling and diving seen in the Premier League.  I was encouraged to cheat in my junior league games when at Primary School.  Cheating is so endemic that holding, pushing and shoving are considered part of the game.  Spitting seems to be frowned upon – and diving is definitely dirty, foreign cheating (unless out brave British chaps do it).  But almost anything else goes.

 Rugby is much the same.  You’re supposed to be mates after the game – but anything and preferably sly and violent is accepted.  Even a bit of eye gouging apparently, if you are a psychopathic South African.

 I could go on. The Tour de France is on at the moment – it’s even on television for those that like sweaty bent double in Lycra.  But the event is so drug-fuelled that you wonder why they bother.

It’s much the same with the Olympics.  We marvel at supreme athletic ability (often in a sport we didn’t know existed).  And then act surprised when we find out that somebody so driven that they spend their entire lives running, sitting in a boat, on a bike etc. has taken advantage of some pharmaceutical assistance.  Again the cynical amongst us believe the ones who are not caught have simply got a better doping regime. 

Horse racing?  Ho Ho… even the queen’s trainer was caught out last week.  And few if any believe that jockeys try and win every race they are in.  Tennis?  Roger Federer seems saintly enough, but deliberate slow play is rife as are (allegedly) betting scams.

Yeah, OK, sports which are not sports like snooker and darts seem relatively clean.  But I can’t think of any proper sport where cheating is so frowned upon as golf.

 

The Open starts later this week at Turnberry.  That is where the almost mythical duel in the sun happened 30 years ago.  There is an image indelibly burned in my mind of Jack Nicklaus and his eventual nemesis, Tom Watson walked arm in arm up the fairway in a sort of gladiatorial embrace.  Two outstanding sportsmen at the very top of their games giving it all they had got.

Golf might be a good walk spoiled – but at least golfers know how to behave!