Are self-obsessed sportsmen really news?

Is it just me or are there rather too many vacuous sportsmen apologising for their inadequacies at the moment?  I don’t think I am the only one who sees golf as a rather pointless pastime for old men and women – but apparently I have been let down by Tiger Woods.

I didn’t realise I had been let down by Tiger Woods until I saw him apologising to me courtesy of BBC News.  And even now I am not sure that he has – though I do feel somewhat let down by the BBC for presenting a stage-managed PR stunt by a disgraced golfer as news.

Surely the only people let down by this self-obsessed man are his wife and children.  And his alleged serial infidelities are nothing to do with me or you – and everything to do with those unfortunate to be married to him or sired by him.

It’s a similar situation with the rather tiresome John Terry/Wayne Bridge affair.  Most people, if they are aware of Terry at all know him to be a weasel-faced over-rated thug who plays in a sort of adequate manner as a centre half for Chelsea (when not injured or showing people around the Chelsea training ground for a fee).  And Wayne Bridge is a so-so full back who took a pile of money to play for mercenaries city.

Now call me cynical – but as Wayne Bridge was estranged from the slapper Terry had been shagging, the media circus that has built up around this story is, shall we say just a little overstated.  Given that weeks later Bridge has decided not to play for England (although I thought that was Fabio Capello’s decision) and not shaken Terry’s hand when Chelski’s overpaid, over-rated mercenaries played Mercenaries-r-us – you begin to suspect that there is more to this story than a bit of rumpy pumpy.

But again does anyone care?   I can’t help thinking that loathsome footballers should stick to what they are not very good at – playing football.  Granted I suppose if you get paid millions for doing what most people do for fun… and get most days off with attractive slappers on tap wherever and whenever you fancy – you might be tempted to ideas of grandeur and become arrogant and self-deluded.  But isn’t that rather obvious… and is it really news?

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.

I want my football club back

Here we are in high summer with the Ashes starting and my thoughts have turned to football.  And all because my local paper, the East Anglian Daily Times has seen fit once again to print some spurious nonsense from the chief executive of the club I used to support – Ipswich Town.

Whilst some people might think the preening petulance and serial cheating of Ronaldo or the ludicrous imbalance of the Premier League symbolises everything that is wrong with football   – the answer to most real football fans lies much closer to home with their own club.  Ipswich are surely the current league champions of how not to run a football club.

It used to be oh-so very different.  Ipswich stood for everything that was good about a football club.  It was well run, produced outstanding, well-adjusted players for decades. It even  found time to nurture two of the finest managers England has ever seen in Alf Ramsey & Bobby Robson.  Ipswich even showed every football club and supporter in the land what could be achieved by winning the league at the first attempt, the FA Cup (when people cared) and even triumphed in Europe.

 It was as they say, quite a roller coaster ride.  But after all the dizzying ups has come a sickening nose dive.  The club over-reached itself financially with startling ineptitude and went belly-up.

 After a period of relative austerity in administration (not to mention reneging on debts), the club emerged from administration with the begging bowl firmly extended to supporters.  Worthless shares were offered and bought to keep the club afloat.  And all the time the same people who steered Ipswich Town so unerringly on to the rocks were allowed to pilot the club towards oblivion.

 Until the big sell out.  Administration left the major debt on two new stands still unpaid.  This was neatly sidestepped by selling the debt on the cheap to an mysterious overseas investor.  This was all the more mysterious because he has never been photographed, despite allegedly making a fortune in the surreal world of conferences and hospitality.

So now my football club is an offshore investment for an invisible man, fronting a company with a distinctly iffy reputation, run by a jargon spouter called Simon Clegg, who seems to have spent his life talking jargon on Olympic committees – yet now has a job about as far removed from the Olympian ideal as you can get.  And do you know what?  The tragedy is nobody cares.  Nouveau  fans delight in the money and glorify in ‘success’ bought with somebody else’s money  – and disillusioned people like me find something else to do with their time – and money.