Ashley Cole
You may not admire his decision to arrange a clandestine meeting with the
manager and chief executive of another club who happened to have more money,
and the lack of class to flaunt it. You may think that a player nurtured by
a club from his school days should remain loyal to that club, unless there
was something fundamentally wrong. In which case you may be amused when he
was fined £100,000, reduced to £75,000 on appeal, for breaking Premier
League rules.
You might think that players do not always receive the best possible advice.
But then you might think that a player who writes in his autobiography (or
has written on his behalf) that he “nearly drove off the road” when he heard
his club were prepared to pay him only £55,000 a week to be incapable of
acting sensibly upon any advice he might receive. You might recall Wilde’s
remark about knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Knowing all this about the player, you might not be surprised that his
behaviour did not improve, on or off the pitch, when he got the transfer
across London he was angling for. It reached such a level of petulance that,
having switched clubs, he abused a referee in the most explicit terms during
a Premier League match, belittling Mike Riley in such a vile way that, by
turning his back, he let the world know he had no respect for any kind of
authority. The world was not surprised. As a consequence of his behaviour
the Wembley crowd, upset by a blunder that led directly to the loss of a
goal against Kazakhstan, decided to boo the offender. Not so much for the
error, because all players make them. Rather, as a commentary on the
player’s conduct and general attitude over many years.
When he needed to reform his behaviour, it got worse. With his wife, a pop
singer, out of the country on a television jaunt, he was found in a tired
and emotional state one night outside a South Kensington bar. This time it
was the police officers who felt the rough edge of his tongue, and he was
taken to the cells, where payment of a statutory £80 fine earned his
release. It did not release him from the judgment of the public, which
convicted him for being drunk, disorderly — and a footballer.
Bill Shankly
How did this outstanding manager foul up football? For one overwhelming
reason. It was Shankly who said, in a television interview in 1981, that the
game was “more important” than life and death. Not just more important, but
“much more” important.
Whether it was uttered in jest, as some have maintained, he never disowned it.
Trotted out from time to time as an example of his lacerating wit (although
it proves nothing of the sort), the easily impressed have used it to justify
all kinds of unpleasant things in the years since, in the expectation that
others will swell the laughter of recognition.
“Aggressive self-pity” was the phrase that Edward Pearce, the journalist,
applied to Liverpool. These are deep waters, for the city has many
attractions, and there is another Liverpool that people do not always see.
It is to Shankly’s credit that he gave his adopted home so much to be proud
of at a time when Liverpool’s main commercial function, as a port that
looked outward to the world, found itself facing the wrong way.
But it is an ambiguous bequest. Liverpool fans have been spoilt by being told
too often they are a breed apart, and Shankly did nothing to dampen that
sense of exceptionalism.
Sport is not “much more” important than life or death — as those Liverpool
fans who lost loved ones at Hillsborough could have told him — nor can his
remark be laughed away as a merry jape by “good old Shanks”. Football should
only ever be a pleasant diversion, even in Liverpool.
Geordie Blubber
The sight of supporters having a jolly good blub, which never fails to attract
the attention of television producers looking for post-match “colour”, has
ensured that “Geordie Blubber” has become a well-known and, if truth be
known, much-mocked character.
There is a lot of talk, much of it sentimental, about Newcastle letting down
their supporters. But some of those supporters are part of the problem
because their expectations are impossible to fulfil.
After Bobby Robson was sacked, having taken the club to a fifth place that was
considered unacceptable for such a “big” club, one of those puddled fans who
turn up for the ritual coronations told television viewers that the
Newcastle job was “one of the biggest three in Europe”.
When some observers say those fans deserve “better”, it is wise to remember
that tosh and say: “No, not all of them do.” Thousands, dazzled by silly
talk of a Geordie Nation, will remain part of the problem until they revise
their expectations. Newcastle are not a big club, if size is determined by
achievement.
They are a club with a proud history loved by thousands. Geordie Blubber
deserves sympathy.
Newcastle have wasted millions on poor players, yet sympathy is a finite
quality where Newcastle are concerned, and Geordie Blubber has earned his
place in this inglorious parade.
He’s not difficult to spot — he wears a black-and-white shirt in all seasons.
When it is cold, he likes to take it off. At all times he carries a freshly
peeled onion.
Richard Keys
For a man who possesses few qualities that viewers traditionally value in
their broadcasters, Keys has done very well. He has the sort of voice that
is more commonly heard reading out badminton results at the local rec, and a
chummy manner (“Jamie’s with us again”) that falls a few furlongs short of
authority. But that is what his masters want: a nonentity who can be relied
upon to tell white lies. At all times he must stay “on message” and the
message could not be more simple: on Sky, football is always wonderful.
This is no David Coleman or Des Lynam, who had strong screen personalities. He
is not even a Jim Rosenthal, an able all-rounder with a pleasing smile.
Nearly two decades into his role, Keys comes over as a malleable,
one-dimensional chap who is doing the job during the vac until the big boys
return, full of vim and vigour, from their Tuscan adventures.
The obsequious lightweight should not carry the can for Sky’s coverage. Rupert
Murdoch and his henchmen, Sam Chisholm and David Hill, rewrote the book on
sports broadcasting. But, as the most visible symbol of their coverage, the
one who sets up the studio experts (“Big Sam has joined us tonight”), he has
become a fixture in televised sport. Suit, tie, coat-hanger smile, bran-tub
of clichés. All present and correct. Off we jolly well go.
The coverage is uncritical enough to have been scripted by a Russian commissar
of agriculture who has just received the latest figures on grain production.
The players are there to be petted, and joshed with (“Stevie G is with us —
you were in fine form tonight, Stevie”), until, in the fullness of time,
they can swell the ranks of the recently retired in the studio, where Keys
will lap up their ungrammatical “expertise” with the ease of a man whose
purpose in life is to be deferential. The result of this endless verbal
smooching is the lionisation of second-raters.
Richard Scudamore
World domination is what Scudamore is after, and he will not cease from mental
fight till he has built “Jerusalem” in every green and pleasant land beyond
his own.
This policy of Lebensraum propelled his idea to introduce a 39th game in the
Premier League fixture list, to be played in cities outside England, and one
can almost hear him talking up its attractions. The prospect of watching
some of the league’s lesser lights going hammer and tongs should have the
good folk of Kuala Lumpur racing to the ground to bag the best seats. Who
wouldn’t part willingly with $100 to watch Kevin Davies or Emile Heskey
slice a sitter into the crowd? Roll up, roll up!
One hopes that Scudamore fails, for it cannot be right for the Premier League
to trample into foreign lands like a conquering army. Nor is it easy to see
how English clubs could fit a 39th game into their schedules when many of
them are stretched to bursting point as it is.
Far from putting a few eggs into foreign baskets Scudamore would do well to
keep a tighter rein on events at home. For, while he was drawing up his
plans to dazzle foreign audiences, a tale was unfolding in London that did
his reputation no good.
The Carlos Tévez affair has become a cause célèbre for good reasons. Why did
the Premier League not dock West Ham points instead of issuing a fairly
useless fine? There were calls for Scudamore’s head but, cushioned by all
that money, he’s not a man who is troubled by self-doubt.
© Michael Henderson 2009. Extracted from 50 People Who Fouled Up Football, to
be published by Constable & Robinson on October 15 at £12.99. To order
it from Times BooksFirst at the special price of £11.69 with free P&P
phone 0845 271 2134. Michael Henderson is a writer and columnist on football
and cricket.
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