The success of the Great Britain Olympic team is the latest stick being used to beat football with, and Newcastle manager Alan Pardew is the latest accused of lacking the ‘Olympic spirit’. In a debut column for LFW, Jess Unwin wades into the debate.
I admit it, I got obsessed with the Olympics just like everyone else. So when the Olympic flame was snuffed out I began looking to my other obsession – football and QPR – to fill the hole. Only, suddenly, a part of me felt that football now seemed cheap by comparison, lacking the same dedication, the same...honesty.
A couple of friends, one a Spurs fan, another a Luton fan, felt the same way but we all agreed the feeling would probably pass once the season got under way. Over the past week it seems that other people’s thoughts had been on the same wavelength and a lot of them – especially those who already had no love for football – have decided it’s time to give football and footballers a right kicking.
Everyone – even that annoying twat Charlie Stayt on BBC Breakfast – is saying footballers are all overpaid, out of touch with reality and morally corrupt. The Beeb’s news website even ran a feature this week asking why people hate footballers so much and focusing on our own Joey Barton. Typically, Joey has been quoted as tweeting that football could learn from the games, suggesting players should start with humility!
This guy is completely lacking in any self-awareness, isn’t he? That comment is up there with his conviction that he’d be in the England team if weren’t for his bad-boy reputation. Someone please have a long overdue word.
Not surprisingly, plenty of people (and I’m one of them) think Joey represents absolutely the worst of what professional footballers have become. These criticisms have chimed with deep-rooted and long-held misgivings I’ve had about some aspects of professional football, so I do think there’s something in what’s being said. But just as the bloated, totally out of touch, US-resident Morrissey went too far by saying the Olympics had brought the spirit of Nazi Germany to Britain, the attacks on football have also been excessive, crossing the line between considered reflection into rabid, snarling bitterness.
As QPR fans all know, for every Joey Barton, there’s a Clint Hill. Clint, a Championship/First Division player for the majority of his career, was deservedly voted Player of the Season by both the supporters and his fellow QPR players for playing with courage, honesty and determination in the Premier League last season. What does it say about both the fans and professionals if they decide to award their ‘gold medal’ to a man who displays exactly the qualities all the high-on-the-Olympics football-bashers have been harping on about?
And then there’s selfless, hardworking, never-say-die Jamie Mackie, who is such a huge favourite at Loftus Road. And what about Shaun Derry? I felt so proud of him and for him when he refused to do anything other than behave with dignity after the disgrace of Ashley Young getting him sent off. By the way, cast your mind back to that incident and you’ll remember that the whole of the “football family” was up in arms about it, not just a few hard-done-by Rangers fans. I’m convinced that the majority of football players, managers and the wider football community do still have integrity.
The problem for some elite footballers is that the unequalled global profile of the game means that they are now fabulously rich, pampered and totally out of touch with reality. In these circumstances it’s small wonder that some of them succumb to excesses. Ask yourself if you’d stay on the straight and narrow if you suddenly found yourself – as a young man – earning a year’s salary in a week with gorgeous women throwing themselves at you. And with such raised expectations at every club and huge pressure, is it a surprise that some players cheat? I always try to be fair when I’m huffing and puffing at 5-a-side games at the local sports centre – but then there’s no-one watching, is there? And no-one cares if I win or lose.
Like my nights in the 5-a-side league and the professional game, the comparison between Olympics and football isn’t fair – they’re completely different circumstances. And don’t get carried away with thinking everything Olympian is good. Think Ben Johnson, think Dwain Chambers, think the athletes who’ve been thrown out of London 2012 for doping.
There’s room for improvement in football, but I’ll finish by returning to Clint Hill. Nobody outside the QPR support base ever really talks about him, yet everyone has an opinion about Bonkers Barton. And it’s the same with the fans - 99% want to watch the match and not cause any trouble but bad and sad always make the news. The vast majority of honest, well-behaved, decent football players and supporters get no coverage at all.
Beware judging a society, or a sport, by its extreme elements.
Tweet @JessUnwin, @loftforwords
Connect - jessunwin.wordpress.com
Pictures – Action Images