Wednesday 31 December 2008

No honour

In a week where Steven Gerrard was locked up before being charged with assault and affray, it was no surprise to see no footballers appear in the New Year's Honours list: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/front_page/7804849.stm.

Even after two English teams contested the Champions (2nd, 3rd and 4th placed) League final.

Football players remain so distant from the rest of society. Money has a lot to do with it.

In the past, it would be THE highlight of any sportsman or woman's career to receive such an honour from the Queen.

Now how many £100k a week "superstars" really care about missing out on such honours. I can't think of many.

Tuesday 30 December 2008

Suspension bridge

You have to feel sorry for Droylsden.

They have been kicked out of the FA Cup for fielding a suspended player, Sean Newton, in their 2-1 win over Chesterfield in the second round. Newton scored both the goals in the FOURTH match between the two sides as Droylsden became the umpteenth side to be confused by bizarre FA suspension regulations.

A similar thing happened to Bury in 2006 when they fielded an unregistered player so there appears little chance that the Bloods' appeal will be successful tomorrow.

But one thing is clear: the FA's suspension system and the way they adminster it is bizarre to say the least.

Players are supposed to be suspended seven days after collecting five, 10 and 15 yellow cards for the season. This is in contrast to a sending off whereby players are immediately suspended for the next game. I cannot understand the inconsistency here.

If you look at the FA's own website, the list of players suspended are very confusing - http://www.thefa.com/TheFA/Disciplinary/SuspensionLists. Presumably this info is relayed to club's but is very unclear.

I think two things should happen as a result of this sorry saga:

1. The FA's suspension system should be re-organised and made clearer for clubs and fans alike.
2. Is it really that bad for a player to collect five yellow cards across half a season (and potentially 30 matches)? Especially as players now get booked for breathing too heavily during games! Make it 10 yellow cards until action is taken - that would be much easier for the FA to adminster and make everyone's lives easier - especially the poor Droylsden secretary!

Monday 29 December 2008

A New Year's resolution for the football law makers

I hope the FA and FIFA have a list of New Year's resolutions to implement.

The one rule I would like to change is the ludicrous ruling that says a player must be booked if he over-celebrates (or in other words takes off his shirt or goes to celebrate with family or friends in the crowd).

It's as if the rule makers have sat together and thought: "I know, let's take all the fun out of football."

There can be no logical reason for booking a player for celebrating. It is harmless - providing opposition fans or players are not provoked.

There have been many examples of players receiving their marching orders for "over-celebrating." Steve Brown's sending off for a second book for Wycombe at Leicester in March 2001 received national headlines - the T-shirt he revealed after Roy Essandoh's late winner was a tribute to his young son.

Yet despite plenty of silly sendings off, still nothing is being done to change this draconian rule.

The latest sending-off saw Port Vale's Danny Glover see red for a second bookable offence. Yet his first yellow card was for taking off his shirt after scoring against Rochdale. The message on the T-shirt: "Happy Birthday Dad!" A tribute to his father and Port Vale manager, Dean.

Change this daft rule now!

Tuesday 16 December 2008

The old and the new

I really enjoyed reading this blog from Norman Giller, sports journalist at the Daily Express in the 1960s and 1970s: http://www.sportsjournalists.co.uk/blog/?p=1600.

It was a bygone era that I was never part of and for all the wonders of modern technology, it sounds a fascinating life when journalism was "real." I sometimes wish I was born 20 years or so earlier.

A monumental man

It's a Shoot style question: "Who is the biggest influence on your life/career?"

But it suddenly dawned on me while watching Inside Sport on BBC1 last night what a difference Martin O'Neill has made to my own life and career.

Why has someone I have never met had such an impact I hear you ask? Let me explain.

I was a young nine-year-old in 1993, and when I was not at school I was out shopping with my parents or occasionally round at friends' houses as you do. But other than that led a fairly sheltered and in a way naive young life. Still years away from taking an interest in girls, I had little drive and nothing in my young mind to live for me.

That changed in February 1993. I finally persuaded my dad to take me to watch Martin O'Neill's Wycombe - and never looked back. O'Neill had Wycombe playing in a certain way - exciting, entertaining and it was all winning football. Like most of my local town, I was obsessed as Wycombe capped a wonderful season by winning the Conference and FA Trophy double.

It was not just the football with Wycombe, it was the complete package as O'Neill ran that club from top to bottom. He really had a presence about him, he was that good. I was interested in reading what the great M O'N had to say in the programme - and his Absolutely Martin column remains one of the best I've ever read. Even at a young age, it taught me the values of honesty and respect.

I could not get enough football and especially Wycombe Wanderers' related literature - and Pete Lansley, now at the Times, wrote an excellent book "Out of the Blue," which talked about O'Neill's impact at the club and his character traits. O'Neill was probably the first man I ever looked up to.

It was O'Neill who indirectly developed my interest in sports writing which would lead to a future career. Not long after 1993, I first started writing football reports as a hobby.

But it was also in the summers of 1993 and 1994 that I learned two other important values from the great man: those of loyalty and commitment. O'Neill turned down jobs at Nottingham Forest, Bristol Rovers and Norwich City - teams in higher leagues than Wycombe - until he eventually moved to Carrow Road in 1995.

I owe Martin O'Neill so much.

Friday 12 December 2008

The good, the bad and the ugly

As usual, I had most of the early part of this week (Monday-Wednesday) off. Well, I still had to do my usual "home" work and attended a Wycombe Wanderers meeting on Monday night, but you get the picture.

So I decided to tick off two more grounds - Swansea City's the Liberty Stadium and Ipswich Town's Portman Road. Yes, I know, talk about a trek (my carbon footprint must be very high now) but I saw Swansea v Barnsley on Tuesday and Ipswich v Bristol City on Wednesday. They were certainly eventful matches.

The Good: both matches were outstanding games of football - certainly tremendous adverts for the Championship, a much more exciting league than the Premier League will ever be.

Swansea came back from 2-0 down to earn a point with a goal in the fourth minute of stoppage time courtesy of two stunning strikes from Jason Scotland.

At Portman Road 24 hours later, both sides were prepared to attack with Bristol City going ahead through Stern John before Ipswich scored three in a seven minute spell at the start of the second half and looked like they could have had many more.

I was very much a fan of the traditional feel of Portman Road, actually in the town itself - it was my first trip to Ipswich too.

The Bad: plenty of moans - ticket prices and fickle fans being the main ones.

Firstly ticket prices: do Ipswich Town really think it is surprising that they get their lowest attendance in two years when tickets are £26.50 on a cold Wednesday night two weeks before Christmas? Tickets in football are ridiculously high - restricting people from all walks of life from coming. Football should be inclusive for all.

Then we come to the fans. After paying such prices to get in there is an argument that they are entitled to their opinion. But they are supposed to be supporters. Both games were extremely open but you got Swansea fans arguing amonsgt themselves and booing players at 2-0 down. Then when Ipswich had pretty much dominated the first half, the referee's whistle for the interval was greeted by howls of boos. A strange way about going about supporting your team.

The Ugly: Alex Bruce's dreadful lunge at 3-1 Ipswich was both completely unnecessary and dangerous. It meant that Jim Magilton shut up shop and a game, that would have ranked number one in terms of matches I've seen this season, only just makes the top five.

And finally another talking point: Barnsley's Jon Macken received a large amount of flak from the Swansea fans. Some of it witty, some of it funny, but most of it vile abuse. In a week when Sol Campbell has finally got his way and got 17 Tottenham fans charged with abusing him at a football match, it was refreshing to see Macken's response to fan jibes. He pointed to his large nose and laughed ... during the game that is! And afterwards he took the time to applaud the Swansea fans. I somehow feel that is a more refreshing way of dealing with abuse than crying out about it.