“You deserved that red card,” scowled my dad as I approached him post-match, rather hoping for some sympathy. “What made you think it was okay to be so bloody disrespectful?”
I felt my little baby face going red in front of my pals, and no answer coming from my normally busy little mouth.
I was 15 and had been sent off for speaking improperly to the referee. I didn’t swear. I didn’t even shout. I merely told my teammates – deliberately within earshot of the man in yellow – that our opposition were clearly being permitted to cheat.
After this unexpected but memorable rollicking from Dad, I was told to go and apologise to said official. He was lovely about it, but warned me: “We mustn’t ever get like football.”
Right now, I’m not interested in a sport-vs-sport argument – but this comment, 21 years ago, rings truer than ever.
Last weekend, as the reviews of West Ham’s match against Leicester City came trickling out, one image was constant: Jamie Vardy (a man whose niceness when being served chicken in a restaurant I not long ago complimented on this very page) tearing into the man who ultimately sent him off, his veins bulging and forefinger daggering; the referee himself looking, well, abused.
It was, and is, a poor snapshot when one considers that these players are, more than any other sportspeople in this country, idolised and mimicked by children on a daily basis. But I do not blame the players, and I do not blame Vardy. They have permission to behave like this.
Rugby union is particularly adept, these days, at stamping out anything that might discourage potential growth of the game via fear-based non-participation. So adept are they that one could – and I do – argue that the game is close to becoming oversanitised and soft. Rugby’s hardness and a reasonable level of inherent danger have always been key to its appeal. Football used to be like that, but now it is a game for incredibly fit, skilful players who major in false pain and amateur dramatics. They also treat referees like shit.
As a football lover, this is something I hate just as much as the diving and the rolling about. And it’s happening in rugby now, too, just not to the same extent.
However, the footballers started somewhere – with the odd bit of backchat, questioning every decision, using their flailing arms in visible protest – and look where they are now. Rugby has already passed the first checkpoint on the journey to socceresque abuse of officials, with players now regularly gobbing off after every decision.
I know what to look for because I did it too, so no moral high ground here. I also know how to stop it, and quick: no warnings, just immediate yellow and red cards. Done. Football will never have the balls to do it, but rugby should. Before it’s too late.
0 التعليقات:
إرسال تعليق