Do The Right Thing

 

 

It started as a simple question on Saturday night; “If your club had a player shown two yellow cards, but no red, would you expect them to do the right thing and walk?”

 The responses I received were very interesting and once you put aside those comments driven by football rivalries i.e. applying it to the case in hand rather than, as I asked, if it was their club’s player, they showed a lack of belief in fairness and sportsmanship in football. The general tone being; If officials don’t do their jobs properly then why shouldn’t players/teams exploit it? On Saturday, gamesmanship took over from sportsmanship, a majority of fans who responded seemed happy with that precedence.

For me, it doesn’t sit right, but I can see where they are coming from. Taking Saturday’s incidents at the John Smith’s Stadium as the example, Sheffield Wednesday’s Jeremy Helan received his second yellow card after 20 minutes.  In effect, Huddersfield Town should have had a man advantage it what proved to be a tight Derby tussle for around 70 minutes. You could argue that the referee’s failure had a significant influence on the potential outcome of the game and Huddersfield’s anger was understandable.

However, I guess there are incidents like that in every game, where the outcome changes on one decision. Be it an incorrect offside call, a handball that is missed, or the Stuart Atwell goal incident at Watford, the official are potentially culpable in determining the outcome of game. Many of the responses on Saturday night, including several from Terriers supporters took this view. The referee has made a mistake, by all means complain, but if he refuses to reverse his decision or acknowledge his mistake, move on and get on with the game.

What makes Saturday’s situation even worse was that there was a fourth official and two assistant referees who witnessed the decisions. The fourth official in particular was the recipient of Simon Grayson’s ire and that of his coaching staff. What stopped him realising the mistake. For one official to get a decision wrong is one thing, for it to be compounded by the failure of three others is something quite unbelievable.

So Saturday and the response of fans afterwards tells me that we are quite happy to accept gamesmanship when the officials fail in their duties. That we are content to watch players shuffle away with a wry grin, for benefiting managers to pass it off post match in interviews. The very same manager who for the last couple of months has done nothing but complain about unfair refereeing decisions as his side went on a long and fruitless winless run.

That end of the last paragraph isn’t meant as a dig at the manager involved on Saturday. I can think of many managers who would have done the same, including those who have stood on the Bramall Lane touchline.

Maybe I am foolishly hoping for a utopian footballing world where sportsmanship actually wins over. Where the player voluntarily walks off to the tunnel, knowing the incorrect decision has been made. Where his manager wouldn’t condemn him for his action, but acknowledge the claims of opposition manager and fans and tells his player to come off. But hey, as someone pointed out on Saturday night, it’s just not cricket. Or Snooker. Or Rugby.  Or other sports where you see sporting acknowledgement of incorrect decisions of those that the referee/umpire misses. Not always, I grant you, but it is still a more frequent event than at a football match.

I can think of few occasions when sportsmanship has stood out over gamesmanship in football; Di Canio catching the ball as Everton goalkeeper lay injured and the empty goal was beckoning in December 2000, some may suggest the Arsenal offer of a replay to the Blades following Marc Overmars’ controversial goal in the 1999 cup tie, but I beg to differ. Arsenal could have let United equalise and then play on the rest of the match with the scores level, as they were prior to the goal. The offer of a replay benefited Arsenal as much with home advantage, gate receipts etc.

More recent examples show that when advantage has been gained, the benefiting team rarely recognise their advantageous stretching of fair play and there is little the officials could do. Ask Nordsjaelland or even Sheffield Wednesday themselves. The fact that so few stand up for fair play, seems to make it less and less likely other teams will set the example, particularly when they have suffered an injustice previously.

Maybe football could try and set new standards. Maybe Reading players should have admitted to Stuart Attwell that the “ghost goal” he awarded them in 2008 was nowhere near the Watford goal. Maybe the Shakhtar Donetsk players and management together should have acknowledged that Luiz Adriano’s goal was out of order and properly stood aside for Nordsjaelland to score from the kick off, instead of being split on what they should do. Maybe the Yeovil players last season should have stood aside to allow Wednesday to score; their player manager was on the pitch and could have instigated it. Maybe Jeremy Helan should have walked off the pitch on Saturday. Instead he lingered, saw the red card hadn’t followed and sheepishly shrugged and walked back into position.  Maybe his manager should have hauled him off, or supported Simon Grayson’s claims to the fourth official.

And maybe football won’t. In fact I know it won’t. Football over the last 20 years has been corrupted by money, to a greater extent than any other sport. Money places enormous pressure on managers and players. Pressure to win, pressure to succeed whatever the cost, every point and every place has a huge financial reward. Morals are marginalised and a generation of fans see the boundaries of acceptable behaviour stretched, more so if the officials and authorities are inept at dealing with those incidents when they occur.

Do you know what? In a year of depressing incidents in football, that makes me a little sadder and a little more disillusioned with the game. I doubt 2013 will do much to change my view.

My Dislikable XI - Number 1 (A United View)

Reading through the My Favourite XI  series on the excellent Two Footed Tackle, I loved reading the reasoning behind various contributors' choices. Choosing your favourite players is such a rational affair, to like something about someone, be it the way they move, their skills, their tackling, their image, their achievements, it can be quite an easy decision. In some respects you see something, you like it. Narrowing down to an XI is the hard bit. Inspired, I offered to contribute, only for time to beat me before Chris called time on the series. The link above will take you to the series. It is well worth a read.

I thought about posting my Favourite XI on here, but then, being of a negative mindset (watching Sheffield United can have that effect), I got thinking about the players I really dislike. Now disliking a player can be for perfectly rational reasons, but football fans, by nature, tend towards the irrational in their beliefs and their thought processes. We all cling to hope until the very last moment, when to on-lookers it is virtually extinguished. We store up vendettas against teams or players for years and years. Maybe a series of Dislikable XIs might just pull a few of those seemingly ridiculous lines of reasoning out into the open and take the contributors through an irrationality cleansing process?

So over the next few weeks, you will see XI's determined by amongst other things foul play, foul behaviour, playground frustration, city rivalry, political leanings, sheer stupidity and sometimes just because of who they are. There was just one rule that I asked to be applied, no Savage or Barton et al. They make themselves just too easy a target for something like this. So with everyone's midfield pairing up for grabs. Here is my Dislikable XI to kick things off.

Look out every Friday and Tuesday for a new XI with Lanterne Rouge, from the supposedly impartial football league site The Two Unfortunates, choosing his XI next Tuesday.

If you would like to contribute, please email unitedview@gmail.com

Goalkeeper - Hans Segers

Once played for the Blades and cultivated a quality Kevin Webster 80's tache. However, my ire towards the Dutch custodian formed on the last day of the 1993-94 season and his performance at Goodison Park for Evert….sorry.. for Wimbledon v Everton. I was at Stamford Bridge watching the Blades get relegated after a last minute Mark Stein goal and results elsewhere went against us. Those other results included a 3-2 win for Everton which saved them at our expense.

Although subsequently cleared of all match-fixing allegations, I will never see the Everton goals that day without suspicion that something just wasn't right.

Right Back - Mel Sterland

Schoolboy fan, played for his club, capped by England, the archetypal hero if you support that club. If you support the cross city rivals a figure of hate. How can he top it off? Play for Leeds? Tick! Then to top it off he plays the Blades' club captain in the film When Saturday Comes, resplendent in the red & white stripes, albeit he claims he had a Wednesday shirt on underneath. Could Sean Bean not have found an ex-Blade to play the part? Let's be honest, it's a football film, ergo it's rubbish, so why not let some two bit actor take part, alternatively a plank of wood which would exude more personality and presence. Nicknamed Zico by Wednesdayites due to his dead ball prowess, Blades fans were shocked by the implication that Zico clearly translated to English as Shit.

Left Back - Mauricio Taricco

Blades' fans have long memories and a player whose play has led to red cards for five Blades players over the years deservedly makes my team. The feud dates back to 1995 when Dane Whitehouse was sent off in Ipswich's 2-2 draw at Bramall Lane, following a shove on Taricco who had blatantly dived to try and get Whitehouse into trouble. Then in the 1997 play-off semi final between United and Ipswich Taricco was at the centre of a spitting allegations, following the second leg at Portman Road. No wonder Jan Aage Fjortoft was seen standing over a crestfallen Taricco at the end, gloating at a Blades aggregate victory.

Spitting, fouling, cheating, nothing was out of bounds in Taricco's attempts to get a response from his opponents. Maybe you think that the players shouldn't respond yet the slyness of the Argentine's actions didn't just upset Blades fans/players. After an incident when Taricco theatrically tried to get Andy Impey sent off, then Leicester manger Dave Bassett described Taricco as "A bloody disgrace. a disgrace to the game".  His provocation of El Hadji Diouf raised Gerard Houllier's ire.

Taricco was once quoted as saying "It does appear that Sheffield United fans do not like me, but that is up to them. I just want to play my football." The thing is, it was his idea of football that irritated us so much.

Centre Back - Phil Thompson

Part of Ian Porterfield's "Dad's Army" side of the mid 1980's, Thompson played in a relatively unsuccessful  team alongside fellow veterans Ken McNaught and Peter Withe. With most fans feeling he was only with us for one last pay cheque, his injury laden spell of pedestrian defending didn't last long and he wasn't that popular amongst the Blades support. He went down even further in my estimations with his lack of magnanimity following the Blades two all draw with Liverpool in the League Cup semi-final at Bramall Lane in 2003, dishing out petty criticism of the Championship team's style of play  and refusing to shake hands with Blades assistant manager Kevin Blackwell.

Centre Back - George Berry

A man who I knew little about until he, along with his tremendous afro, entered my 6 year old footballing consciousness through the medium of Panini's Football 81. He flooded my schoolyard swap pile and you just couldn't get rid of him. Everyone had him.

"Not Got, Not Got, Got *thumb through 6 George Berry's* Not Got, Got, Got"

Each day you bought a group of packets there the bearded, Afro'd stopper would be smiling back at me. ARRRRGGGGHHHHH! 

Central Midfield - Gordon Strachan

I associate Strachan with a period where Leeds held the edge over the Blades on the pitch, pipping us to the 1990 Division Two title and then picking up the final pre-Sky Championship title at Bramall Lane on the last day of the season. In that period at Leeds, Strachan scored a goal that grates with me today, more for the smugness of his celebration and the circumstances of the goal. Leeds were one up and with the game stretched and the Blades chasing an equaliser, Strachan picked up the ball and ran a fair stretch of the pitch before tucking the ball away. He then proceeded to sit on the advertisement boards, suggesting he needed a rest after such a long run, arms aloft like a parading muscleman, all arrogant and smug. This celebration was seemingly (although the reality was probably a lot less) repeated on Leeds TV's news and sports programmes incessantly in the following days and weeks.

Central Midfield - Martin Kemp

21st September 1985; Melchester Rovers stars Jimmy Slade, Rob Richards and Kenny Logan (no, not the Irish Eurovision fella) were unhappy. I was unhappy. Aged 10 it was the beginning of the end of my love affair with Roy of the Rovers. Bringing Emlyn Hughes and Bob Wilson out of retirement was stretching the credibility somewhat, but signing Martin Kemp and Steve Norman of Spandau Ballet? That was too far. Next you will be telling me that half the team will be killed in a terrorist attack during a tour of Basran…………….oh!

Unfortunately, I had to choose between the two new romantics. Given the need to include Ainsworth on the wing (Norman's position) and  the SCS Sofa adverts, Kemp wins.

Right Wing - Gareth Ainsworth

Ah the consummate professional, winning promotion with his club, the media friendly veteran still performing well at the grand old age of 38. Appearances on 5 Live and The Football League Show. Yet actually that could have equally been applied to another player, Dane Whitehouse. A local lad who had moved up through the Bramall Lane youth set-up, he made his debut at 18. After turning down big money moves to bigger clubs he was a Blades hero, until a crude challenge from Ainsworth at Vale Park in 1997 left him with a serious knee ligament  injury and unable to play again. He was 27.

Whitehouse said afterwards that the injury was worse for the fact that he didn't see the tackle coming and couldn't brace himself for it. Surprising for an alert player with great peripheral vision and movement. Ainsworth claims it was a 100% tackle, no malice intended, but in coming in from the wrong side he certainly ran the risk of injuring someone.

What makes matters worse is that it took an age for Ainsworth to man-up and apologise, even when the full extent of Dane's injury was known. By the time Vale returned to Bramall Lane, that apology was still to arrive and Ainsworth yet again took the coward's route. Arriving and leaving by car, he saved himself from the wrath of Blades fans and Dane's father - Sid - who boarded the Vale coach to hunt him down and demand an apology, frightening the Bejeezus out of the rest of the Vale squad. 

Left Wing - Marc Overmars

I was stood on the Clock End at Highbury on Saturday 13th February 1999.  The ball had been put out of play by the Blades with our player Lee Morris injured. Arsenal threw the ball back in with the intention of returning play to the Blades, but Kanu thought differently. Picking up the ball he ran down the wing and squared it for Overmars to tap in past a disbelieving Alan Kelly. The media at the time, played the naïve young African- new to English football - card, which in itself borders on racism. Apparently Kanu wasn't to realise what was intended from the throw in, when he burst down the wing and crossed the ball. This is a view still perpetuated by Arsenal on their website to this day.

Maybe so, but Overmars didn't have to put the ball in the net either. What was his excuse?

Striker - Mark Bright

Scored the winning goal in the Sheffield Derby FA Cup Semi Final at Wembley in 2003, one of the bleakest days of my football watching life.  The lesser contributing member of the Wright-Bright partnership at Palace has attempted to forge a media career like his former namesake. Unfortunately for him, whether he is intentionally doing it or not, he is finding that offering controversial opinion does not garner support. Whether he is using Tamir Cohen's tribute to his Dad as the initiative for a Metro article on "shirt off celebrations going too far", or blocking half of Norfolk on twitter for one man's idiocy, the man is a first rate idiot.

I’ve got to know some good football bloggers and football people on twitter, even some from the other side of the Sheffield footballing divide. Some of the people who saw Bright as a hero, yet they have been chastised (often without justification) during interaction with him on twitter. A sad man indeed.

Striker - Terry Curran

Some players cross the Sheffield Divide and make a success of their careers at their new club. From my perspective, Carl Bradshaw, Alan Quinn, Derek Geary are the three that immediately spring to mind, but few, if any, were Wednesday folk heroes. Terry Curran, aka Super Pig and scorer in the Blades 4-0 defeat at Hillsborough on Boxing Day 1979 was never going to be afforded a warm welcome. His goalscoring record (3 in 42 appearances) did little to appease the feeling that we had a Wednesday legend in our ranks and he was less than welcome.

Manager - Gary Megson

I know what you are thinking, Wednesday manager, a bit of an obvious and easy choice. But it runs much deeper than that.

Although both he and his Dad turned out in the blue & white stripes, I first started to dislike the man following the infamous Battle of Bramall Lane, when he managed West Brom. Without running over the details of what happened that day, Megson subsequently suggested that the Blades were cheating and trying to get the match abandoned. Suggestions that he, nor anyone else, subsequently corroborated. In fact we are still waiting for the autobiography where "it will all come out".

On taking over at Bolton Wanderers, Megson took the club down the table. Yet both he and his apparent friends in the media seemed complicit in portraying a manager achieving above his resources, aghast at Wanderers' fans misperception of their Ginger Mourinho. How dare Wanderers' fans not acknowledge his fine achievement of taking them into the bottom three. Megson, is more like his nemesis Warnock than he cares to admit. Smug, arrogant and not as good as he thinks he is.

Neil Warnock said in his autobiography that he wouldn't piss on Megson if he was on fire. Fine by me.