John Terry Sets An Example No-one Should Follow

There are a handful of players that cannot seem to avoid getting themselves in the headlines, one of who is our erstwhile national team captain, John Terry. Last night Terry felt the need to respond to internet claims of racial abuse allegedly directed towards Anton Ferdinand during Chelsea's defeat to QPR on Sunday.

'I've seen that there's a lot of comments on the internet with regards to some video footage of me in Sunday's game.

'I'm disappointed that people have leapt to the wrong conclusions about the context of what I was seen to be saying to Anton Ferdinand.

'I thought Anton was accusing me of using a racist slur against him. I responded aggressively, saying that I never used that term.

'I would never say such a thing, and I'm saddened that people would think so.I have known Anton for a long time and spoke to him about it after the game and there was no problem between us.

'I congratulated him on their win. He has not accused me of any wrongful remark. It was clear it was all a misunderstanding at the time.

'After the result today, I am saddened to be dealing with these wrongful allegations.

'I am the proud captain of one of the most internationally diverse teams in the Premier League and I absolutely believe that there is no place for racism in sport and indeed in any walk of life.'

No place indeed and whether any actual racial abuse took place only the best lip-readers or Anton Ferdinand will be able to confirm. What is clear is that the manner in which he responds to Ferdinand does little to help a neutral assessment of his cause.

Terry himself describes it as aggressive and you can imagine that being accused of such a slur would leave ay right minded person fuming. But his response does little to support his claim when you remember he talks of a long standing friendship with Ferdinand.

As I say it is possible he is remonstrating with Ferdinand about being accused of racism, at the start of the footage the view of Terry is blocked and he may well have said "I never called you a…." before his expletive laden outburst. Yet, to me, his closing comment which appears to be "you f****** knobhead", says much about the man as any alleged racist abuse does.

As does the amount of aggressive remonstrating he did with referee Chris Foy. Maybe if Terry focused on leading his team, rather than arguing with the referee - something we see frequently from him, he may have seen a more successful outcome for his team yesterday.

"Example is not the main thing in influencing others, it is the only thing" Albert Shweitzer

Some say he is a man's man. A leader; with the spirit of St George coursing through his veins. Just look at the way he belts out the national anthem, full of gnarling aggression and posturing. That's all well and good, but that doesn't mean to say he is the best leader on the pitch.

As captain he has a right to ask the referee about decisions, but finger jabbing and a bile fuelled, spittle flecked rant in a referee's face is hardly the way to go about it. Chris Foy may have made mistakes yesterday, but such a response from the Chelsea captain is not in keeping within the respect campaigns. It sets examples that children and adults alike will see as acceptable in grassroots football across the country.

Referees are human, they make mistakes, we all do. I am sure John Terry does. Sadly, I can only think that someone pointing out his errors would receive the same treatment as he dished out to Foy yesterday. It is a one way communication street with Terry.

Pre 1970 Word Cup, then England captain Bobby Moore was accused of stealing an emerald bracelet from a hotel shop in Bogota (an accusation he was subsequently cleared of). When the news broke the whole country was in shock at such an accusation being made. If a claim of wrongdoing were made against the England captain these days the populace might still recoil in horror and anger, but would they be surprised?

"Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other" - John F. Kennedy

The thing is John Terry doesn't learn. He seems to exhibit an air of invincibility that suggests he believes that all his foibles, his undesirable behaviour traits and his failings don't count. That, with no shame and no embarrassment, they can be ignored. And somehow they are…..

Successive managers of both Chelsea and England managers seem willing to overlook these successive lapses. Respected people both within and outside the game allow Terry to rule their roost. Capello even lacking the courage to continue to blackball a man who openly questioned his capabilities to do his job.

Terry using a World Cup press conference to challenge Capello's authority as England coach and question his methods, like a trade union leader with the Prime Minister. Yet the former captain should have been on the same side as his national coach, not creating mutiny. An apology with little remorse followed, only for him to be re-instated as captain the following year.

Maybe this is a reflection of a lack of true leaders at Chelsea or in English football, both in terms of off the pitch management and on the pitch captaincy, or a failure to acknowledge that chest beating and badge kissing are only part of the leadership equation.

　

"The price of greatness is responsibility" - Winston Churchill

Footballers have to realise that they are role models, whether they or you like it or not. David James recently said in the Observer that children's role models should be parents and that footballers are too detached from their former lives to be seen to be viewed as role models by today's youth. Former Scottish professional Jack Ross has written that footballers didn't ask for the role model "role", they just inherited it from being very good at their chosen skill.

Whilst I agree with James' point regarding parents, they are only part of the issue. The media drip feed the masses with the next new singing star, the next stop model, the next street soccer star. Thus creating an image and lifestyle that young people aspire too. Even those that will never make it as a singer, dancer, sports star, model, are given a silver plated dream, until they are turned into the next national laughing stock or told that they are just not good enough.

It is this media frenzy that creates the interest, stimulates the wage demands and generates the endorsements and promotional work that footballers such as Terry benefit from. Being a decent human being and setting a standard (at the very least for on-pitch behaviour) is a small price to pay. Especially when the public are so generously funding your lifestyle.

Some may say, well people swear, people fight, get over it. Maybe so, but all we are doing is being complicit in allowing our national game to settle into a morass of over-paid, under-talented footballers, feted by those who surround them. Their egos and those of the men in charge of the game allowing the upper echelons of English football to fester in a self satisfied pit of indulgence.

The England team is slowly becoming more and more detached from the common football fan. A lack of true leadership at the FA and from the coach, a lack of willingness to learn and very few setting the example. How much longer before the Premier League and it's feted stars like Terry follow them down the same route?

Charting the Week (and a bit) in Football 4

Week 4 of Charting the Week in Football was slightly extended with the Easter break, but it was not short on stories. This week featuring mis-spent money by FIFA, misfiring strikers, former misfiring strikers, a social networking disaster, water bottle attrition, the continuing search for an Andy Gray replacement and relative qualities of team bus drivers.

You can view :
Week 1 here
Week 2 here
Week 3 here

If you would like to contribute, contact me via twitter @unitedite

Appraising the Scapegoats

Yesterday Richard Bevan, Chief Executive of the League Managers Association called for the scapegoating of football managers to stop. He called for appraisals of manager performance where "the strengths and weaknesses of how the football-side of the club is performing might be assessed against realistic expectations and previously, mutually agreed goals.

Richard Bevan c Mirror

"In any other sector, there is a recognition that the highest performing organizations are those who build winning organizational culture - shared beliefs, goals and ways of behaving - coupled with a long-term vision." Fair enough, so what would this mean for some of those Bevan represents?

When Roy Hodgson joined Liverpool in the summer, he was employed by different owners, Gillet and Hicks and a Chief Executive, Christian Purslow, who is yet to be replaced. He joined on the back of their worst season for a decade, the LMA Manager of the Year stating, “I'm here for the long haul and to do the job that needs to be done, hopefully winning trophies very quickly." So what were the expectations and objectives when he took over? Did they change with new ownership? And do any new objectives take account of the changes above him?

By stating an aim for trophies and quickly he has personally set an objective that, as things stand, he is still on to achieve. You have to assume that such statements are made in line with directors' expectations. Trophies are not won in January and Liverpool remains in both the Europa League and the FA Cup - okay so they only join the latter on Sunday! 

Hodgson's shock as objectives revealed c Mirror

With an inadequate squad and limited funds to change things, could he realistically be expected to improve on 7th and a 23 point deficit on Champions Chelsea? To be fair, at the very least, he should have been capable of maintaining the status quo. With Liverpool sitting 12th, 19 points behind Manchester United and with 9 defeats to their name (just 2 less than the number over the whole of last season), it could be said that Roy has failed, to date. Yet does he not need more time to impose his ways, to sign more of his own his own players? Neutrals and the few Liverpool fans in the Paul Konchesky Fan Club might suggest so; an increasingly vocal majority at Anfield would not. 

Carlo Ancelloti is being talked of in some quarters as at risk. Unfounded rumours swept the country yesterday that both he and Roy were heading for the exit door. The reigning champions sit 5th. 9 points off top spot, having won less than half of their games and having suffered 6 defeats - as many as they suffered in the whole of last season. On paper - Carlo is not achieving objectives, but should other factors come into play. With an ageing and injury riddled squad this season it has not been easy. Some of the more flexible squad members left in the Summer, with few replacements brought in, and youngsters, like McEachran, Sturridge and Bruma, have been blooded, probably more readily than the manager might have anticipated.

You would think that given last season and the enforced turnover within the playing squad he will be given n the chance to re-group and re-challenge. But this is football, where there is an expectation level to be maintained, firmly in the public eye.

A more cut and dried case perhaps is that of Roy Keane at Ipswich. Having splashed around £9m of Marcus Evans' cash around on players who failed to make an impact, with, since dismissed, rumours of unrest with star prospect Connor Wickham and Damien Delaney (amongst others) and a plummet down the table to 19th, 3 points above the relegation places, Keane can hardly claim to have met expectations. However, on his departure he expressed "a genuine belief that we were making progress".  Unfortunately for Roy his objectives were league based and, however nice a Carling Cup semi-final appearance is, the progress the club made was downwards.

More time to walk the dog c SkySports

At the end of the day football is a results business, unless you are an Arsenal fan and watching aesthetically pleasing football from both sides also appears to be required. (Mind you when you are paying close to a £100 per ticket, it is probably a not unreasonable request). Results = points. And we all know what points make............

Well it should be trophies, a place in the record books. That is how it would have been previously, but with significant money on offer for an improvement of just one league place in today's game the pressure for points intensifies. Bevan states that a manager's average tenure during the 2009-10 campaign was one year and four months, compared to three and a half years in 1992, yet football has changed tremendously in that time. The rewards for improving results are greater but the risks that clubs are willing to take are much smaller.

There is always someone else ready to take on the challenge and the cost of change is much less than the potential financial impact of failure. There are 79 "available" managers listed on the LMA website. I looked at the list, prior to the Blades appointing Micky Adams, and what an un-inspiring list it is. Aside from Martin O'Neill , maybe Rafa Benitez, who would you want at your club. Take a look. Why not comment your choice for your club below. I doubt we will see a great deal of variety.

However uninspiring they are, they are LMA members looking for work. If average tenures increase, then the longer these managers and others like them will be redundant. As respected journalist Gabriele Marcotti tweeted on Thursday night it is "funny how LMA worry about sacked managers more than out-of-work ones who might seize opportunity of job opening." Bevan is acting like most union officials, looking after those in jobs, but does he not owe a bit more to those who are awaiting a new opportunity, aside from giving them advice on their statements to the media following their last departure.

Football takes much more of a short-term view than other businesses, probably due to the propensity of stakeholders involved, opinions given and the media spotlight. Managers will have objectives and they will know how they are performing against those objectives. With the odd notable exception, Chris Hughton for instance, can many managers really be that surprised by the sack? Well, maybe Roy Keane. But as we know and as Louise Taylor so wonderfully states in this article in the Guardian, young Roy doesn't take constructive criticism very well.

We as fans might not like some of the changes to the game in recent years; I made my feelings known here. Richard Bevan might not like the impact it is having on its members, but in a world where so many people's jobs are at risk, where often it is nothing to do with their own personal performance, where decisions are made regardless of achievement of objectives and where they earn a wage much lower than the average manager, I'll give him an objective. Keep calm, keep quiet and carry on with your job.