january 21st
08.56 – “What Bergkamp did to Bowyer was not karate, but it wasn’t far off karate. Having decked his opponent with a smack in the face, Dennis turned round and crossed to the far post where Henry headed in for 2-1.”
What Myles wrote was not complete shite, but it wasn’t far off complete shite. While he makes a good point about Dennis seeing red and yellow a bit during his ‘purple patches’, there was nothing in the Bowyer incident. Compare that one with his deliberate elbow on Steve Lomas in the 97-98 season. Now, that was fuckin’ karate let me tell you. This time, he didn’t look up, Bowyer ran into him, tried to con the ref and failed. End of story. The referee was standing 3 yards away and didn’t give a thing.
I think people are too quick to think of footballers as precious, delicate little ballerinas instead of fit, athletic, muscular grown men. Although many of them tend to go down quicker than a White House intern in the Oval office, we can’t lose sight of the fact football is a physical game. For somebody like Bowyer who has commited acts of cowardly violence on the pitch, stamping on opponent’s faces, over the top tackles and the like, to crumple in a heap because of a hand pushing him in the face is ludicrous and hilarious at the same time. Rugby players use the ‘hand off’ to protect themselves from tackles in every game, and the opponent gets up and plays on because 1 – it doesn’t hurt and 2 – if they lay on the ground rolling around like Bowyer did, they’d never live it down. They would be castigated and mocked as a wimp who couldn’t put up with a bit of physical contact in sport. And quite rightly too.
For too long we’ve had to put up with FIFA trying to turn football into netball. Ban the sliding tackle? What a good idea. That will prevent players from being injured. Er…no, it won’t. Players get injured more these days than they ever did. You can’t touch a goalkeeper these days. Why not? They won’t break into a million pieces like fine china. When was the last time you saw a good old fashioned shoulder charge without the referee or one of the linesmen (oh, sorry…’assistant referees’) give a free kick one way or the other? I bet you can’t remember.
People lament the passing of these things from football, yet insist on video review panels and appeals and FA discplinary panels for the slightest contact that they deem unfair. It’s a crock of shit. Grow up, remember you’re watching adults play football, not your precious Tarquins and Jakes and Alistairs in the school team.
Good luck to Steve Sidwell who has joined Reading. He says AW wanted him to stay, but with so many good players in front of him, it’s understandable. The Matthew Upson saga rumbles on, and the latest is that he could go to Leeds who are selling Woodgate to Newcastle and Steve Bruce will buy Derby’s Danny Higginbotham instead. Apparently.
Matthew, just do us all a favour and stay, please?
