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yolkie
You're Giggs!
Joined: 30 Oct 2007
Posts: 1426
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 Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 9:16 pm Post subject: Football365 : urge supporters to treat Rooney as "non h |
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I have only once travelled to work in expectation of being sacked, and David Beckham was the cause. The former England captain's comments about Wayne Rooney's temper brought it all flooding back.
On 1 July 1998, the day after Beckham was sent off and England lost to Argentina on penalties, the front-page headline in Piers Morgan's Daily Mirror read "10 heroes and one stupid boy". The following Tuesday or Wednesday, the back-page headline read "Web of Hate", with a picture of Football365's then Grand Poobah, Danny Kelly. I wasn't named in the piece, but what I had written was quoted, and the Mirror was going around ringing advertisers on our fledgling site urging them to cancel.
In between, after the initial excoriation, the Mirror and the rest of the press had suddenly remembered their Manchester United constituency - both in terms of readers but also the club. It wouldn't do to provoke the enduring wrath of Fergie. People in the game, including the United boss, were trying to play down the stupidity of what Beckham had done with his feet that night in Saint-Etienne. He hadn't really done anything wrong, we were told, the referee had overreacted. Or somehow it was Glenn Hoddle's fault for having fired up the boy wonder in the wrong way by dropping him from the starting line-up for the opening match against Tunisia, having picked him for all eight qualifiers.
After an initial apology issued by his publicist, the player had remained silent, unlike Ray Wilkins in 1986 who, after his dismissal against Morocco, was man enough to admit his foolishness. It was becoming increasingly clear that the player did not agree with the words the publicist put in his mouth.
This all angered me rather more than the original offence. Beckham had been the victim of a foul. The referee gave England a free-kick and was on his way to book Diego Simeone, the Argentine miscreant. Beckham knew about the former, if not the latter, yet decided to take the most pointlessly selfish revenge.
Kim Milton Neilsen's decision to send the brat off could have gone either way, but even if harsh it was not incorrect and Beckham could not be allowed to think he had not been firmly in the wrong. If the media were too scared of United to stick to their original diagnosis and figures in the game too complacent, then I argued it was up to supporters to point out to Beckham the error of his ways.
No, I didn't urge anyone to hang him in effigy or harass his family. Yes, I did suggest that until he acknowledged his mistake he should be treated as a non-person. The headline was "Our duty to taunt Beckham", but among my knowingly unrealistic suggestions was that rather than jeer him, fans should fall silent when he was in possession.
So the Mirror, which had pilloried him on the front page a few days before, sought to get back in United's and Beckham's good books by attacking a little-known website (and its editor-in-chief, who was off the Sunday of publication). And I feared that if the advertisers caved in, I could be sacrificed to appease them.
The editor of the site itself was furious - "What will the industry think?" he said. So too were some of the readers. But as we published literally hundreds of emails, Danny and the high-ups backed me and laughed it all off. Indeed, they were delighted - the little-known site was suddenly being talked about. We lost a few readers who swallowed the Mirror's spin, but gained masses more who found a site where writers spoke their mind and where readers were allowed to answer back. Mailbox may have developed into what it is today anyway, but the Beckham furore gave it a fantastic kick-start.
In the months afterwards, I felt increasingly vindicated, too. Between June 1998 and September 1999, Beckham, Paul Ince, Paul Scholes and David Batty were all sent off playing for England. Yes, it was easier to accumulate cards than in the game's blood-and-thunder days, but the latter trio's folly was as indisputable as Beckham's and together with him they doubled England's all-time tally of red cards in 15 months.
Beckham himself, interviewed for one of United's official publications a few months later, was asked whether he had got over what had happened against Argentina. He said that as he hadn't done anything wrong, he hadn't had anything to get over.
This was sheer folly. As was the attitude of the media and of football figures who pretended there was no problem as the cards mounted.
With time, Beckham has acknowledged that lack of self-control is a problem in a way he refused to in 1998. In his remarks about Rooney, he said: "Sometimes it flows over. He's done it a few times with myself. He knows it's not right, I know it's not right, but it happens."
He added: "I've reacted on the pitch myself. It might be wrong, but it is me showing I'm frustrated that we're losing." It should be noted that in 1998 England were drawing and, when Beckham became the first England player to be sent off twice, in 2005 against Austria, they were winning. But then comes the admission of his battle: "It's not right. It's bad. I was frustrated in the Spain game and got a yellow card for talking back to the ref. You try to control it, but sometimes you can't."
Rooney refused to admit to being in the wrong in 2006. Once again the media let him off, concentrating on the winking of his admittedly charmless clubmate Cristiano Ronaldo rather than the stamping.
Alex Ferguson, once again, is making excuses for his player, this time in relation to what happened at Fulham last Saturday. Fabio Capello is not going the same route. Beckham, 23 in 1998, was no kid and nor is Rooney now, at the same age.
As the team return to Wembley for the first time since Ashley Cole's experience against Kazakhstan, the debate is renewed over when, if ever, England players should be booed. For certain, I would say, when 23-year-olds behave like three-year-olds and refuse to admit as much. |
http://www.football365.com/story/0,17033,8742_5108180,00.html
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yolkie
You're Giggs!
Joined: 30 Oct 2007
Posts: 1426
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| Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 9:23 pm Post subject: |
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Staggeringly awful piece of journalism.
This is what riles me about the British "media" (if you can call a website part of the media), he seems to revel in the fact that he purposely set out to antagonise Sir Alex and United just because he was in a position where he could try and do so.
You have got to say that the hyper reaction to Rooney's dismissal (sledging Rooney rather than seeing the incident for what it was, a ridiculous decision to which anyone would have been unhappy) and his "assault" on a corner flag quite bizarrely eclipses the same attention that is being paid to Fabregas actually SPITTING at an assistant manager.
Rooney again is painted as the devil incarnate and Fabregas' scum (and that's what it is) behaviour is completely ignored.
Which of the two examples of behaviour is worse?
It's like "I know, it's a bit of a slow news week, I'll try and create a bandwagon to boo Rooney because I know I will get a positive response from supporters of at least 3 Premier League clubs".
Argh.
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