Tag Archives: Football

A lonely impulse of delight

04/21/2012 By in Sport Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Football is called the ‘beautiful game’ but even its most fervent admirers will acknowledge this is deeply misleading. As most fans have to endure turgid displays of athleticism and tactical repression watching their teams. Agility, speed and technique – the three wonders of the game are regularly found wanting at most football grounds, especially in the lower leagues. From amateur slug fests on cow fields in Scotland to the UEFA Champions League, there is no escaping the drudgery of an eleven-a-side gridlock. A sport only rescued by the emotional and social camaraderie of supporting a team. Traditionally one from the the place you were born although that doesn’t seem to matter anymore.

While there is a huge emotional investment in football, which often overrides any on-field drudgery, tribal allegiances cannot sustain this passion alone. For love to prevail there must be a fantasy. And everybody loves Lionel Messi and to a lesser extent Cristiano Ronaldo for this very special reason. FC Barcelona and Real Madrid produce some of the most intoxicating football on the planet and outside viewers can be forgiven for thinking they are watching a different sport. Such is the theatrical intensity of the Spanish super clubs, even the corporate riches of the English Premier League feels decidedly meat and potatoes in comparison.

Despite being the size of a flea, Messi consistently surpasses his rival Ronaldo as the most loved player in the world. Frequently touted as the greatest of all time, the Argentine plays the game with a childlike sense of wonder, almost like an 18-year-old that doesn’t know how to grow up. In stark contrast to England’s most naturally gifted player, Wayne Rooney, who under the burden of professionalism has become a better “all round player” but rarely excites like the Everton teenager with a luminous first touch. With his low shins vulnerable to the studs of hostile defenders, Messi is a wonderful example of finesse triumphing over strength. The footballing equivalent of the beautiful tennis drop shot,  the little genius has no right to play the game but does so with near universal admiration.

Ronaldo meanwhile is the epitome of modern professionalism with his soaring physique and incredible goals-per-game ratio. The Portuguese winger is an overwhelmingly powerful player but with an ego the size of Lisbon he will always be a divisive one. A truly phenomenal athlete, Ronaldo has a fantastic work rate and should have more admirers than he does. Perhaps there is something manufactured about his approach that people don’t like. In this respect his arrogant demeanour and bio-engineered style will always leave him trailing behind his Barcelona rival.

Messi is unique in the modern game and what is frightening is that his lonely impulse of delight is only a ligament snap away from oblivion. Such is the nature of modern sport it’s a near miracle that he has never been seriously injured. Age, fatigue and eventually injury will tackle Messi like no other player can, so it remains a genuine privilege to watch him play in his prime. For when he lofts his hands towards the sky, it’s a reminder of the fleeting of his genius and lovers of the ‘beautiful game’ should watch Messi play everytime they can.

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The unexamined tweet is not worth tweeting

02/13/2012 By in Press & Media, Sport Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

If the racism scandal afflicting English football has taught us anything it is that the ‘tiny minority’ so often ignored by mainstream society now has a powerful voice. As the private nastiness that had previously been confined to living rooms and unsavoury pubs is now digitally logged for everyone to see. Already bigoted steams of racist abuse on Twitter has seen Manchester City defender Micah Richards abandon the network altogether. Sadly he is not alone with Gary Lineker disappearing after tweeting for little under a week citing that ‘local prejudice just seems to bring out the worst in some people’. Indeed many public figures and footballers have been forced to give up the service because of the bile directed towards them. It’s certainly no place for anyone with a thin skin.

Anyone researching the Patrice Evra and Luis Suarez handshake affair on Twitter will uncover horrible levels of racist abuse. None of this reflects particularly well on the UK educational system and it goes without saying the majority of trolls are incredibly thick. In many ways Twitter has become a Victorian freak show dominated as much by the celebrity users as by the idiots trying to provoke them. Bigotry has never gone away. It’s just that the mainstream media reports hate crimes in such a formulaic fashion that it becomes easy to ignore. Racist abuse therefore becomes a journalistic pain. Something that can be dismissed with a mere switch of a button. But there is something so viscerally awful about Twitter that it simply can’t be ignored.

The CCTV of the mind will lead even the most unwilling of voyeurs to some very ugly places. Unsurprisingly the majority of the online abuse is usually expressed by deeply unhappy young men, which is only made worse by the individuals who associate themselves with certain football teams. Fizzing with testosterone and determined to prove their loyalty at all costs their colloquial prejudices have hitherto never had an audience before. Perhaps this more than anything represents the truly ugly side of the racism debate. If you give people a voice sadly far too many of them will resort to abuse. Indeed you don’t actually learn that much on Twitter but you do learn a lot about human nature.

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Kick it out

02/04/2012 By in Sport Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Celebrity culture and sporting prowess are two branches that only in England could have become intertwined. In the case of the Chelsea captain John Terry, who is facing trial on 9 July for racially abusing QPR defender Anton Ferdinand, it is the root of something very ugly indeed. Accused of racism by a member of the public after a YouTube clip went viral, the hysteria surrounding the case says as much about celebrity culture as it does about racism in football. Despite not wanting to defend Terry or any incident of racist or bigoted behaviour, a very dangerous precedent has been set where individuals can be thrown in court on accusations made not by the individual concerned but someone (potentially) sitting on a computer in Papua New Guinea.

With Terry losing the England captaincy because of these accusations, the hype surrounding the case also exposes a glib streak running through English popular culture. As football journalism in England is notorious for focusing on personalities and stories unlike in Spain or Italy where the emphasis is on sporting matters. In Spain journalists are even allowed to watch training and with this privilege comes the honour of improving their own knowledge of the game. As a result their coverage of football revolves around sporting excellence and not the personal lives of players.

Only in England could a journeyman footballer such as Joey Barton receive such press attention. Best known for being jailed for attacking a Liverpool teenager in May 2008, the notoriety surrounding the QPR player has been fuelled by his Twitter account. With over a million followers, the player bristles with self-righteous indignation and has a narcissistic desire for attention and thus provides scandal hungry English journalists easy headlines on a near daily basis. With the notable exception of Stan Bowles and Les Ferdinand, not many QPR players have attracted so much press attention as the former Newcastle play maker. However, Barton’s guttersnipe opinions and propensity to get into online feuds with journalists and fans has generated a level of hysteria that belies his achievements in the game.

Playing for a series of marginal clubs with no history of winning trophies, Barton has no medals to his name after a decade playing football. Alas the sporting culture in England is now all about being somebody rather than what you have achieved. Twitter only further accelerates a culture of gossip and spin allowing a narcissist such as Barton a global platform to broadcast his views. Already some players appear more pleased with the number of followers they have than trophies, where previously it had been medals and caps that were the benchmarks of success. Would for example a moderately talented Spanish player who takes the corners and free kicks for a minnow club like Getafe receive front page coverage in Spain?

With the ex-England captain now dethroned it looks like Terry won’t travel with the Euro 2012 squad this summer. But it is all too easy to forget that Terry had been previously stripped of the captaincy by Fabio Capello for having an affair with his team mate’s girlfriend. Sadly the celebrity circus goes on and the build up to the tournament from an England perspective will inevitably circle around their former captain’s court case.

As mediocre players such as Joey Barton try to establish new careers for themselves as ‘brands’, it will be fascinating to watch the English and Spanish sides at the Euro 2012 finals. Not just for their contrasting style of play but for their dignity and approach to the game. No one doubts that Spain are by far the better side. As the majesty of football is on the field of play and that is where it should remain too.

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A Stateless Nation

01/11/2012 By in Politics Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

On growing up in the nationalist heartlands of the North East of Scotland and with parents of Anglo-Irish descent, I am a first generation Scot. Always sensitive to any hint of anti-English sentiment, I remember my first impressions of nationalism and I considered it back then to be inherently nasty, bigoted and deeply parochial. Largely this was a result of a feral loathing of the English football team and the hysterical fear of the ‘auld enemy’ winning the World Cup. Laughable as this might sound to educated observers, especially anyone who knows anything about football, the populist cry was that ‘we would never hear the end of it’ and they are right. It would be absolutely unbearable but our European partners usually come to our aid whenever this is in danger of happening.

Football might seem frivolous to some but the social consequences of this nationalist hysteria led to me preferring the union. As a result and unaware of the grim economic conditions taking place outside of the affluent fields of Aberdeenshire, I felt very comfortable being simultaneously Scottish and British. While I always considered myself Scottish, I owed my existence to parents and as a son of economic migrants; I was a product of oil rather than the Mearns soil.

Although looking back my British identity crisis was an emotional form of solidarity with my parents. It co-existed with my Scottish identity, which back then was a geographical and localised phenomenon. T.C. Smout, the brilliant social historian, once stated that ‘what is unusual about Scotland is the widespread acceptance that national identity does not have to coincide with state identity’. He succinctly tapped into the political separation of powers of the 1707 Union settlement, where Scottish cultural and religious nationalism was allowed to flourish outside the sphere of the British state.

Shaped by the desire to secure a Hanoverian Protestant succession in the early eighteenth century, British identity has been formed around the crown, empire, industrialisation and the emotional solidarity of two World Wars. In the twenty-first century, the contemporary framework of British identity has shifted radically. With the British Empire now confined to the dust columns of history, the BBC, NHS, Royal Mail and celebrity television shows such as the X-Factor and Big Brother provide ‘Britons’ with a shared cultural identity.

On being entirely comfortable with being both Scottish and British, I can trace my slow conversion to independence from attending two of Scotland’s oldest universities. On first attending Kings College in Aberdeen, I took great pride in learning that until 1858 Aberdeen had two universities, the same number as the whole of England. Education always appeared to be a great Scottish virtue and with the devolved Scottish administration paying student’s tuition fees since 1999 it became clear that education in Scotland is a universal right and not something confined to the privileged few.

On transferring to Glasgow University and studying History, I slowly developed the opinion that Scotland had everything in place to be thriving independent nation but somehow shied away from taking full responsibility. A country blessed with huge natural resources, a brilliant university network, untapped green energy, a booming tourist industry and two of the greatest cities in Northern Europe only 40 minutes apart. Scotland has enormous potential to become a progressive and wealthy European state.

If Scotland were to vote for full independence in autumn 2014 then the British state will cease to exist but Britishness will not. Norwegians, Swedes, Finns and Danes are still Scandinavian despite living in politically autonomous states. The Scandinavian nations co-operate on matters of shared national interest such as security, immigration, energy and tourism. There will be no custom officials and razed wire fences in Berwick-upon-Tweed or Gretna Green if Scotland were to go their own way. And by retaining the Queen as the head of state, the SNP have offered an olive branch to unionists uncomfortable with the pace of radical constitutional change.

With his High Excellency Alex Salmond at the helm in Holyrood anything now feels possible. A truly outstanding political operator, the SNP has been blessed with the most gifted political communicator in the British Isles since Tony Blair. Commanding over an extremely disciplined and ‘on message’ party, Alex Salmond is gradually persuading the Scottish people there is nothing that cannot be achieved by ourselves. On turning full circle I now believe in independence. The wheels of progress have been slow but the destination now feels inevitable.

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The Referees (Les Arbitres)

06/04/2011 By in Sport Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Football refereeing is a thankless task and in the modern era of multiple camera angles, buffoon pundits and Twitter. Anyone wishing to be the man in the middle will already understand that it is not a normal job; it’s a means of venting your frustrations on the rest of society. Offering a quirky and narcissistic insight into the world of football referees, Belgian film-maker Yves Hinant has produced a fascinating documentary about the men in black. With exclusive fly-on-the-wall access at the Euro 2008 finals, the film delves into the referee’s world as they face abuse from angry managers, death threats and scrutiny from a hostile media.

Revealing the mic’d conversations between referees, players and assistants, Swiss referee Massimo Busacca sets the tone early on by protesting to a Greek defender, ‘I am not God. We make also mistakes’. England’s Howard Webb will certainly agree with him. The bald Yorkshireman provides the film with its central character and is determined to referee the final. A man of few words and firm gestures, things don’t go to plan when he gives an offside goal against Poland and is compared to Hitler on YouTube.

Death threats are no laughing matter but there is something highly amusing about the circus that followed Howard Webb’s decision. His family were hounded by angry Polish fans and Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, admitted that he wanted to kill the English referee for his “obvious error”. In the modern game what matters is not the referee’s decision but what they are talking about in the television studio. Male bonding is at the heart of the Howard Webb crisis and the brusque manner in which the officials rally around the English referee shows how seriously they fret over their mistakes.

As the cameras followed the referees posing in their hotel rooms and singing along to Boyzone on their way to the stadium, the officials who are often demonised as being robotic or inhuman appear to be charming, vulnerable and highly sensitive men. Some of the vainer officials are comically entertaining and while refereeing is fervently individualistic by its very nature, they are a persecuted breed and need to stick together.

What is most striking about the film on a technical level is how the referees constantly talk and swear at their assistants. More often than not it is the assistant referee who alerts the referee to incidents of foul play. Their expletive bickering offers a muffled insight into how quickly the decisions are made and the lightning speed in which the referees have to make a decision. As most football fans already know, the referees only get to see it once and this fantastic documentary offers a small window into their private world of imperfection.

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Let the Stories Begin

04/26/2011 By in Sport Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Most football fans experience the same numbing emptiness the weekend after the last game of the season. Despite anticipating it for months in advance, there is no solace when the day finally arrives. Waking up on a Saturday morning and realising you have absolutely nothing to do in the afternoon. Sunshine may be splitting through your curtains but gone are the brusque talk shows, lunchtime games, fantasy football transfers, spread betting and laddish banter about the latest sexual shenanigans of Premiership footballers. Football sows a thread from a young age and while friends come and go, relationships collapse and society changes beyond recognition, the one consistency in a football fan’s life is the game itself.

On the eve of a Champions League semi-final, the same pulsating excitement will reach fever pitch across the world in another week of brilliant stories. Over the next two weeks football fans in England, Germany and Spain will undergo 180 minutes of unbridled joy, heart ache, anger and delirious portions of luck. However, the Champions League is an elitist competition reserved for the best clubs in the world. The majority of normal football fans support mediocre teams who rarely win trophies or achieve any noticeable success. Aberdeen FC are my home town club and my slavish devotion to football began inside the Merkland Road Stand at Pittodrie as a ten-year-old. Back in the early 1990s, Aberdeen were a well-respected European side renowned for playing attractive, expansive football with a squad of creative international players such as Hans Gillhaus, Charlie Nicholas and Jim Bett.

As a young teenager I watched my local side undergo a spectacular demise and everything about Scottish football is terrible now. Scotland’s favourite sport has become little more than a Glaswegian sectarian backwater. With rough pitches, bomb threats, empty stadiums, mediocre players, and racist and abusive chanting being churned out on a weekly basis. Scottish football is beyond shocking and is now little more than a byword for anti-social behaviour. On watching ESPN recently, I felt utterly demoralised seeing a dreadful Aberdeen side play what appeared to be different sport to what my father introduced to me in 1991. Much has changed since then and almost none of it has been for the better.

All I remember about my first game at Pittodrie is stepping inside an obscure granite stand and gasping at a jaw dropping display of 21, 600 red seats smothered in a veil of haar. From that day forth I became addicted to football and despite vastly increasing my knowledge of sport, people and life in general, when it really matters, the same excitable immaturity of wanting to win at all costs overcomes objectivity every time.

With every passing year, people should be able to put football into a balanced context and understand the warring tribal complexities, and cyclical nature of luck and success but nothing stops your visceral loathing of other team’s supporters. Inwardly I have lost count the number of times I have resorted to fist clenching Schadenfreude whenever a rival team has lost.

From buying a child’s ticket for £3.50 at Pittodrie to standing inside a North London gastro pub watching the world’s best footballers on a plasma 3D screen. The quality of football available has definitely increased over the last nineteen years but what remains constant is the same masochistic desire for glory. Every football fan is a living anthology, a composite of many selves, although the one constant throughout their lives will be the team(s) they support. This universal feeling is no better illustrated than waking up on a lazy summer morning and realising the one thing you always took for granted is now missing.

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Spring Break

03/28/2011 By in Musings Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

On working in close proximity to Regent’s Park, I cherish the advent of spring as I can now go for a lunchtime walk inside the most attractive park in London. The stirring of nature’s passion has seen thousands of people descend upon the beautiful green plains in the last few weeks. This precious unpaid hour is always welcome in warmer climes but even during the harshest winters I have stoically insisted upon every second of my lunch break.

As a young child the clattering of the school bell signalled an hour of endless possibilities. One lunch time (a long time ago) in northern Scotland, I led a stunning coup d’état against our primary school matron, as hundreds of children gained their first experience of a democratic rebellion. Football had been banned on the school banks because it was supposedly too wet underfoot for hundreds of little feet to chase after a greasy leather orb. A handwritten petition circulated down in the concrete jungle and my fellow rebels enjoyed our moment in the sun, only to be reprimanded by an hour-long detention on the strike of the home time bell.

Despite having no discernible talent for football, I still fondly remember coming back to class soaked in sweat and mud. The ferocious competiveness of our games and high pitched squabbles over what constituted an imaginary bar are one of the few things from school I actually miss. Growing older and being fortunate enough to attend two of Scotland’s finest universities, I realise now that everyday is like a lunch break for an arts undergraduate. Student life on a picture book campus will provide for a wonderful education and grants unlimited access to nearby bars, cafes and newsagents. There is no such thing as a late lunch when you crawl out of bed at the back of noon.

On graduating and having to pay rent in the city of Glasgow, I found myself temping for discredited financial institutions and lunch suddenly became very precious indeed.  When the clocks go back in October, it’s almost like the Arctic Circle imposes a military curfew on Scottish daylight but I always left the office in order to claim my sixty minutes of freedom. Glasgow is like a miniature Chicago with its American style grid system and wanting to claim my precious hour of daylight, I would munch upon cheese and gammon sandwiches, crisps and two pieces of fruit on a well healed parade around the city.

Glasgow is one of the greatest Victorian cities in the world but since I was unwilling to power the glass turbines of big business for the minimum wage, I departed southwards towards London’s advertising and digital heartlands in Goodge Street. Lunch time suddenly became a flexible experience and I can now eat some of the finest cuisines in the world on my unpaid hour. Unprofitable media companies squabble over free deliveries of little Greek pies and nearby cafes, bars and stylish restaurants offer a penny sucking haven for anyone wanting to escape the soulless matrix of databases, targets and Microsoft Excel.

As the clocks move forward and the vernal equinox stimulates life on previously cold soil. The green tranquility of Regent’s Park attracts a primordial gathering around its duck ponds and playing fields. Lunch time may only be one hour but it remains universally celebrated across the Western world and something savoured by school children, workers and chief executives alike.

FC Barcelona: A 21st Century Portrait

03/14/2011 By in Sport Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

After watching the delights of Barcelona’s passing carousel against Arsenal last week, I sighed an enormous sigh of relief when they qualified for the last eight of the Champions League. For the idea of Barcelona not being crowned the best team of Europe doesn’t even bear thinking about. There is simply no team in the world that can play association football in such a mesmerising fashion and their poetic style only serves to illustrate their regal superiority. Barcelona’s movement and anticipation of the ball is absolutely breathtaking and even their last gasp defending is beautifully poised.

While I have admired their brilliance for years, it was only after watching Barca in a deserted Spanish restaurant that I fully grasped their iconic power. When Lionel Messi scored his improvised opener against Arsenal it bore all the hallmarks of an era defining side. Not so much the clinical passing or ingenious finishing but the uproarious Catalan crowd and their goal celebration afterwards. Barcelona’s insatiable desire to win and hatred of losing is truly fanatical and they make my own team Manchester United appear workmanlike and ordinary.

As while family and tribal loyalties will always ensure I want United to win every game. Barca’s religious brilliance is so compelling it would be a miscarriage of justice if they don’t win the Champions League. However, the cruelty of football is that some of the most brilliant sides in history don’t always get what they deserve. The horrifying spectre of a compact tactical team such as Real Madrid or Chelsea grinding out enough victories at the expense of Barcelona’s flamboyance is a fate that has befallen many a great side.

Manchester United legend Eric Cantona loved the classic Holland side of 1974 so much he wanted them to defeat his native France. Alas the magnificent Dutch side were unable to pass their way to World Cup glory thanks to a ruthlessly efficient German team. And while the pioneers of total football are still fondly remembered as one of the greatest sides of all time, the lack of silverware is something that must haunt the Dutch.

Holland’s attacking flair of the 1970s inspired millions of fans across the globe and likewise the sublime brilliance of Xavi, Iniesta and Messi are going to be remembered for decades to come. Barcelona’s majestic flair offers no guarantee of success and the La Liga leaders could easily end the season with nothing. This of course would be a familiar sporting tragedy but Barcelona are simply wonderful. The best team in the world whether they win it or not.

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Your mind is the scene of the crime

02/03/2011 By in Politics Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

After moving to South Hackney two years ago, I have enjoyed a peaceful inner city existence and never felt in any danger. Occasionally teenagers can be seen loitering around the canal bridge and feral kids play improvised football against the recycling bins. But this if anything provides a sense of gritty character to an otherwise dull residential neighbourhood. While the grim Stalinist appearance of the estate and being surrounded by human storage containers is depressing at times, I have never had any reason to be fearful. Well at least until the coalition government’s new crime website was launched this week. The location based website provides an interactive map of reported violent crime, burglary and anti-social behaviour on every street in England and Wales.

Almost immediately I punched in my postcode and against my better judgement, I found myself living in a crime hotspot. Everyday I walk over the canal bridge on Shepherdess Walk and feel perfectly safe. But the government website reveals a different story. There are incidents of burglary, vehicle crime and drug dealing on what I had previously assumed to be an idyllic thoroughfare. Clearly the teenage hoods on the bridge have been up to no good. Further inspection of the website reveals there were 2134 reported incidents of crime in my postcode area in December alone.

Should I be too scared to leave the house now? The chances of me being a victim of crime appears to have increased since I discovered what goes on outside when I’m indoors. Even though I should be terrified of my crime ridden estate, I have yet to even spot a litter bug during my two-year stint in Hackney. Such horrifying statistics are in stark contrast to what I experienced in rural Aberdeenshire as a child. After pouring over the dark side of inner city life, I initially began to reflect back upon how kids from my village would play football after school instead of drug dealing or car theft.

While times have changed since the 1980s and the rise of the internet and games consoles has probably contributed towards more kids staying indoors, I remember how my peers indulged in criminal activity of their own. Every year local school kids would construct massive hay bases in nearby fields and cause thousands of pounds worth of damage. Most eight years old’s are unaware of the economic value of a hay bail and are unlikely to have a crisis of conscience when they turn one into a straw heap. As a result, local farmers would angrily come charging after us in their tractors once they realised their cherished field had descended into a William Golding novel. The thrill of the chase begins when you are young and I fondly remember scrambling over stone dyke walls escaping from irate Doric farmers as a school boy.

Crime like love is in the eye of the beholder and while stealing strawberries and pea-pods from an allotment patch might have seem like harmless fun to a country village boy. Is it really any different from local youths in Hackney stealing Mars Bars and Coke cans from a 24 convenience store? Enid Blyton would have loved my village escapades and my experiences of youth crime seem incredibly idyllic in hindsight.

While urban youths are frequently demonised in the media, I can empathise with bored teenage youths loitering around shops in sub-zero temperatures. Dimly lit streets and high rise buildings judge their offspring cruelly in the absence of wide green spaces. In light of the newly publicised figures, I should perhaps tread more carefully along the streets of Hackney but appearances are deceptive and likewise so is the fear of me becoming another government statistic.

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God has given you one face and you make yourself another

01/29/2011 By in Politics Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

As the toxic flames engulfing Andy Gray and Richard Keys over their sexist remarks continue to provoke outrage across the country. Time has surely come for people to reflect upon the grotesque voyeurism of this saga. While the former Sky Sports pundits were clearly guilty of acting like immature school boys when discussing Sian Massey’s ability to do a ‘man’s job’. No one should forget they were having a private conversation. Not for one second did they think their conversation was going to be heard by anyone else. But clearly once their embarrassing views were made public they both had to go.

Andy Gray and Richard Keys have since been condemned in various articles by former work colleagues, who have accused the pair of chauvinistic arrogance and bullying. But there is an enormous stench of hypocrisy regarding this saga, and more than a hint of skulduggery from a corporation that consistently promotes blonde supermodels as newsreaders. Hypocrisy is sadly not limited to Sky Sports and while the media have feasted over their fall from grace. Surely everyone will acknowledge they too make untoward remarks about their friends, colleagues and family that are never intended to be made public.

Earlier this year the Business Secretary Vince Cable was subject to an undercover tabloid sting by the Daily Telegraph. In an underhand interview, the otherwise popular and highly respected politician came across as arrogant, conceited and with an embarrassingly high opinion of himself. Once again the Business Secretary was having a private conversation and expressed views that he would never have made in public. It is clear that by demanding perfection in public figures and expecting them to be ‘on message’ in private you are always likely to be disappointed.

What many people are forgetting is that Andy Gray is one of two best football broadcasters of all time. While his position has rightly became untenable due to the offensive nature of his remarks. The electronic bear pit of the modern media has only served to prove that hypocrisy has no bounds. People aren’t willing to comprehend anything less than perfection and compete against each other to be most condemnatory. But is it really fair that two otherwise decent men are subject to the same public scorn as Nick Griffin for having a puerile conversation?

Most of us are never more than bundles of contradictory and complementary selves. Everyone carries different masks and express changeable views and opinions to suit nature of the occasion. But these fickle and crude inperfections are rarely exposed in the public eye.  While the former Sky Sport presenters were clearly wrong to express such immature views and have been sorely punished. This underhand sting  has only served to damage the promising career of Sian Massey and does nothing to improve gender equality in sport. But more importantly it exposes a society that refuses to acknowledge that decent people will have flaws.

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