GLF77: Graham's thoughts on spoilt PL players and SPL reconstruction.
A VIEW FROM THE MAIN STAND
Spoilt Premier League Footballers
I couldn’t believe what I was watching when I saw Wigan v Man Utd on Match of the Day on 26th Feb. As Wayne Rooney ran past former Accie James McCarthy he chose to whack him on the side of the head with his elbow.
The ref did see it as a foul but chose to laugh and joke with the United man after the incident and, not surprisingly, on appeal uphold the original decision. Surely if he had a look at the TV pictures he would have seen a petulant, spoiled over-paid footballer acting like a street thug.
But being the superstar and great white English hope the media down there seemed to want to circle the wagons and defend him. In fact by the end of Sunday I had even heard someone on Talksport blame McCarthy for stepping in front of him.
At least by the Monday and the weak decision by the FA, some of the media did turn against him but this didn’t prevent him playing and scoring against Chelsea on the Tuesday.
Then in the paper the next day I read about Ashley Cole shooting someone at the Chelsea Training Ground with an air rifle. This is another example of a footballer out of touch with reality who thinks he is above the normal rules of society. What makes someone think it is acceptable to take any form of firearm to his workplace, never mind fire it.
As someone pointed out in a phone-in, if you or I had taken an air rifle to work and then fired it and injured someone we would have been fired on the spot. But being a Premier League footballer you get protected by your employer and turn out for them on the Tuesday.
When will someone stand up to these imposters and bring the full weight of either the law of the land or football down upon them, otherwise they are going to carry on and get even more out of control.
This also reminded me of the story around Christmas when I heard Celtic’s Anthony Stokes got fed up on a night out in London and decided to get a taxi back home. This cost him £600, again another sign of footballer’s who have more money than sense!
Where will it all end, I wonder……
SPL Reconstruction
Will it ever happen? The latest plans for reconstruction raised its head just before the end of last year and ever since then all we have heard is how clubs are falling out and no one really appears to be behind a ten team league.
It seems to me people have forgotten the last time we had a top ten SPL and how crap the football was, with teams playing even more defensively than they are at the moment.
But the amazing thing is there appears to be only two options on the table for the SPL board to review, as Vice Chairman Derek Weir told us at a recent Q and A at Fir Park. Either we move to a top League of 10 and a second tier of 12 or retain the status quo!
The 14 team league was seemingly thrown out as too many clubs would not vote for this leaving us with the mess we are in.
It is beginning to look as though what we will end up with is some form of hideous compromise, the first of which would appear to be the early start to the season that has been announced. While clubs are looking for us to go the whole hog to the start of July the SPL come up with the 23rd of July!!
This also coincides with Celtic already having signed up for a tournament in Dublin the following weekend. This then forces the authorities to allow clubs to opt out of one weekend early in the season!!
Neil Doncaster has also mentioned that the two leagues could also have merged by the start of next season. What does this actually mean, will we have all clubs under the auspices of the SPL or will they be under the SFL (as it should be!!).
As usual we seem to be overrun by half baked thinking from the top to bottom of our game, and goodness knows what we will end up with. Is the future of our game safe in the hands of the people who are deciding what the next steps are….
Beating Celtic – or Rangers for that matter - while always a good thing, it does quickly become a pain in the proverbial when you get back to work.
People are quick to thank you for beating the other lot, and when you explain the result was all about getting three points for our own aims, and nothing to do with helping anyone else the are left incredulous.
Of course you also get the conspiracy theorists who moan about us losing 6-0 to Rangers and then outplaying Celtic, but they forget the shit we had to put up with against St. Mirren in between!
And then of course it was the pitch, the referee, or whatever but nothing to do with the fact Celtic were awful on the day and we were excellent. I would also like to add we played some decent football on the pitch and also the referee seemed to give every 50:50 decision to Celtic.
Still couldn’t get enough for a few days after the win at the end of Feb!!
Graham Barnstaple
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