Football’s Ugly Face

‘MUCH as we admire the footballing abilities of Manchester United, it’s hard to like the Old Trafford outfit.

”Save all your kisses for me”

Last night, Alex Ferguson’s men won at Bolton and stole a march on their Premiership rivals, with Arsenal only drawing at Everton and Chelsea losing at home to Liverpool.

“The Chelsea defeat and Arsenal draw are both great for us – it’s been a good night’s work,” says Ferguson in the Sun.

The facts are true enough, but you imagine the man saying it with his usual charmless swagger. It’s a pity that this image should cloud that of Paul Scholes producing the form that causes the Sun to write the headline “Ginger’s Stinger”.

And then there’s the other image of Rio Ferdinand still plying his trade.

But there is worse in football, and another picture of remarkably unpleasantness is found in the Mail. It shows Everton’s Wayne Rooney planting a smacker on the lips of the Toffees’ goalscorer Tomasz Radzinski.

Of course, if they are happy, then so be it. And, indeed, such fine male bonding makes for a far more pleasant read than the Sun’s front-page story about the alleged rape of a teenager by a gang of footballers.

The news is that Chelsea’s Carlton Cole and Newcastle’s Titus Bramble will not face any charges for the alleged attack and are free to go.

But the two-page story inside the paper, which tells of how the pair and one other player “roasted” an impressionable, star-struck teenager, shows them and football’s moneyed youth in a poor light.

Perhaps the most shocking thing about the case is that anyone should consider the likes of Bramble and Cole worthy of their admiration in the first place.

But while mundane, overpaid footballers dirty the hands that feed them, the Express catches up with one who will surely never bed any of his adoring fans, at least not without first giving them a warm cup of tea and tucking them in.

Yes, it’s time to see what Tim Henman is up to. And the Express spots our hero defeating Argentinian Juan-Ignacio Chela in the Qatar Open.

The story is accompanied by a picture that no-one beyond the Chela clan can take offence with, showing as it does our Timmy executing a sublime backhand.

It’s a nice way to end the sports news, leaving us with an image far more pleasant than anything football can come up with right now.’

Posted: 8th, January 2004 | In: Back pages Comment | TrackBack | Permalink