This Sporting Life
‘MICKY Adams, the Leicester City manager, says he felt a moral obligation to resign his post in the wake of his players trip to La Manga.
|
| A man’s game? |
The Telegraph hears Adams talk of these being his darkest days, as three of his side languish in a Spanish prison amid allegations that they forced themselves on three German women.
He says that he could have done more, chiefly to have put his team on a curfew. I treated them like adults and I expected them to behave like adults, he said.
He should have known better. Although the players have been proved guilty of nothing, mud sticks and Adams might have noticed that a couple of years back Leicester Citys adults disgraced themselves in the same resort.
And while Leicester is sullied, the entire sport of racing is in the mire.
The Guardian marks a black day for the sport, when yesterday the Jockey Club charged four people with running a horse they knew to be lame and then backing it to lose.
On the same day, Kieren Fallon was being banned for 21 days for his performance at Lingfield, when his mount, Ballinger Ridge, lost from a winning position.
Such is the damage done to the credibility of the sport of horse racing that the Guardian sees events at Fontwell through suspicious eyes.
In contention with the race leader, Sean Fox and his ride Ice Saint appear to take the ninth fence with ease only for Fox to find that he cannot stay in the saddle. He slips off.
Nothing much in that, until the Guardian shows us how the odds on Ice Saint winning the race drifted from 10-11 overnight to as high as 6-1 on the day.
The results is that Ice Saint lost, and, as the Times says, Fox was found guilty of stepping off his horse and banned for 21 days by local stewards.
You can, of course, get much slimmer odds on Manchester United beating Porto tonight in the Champions League.
The Sun hears Gary Neville, Rio Ferdinands apologist-in-chief, calling Porto a bunch of girls in the Sun.
They were supposed to be men we were playing, he said, yet they were rolling round the pitch like they had been shot and that is not good for football.
Quite so. And how much we were cheered to see football restore its image when Gary pushed his head into Steve McManamans face and Roy Keane extend his studs into an opponents chest.
More like them, and the game will be back where it belongs…’
Posted: 9th, March 2004 | In: Back pages Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
