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Sporting behaviour and team discipline – on or off the pitch

When it comes to sport – one of the main interests of columnists on this website – the Rust has a number of recurring subjects, issues and themes. Currently there’s plenty happening on the world stage – no surprise there – but today I’ve decided to post some personal reflections upon the issues of athlete behaviour, team discipline and the standards we expect of our sports stars.

I’m just taking just two examples:

In the world of cricket, Ben Stokes’s notorious night out – see here – THE INDEPENDENT

To be honest I have not been following (at the level of blow-by-blow developments) the ‘wee hours of the morning outside a nightclub incident’ in which Ben Stokes and Alex Hayes were involved in any detail. I have not seen the video footage of it, nor have I seen that in which apparently Stokes mocks the Page 3 model Katie Price’s disabled son.

However, Stokes has ‘previous’ in terms of on and off-field antics and – as they always to do – the authorities have managed to get their knickers in a twist over how to deal with an individual who is both one of those first-named for any England squad but also appears to be a bit of a behavioural liability ‘waiting to go off at any moment’.

Youthful indiscretions may be one thing, but Stokes is 26 and – if one might expect that someone was ever going to grow up – you’d perhaps have expected him to rein himself in a bit before now.

On the other hand, all sports throw up ‘difficult to manage’ individuals of great talent from time to time and one of the perceived great balancing arts of outstanding management is that of getting the best out of such animals for the good of the team versus (perhaps as a last resort) getting rid of them because they tend to cause disharmony and/or disruption to the greater causes of team unity and success.

Sadly, a perhaps relevant tome just published may be Ali: A Life (Simon & Schuster Ltd, 640 pages, currently available to buy at US$17.58 on Amazon) by Jonathan Eig, which goes into forensic detail on a number of aspects of Muhammad Ali’s life, including his descent into Parkinson’s and his incessant womanising – something that was apparently an open secret even at the height of his boxing career but, in a convenient conspiracy between journalists and Ali’s management, barely referred to in public.

See here for a review – NEW YORK TIMES

What this seems to highlight to me is the issue of what we expect of our most celebrated superstars, whether they be sportsmen or women, actors, musicians or artists.

Do we expect them to be ‘whiter than white’ [sorry for the ironic phrase when so many of the greatest are not Caucasian] role models for youngsters – or to what extent is their personal character to be deemed irrelevant? Does it even matter whether a top soccer star is a pillar of society, happily married and faithful to his wife and children … or in fact a bit of a sleazy bedroom ‘player’ who seems incapable of keeping it in his trousers (as Jeremy Kyle might say).

To what degree do we insist on putting great sportsmen and women on a pedestal and making them conform to our – or somebody’s – ideals of normal or good behaviour … and/or, to go to the other extreme, to what extent would we prefer them to be like all the rest of us ordinary human beings, who have as many failings and weaknesses as you could include in a ten-page stapled-together list but which (thankfully) never get exposed to public view, with the only difference being that they’re a world class all-round batter and medium-to-fast bowler who can also bring off stupendous catches from time to time?

In women’s football, the latest developments on the seemingly absurd not to say incompetent manner in which the Football Association got around to sacking Mark Sampson, England women’s head coach – see here – DAILY TELEGRAPH

FA Chairman Greg Clarke

It’s so easy to kick a horse when it is down, but this is yet another example of a sporting body who seems terminally incapable of running itself or its sport with integrity, principle or indeed much authority.

Ever since the grubby deals cobbled together that brought the English Premier League into existence – and the Football Association is neither the first nor will it be the last sporting governing body that dealt with a potentially existential threat by effectively saying to the power-brokers “You set up a structure that suits you and, if you agree to put us on top as administrator, we’ll run it in our collective mutual interests” – the Football Association has spent the past quarter-century notionally ‘overseeing’ standards in its sport of all description but in practice actually mostly going along with whatever commercial and other developments unfold because self-preservation is its biggest motivating factor of all.

This is what happens whenever you pick a series of second-rate time servers and/or well-meaning but congenitally weak ‘name’ (but tame) individuals to serve as your chairman who then merely preside over what goes on – rather than genuine A-listers possessed of sufficient charisma, managerial talent to drive through the changes that would have made any difference.

In this particular case, again, I’m not 100% sure of what behaviour Mark Sampson was accused during his tenure at the Bristol academy (though it sounds from the hints I’ve seen that his supposed ‘inappropriate behaviour’ involved having some sort of relationship with a player).

However, from my perspective, this is simply just another example of the clash between the standards of behaviour expected of people in a ‘teacher/pupil’ or ‘employer and employee’ type relationship … and what happens all over the world whenever human beings (male and female, same-sex or even indeterminate gender) get thrown together in close working or other social proximity … and then ‘stuff happens’.

Way, way back in the Dark Ages of the 20th Century didn’t Tommy Docherty have an affair with the wife of a club physio when he was manager of Manchester United? (Or was it that the club physio had an affair with Docherty’s wife?). Anyway, one way or another an affair took place … and somebody had to go.

I return to my previous question. What standards do we expect of our elite sportsmen and women – and indeed those who work with, or manage, them?

Those typical of a nun or perhaps a eunuch? Or perhaps just those of any other human being we might come across?

Let me give you a for instance – I don’t know any real names and this is a theoretical example only. But supposing that by chance the event that one of our ‘golden girl’ Olympic athletes took part in at the Rio games in 2016 was scheduled in the first few days and that therefore afterwards she had another fortnight or more to spend in the Olympic Village, effectively at a loose end?

We’ve all heard the media rumours about how many condoms were issued to participants in Rio (and indeed at every Olympics these days) – wasn’t it 40,000?

And supposing our heroine happened to get stuck into the endless partying with all those super-fit athletes from 150 (or whatever it is) countries, and ended up having say a week-long liaison with a Brazilian canoeist … or even a string of three or four one-night stands … before flying home on the team airliner.

What’s it to do with any of us? Or, alternatively, do we have the absolute right to have it reported in depth within the gossip pages of the Daily Mail or OK magazine?

And how is our heroine to be consigned to history? As a bit of a party girl … or even as a bit of a slapper who, given two Babychams and a vodka shot, is practically anybody’s?

Or just a perfectly normal 25 year old modern female who is comfortable and relaxed with her own sexuality and lifestyle?

I don’t know. Perhaps this is an ‘Answers please, on a postcard, to …’ moment.

Or maybe nothing more than a comment upon what the 21st Century cult of personality and celebrity has brought us to.

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About Tom Hollingworth

Tom Hollingsworth is a former deputy sports editor of the Daily Express. For many years he worked in a sports agency, representing mainly football players and motor racing drivers. Tom holds a private pilot’s licence and flying is his principal recreation. More Posts