The art of scoring an own goal
Yesterday a little after lunch, at a loose end and completely by chance, I had Sky News playing on the television in the corner of my room whilst tootling around on the internet on my computer when – out of the blue – anchor presenter Kay Burley suddenly announced that coverage was crossing live to Parliament for the appearance of female soccer star Eni Aluko in front of the Commons’ Department of Culture, Media and Sport Committee.
Thereafter, in a varying mode of focus and interest, I listened/watched the unfolding proceedings for about forty minutes in a context where apparently a just-released independent inquiry seemed to have found that sacked former England women’s head coach Mark Sampson had indeed made certain racist/discriminatory comments to Aluko – as she had consistently alleged and he had consistently denied.
Aluko, who came across as confident and articulate, spoke impressively and dealt with interventions and questions from the Committee with assurance. Separately, I’d go so far as to state that, to me, the Committee seemed totally on her side and against the performance of the Football Association generally and its senior officers in particular in the matter.
The time for my afternoon meeting having approached, I then moved on to other things and did not catch up on subsequent proceedings until just now when I awoke and went on the newspaper websites on the internet.
Here’s a representative report on what happened written by Matt Slater as appears upon the website today of – THE INDEPENDENT
It is difficult in the extreme to escape the conclusion that the FA is an organisation largely peopled by second-rate time-serving incompetents who, whilst their good intentions and desire ‘to put something back into the game they love’ cannot be doubted, uniformly possess innate quality, talent and character that is hopelessly inadequate to the task in a fast-moving commercial and politically-correct aware modern world.
Theirs seems to be a familiar situation among those who inhabit leading sporting administrative bodies – that is to say, one in which the opportunity to inhabit VIP dining suites; to meet leading players, celebrities and even members of the Royal Family; to have automatic access to front row tickets to important matches; and to generally swan about in blazers and ties whilst basking in the perceived status that their high-falutin’ job titles and alleged responsibilities attract is both seductive and extremely flattering to the self-esteem.
My only (personal) comment on yesterday’s proceedings relates to one specific aspect – and to some Rust readers it may seem trivial or trite.
It is prompted by a certain sadness – if not regret – at the manner in which political-correctness seems to have invaded the modern world and here I’m referring to what might be termed the genre of ‘sporting banter’, which down the ages has always added a certain healthy spice to all games and sports – albeit here I leave aside for the moment consideration of whether (what began in cricket as) ‘sledging’ [verbals intended to chip away at the confidence and/or concentration of an opponent] is a healthy strand of the phenomenon or not.
Let me cut to the chase.
With regard to the alleged offensive comments made by Mark Sampson – in Eni Aluko’s specific case, when she mentioned to him that members of her Nigerian family would be travelling to the UK to watch her play in a particular England match, he apparently quipped “Make sure they haven’t got ebola …” (or similar) and, in the case of fellow England player Drew Spence, in which he apparently said “Haven’t you been arrested before? Four times isn’t it?” – in the present circumstances, of course, these come across as slam-dunk out of order and inappropriate.
To anyone interjecting that – to a degree, as (to widen my point, hopefully without weakening it) happens with sexist or sexually ‘iffy’ behaviour as we know from the current Harvey Weinstein furore – sometimes the seriousness of an offensive remark depends upon the propensity of the ‘victim’ to take offence, the stock (and one might think conclusive) push-back is that in the modern world by now people should generally be more aware of political correctness issues than perhaps they were in the past.
Let me give a couple of hackneyed and well-known examples of what I mean:
In one cricket Test Match between England and the West Indies played in England back in the day, England fast bowler Fred Trueman came into bat at about Number 8 or 9 late in the afternoon at a point in the game when England were under the cosh.
The light was poor and there were six or seven West Indian fielders crowding around the batting crease, including in leg-slip and silly mid-off and silly mid-on positions. Before taking his batting stance, Trueman famously looked around at them and quipped “If you buggers don’t move back a bit I’m going to appeal against the light!”
Back then – one is given to understand – this qualified simply as banter and caused hilarity all round and no offence whatsoever. I’d venture to suggest that, possibly depending upon the Test opponents in question, this might not be the case if the same remark was made by an England batsman in 2017. (Mind you, maybe in 2017 no England batsman would ever consider making such a remark anyway).
We all smile at the possibly-apocryphal tale of plump Zimbabwean cricketer Eddo Brandes coming out to bat against Australia in a Test Match and being greeted by legendary Aussie pace bowler Glen McGrath with the sledge “Hey Eddo, why are you so fat?” to which Brandes shot back “Because every time I fuck your wife she gives me a biscuit …”
I’d hazard a guess that it’s technically quite possibly that, if this exchange was to be repeated in 2017, the ‘thought police’ in the ICC would have McGrath immediately up on a charge of being ‘fattist’ … if not also Brandes for being sexist.
One might even go so far as to put forward the suggestion that the 1992 movie White Men Can’t Jump starring Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson – the title based upon the supposed notion that black athletes are inherently able to jump higher and further than their white counterparts – could never get made in 2017.
Well, not under that title anyway.
Because that’s racist, innit?
Hopefully you can see where I’m coming from. Since the beginning of time sportsmen and women have used whatever means they can think of to gain a competitive advantage over their opponents. That’s where performance-enhancing drugs, pre-fight boxing ‘trash talk’, outrageous boasting and/or ‘banter’ and sledging come into the equation.
All I’m suggesting is that ‘sporting banter’ is part of society and life as it is lived – and always has been throughout history.
Comedians have even made careers out of it.
Who, like me, can remember the broad Yorkshire-accented black stand-up comedian Charlie Williams – formerly one of the first black professional footballers after the Second World War in Britain, playing 171 times for Doncaster Rovers – who used to appear regularly on ITV’s showcasing series The Comedians and then on The Golden Shot?
Not only was he a great comic, but for a while he was immensely popular – precisely because he made as much fun of his colour as he did of everything else in life.
Not for nothing was one of his famous catch-phrases to his audiences “Go on, laugh … or I’ll come and live next door to yer!”
Here’s a brief clip of Charlie, who died in 2006, during his heyday, appearing on The Comedians – see here – YOUTUBE