Does anyone else feel like they are just waiting for something to happen? writes blogger Jarrod Hill.
No new signings, no new owner, no new sponsor, and no new shirts, although reports suggest we are expecting to confirm Paddy McCourts signature this week, it has kind of left me short of Albion material to write about.
So I have decided to raise a discussion point me and my brother in law had last week.
My nephew Noah is six years old and quite simply, football mad. He eats sleeps and dreams football, an Albion season ticket holder, if he is not playing football; he is reading about it or watching it. He plays for Warstone Wanderers and last week I went down to watch him train and then play a game, as you can imagine at the age of six the coaches and parents are keen on keeping everything relaxed and the focus is very much on having fun and enjoying learning the game.
The thing that really got me thinking was some of the actions, reactions and gestures that these six-year-olds were acting out. There was a whole repertoire of actions for missed goal attempts; they ranged from throwing themselves on the floor through to the Ronaldo (holding their hands in a prayer motion). There was over reactions to fouls, tears, and goal celebrations that would make Zoltan Gera’s back flip look tame in comparison.
We are always hearing pundits and journalists trotting out the age old cliché about the kids in the park copying whatever they see their heroes do on a Saturday afternoon or on Match of the Day, and they are right.
As Dean (my brother in law) rightly pointed out, professional footballers are placed on such high pedestals and given such a vast amount of media exposure that it is confusing for kids when their parents and coaches are trying to explain that their over theatricals are not the done thing.
He went on to say that you try to highlight the type of players who are good role models, players who display all that is good about the game, but they are either thin on the ground or end up letting you down, a la John Terry. I considered him a leader of men, a man’s man, as strong mentally as he his physically, then on the biggest stage possible he does exactly what we try to convince our kids not to do, cry because you have lost.
My dad simply puts it down to the foreign invasion in our game, and many pundits try to refrain from this point of view for fear of being labelled as prejudice or even racist.
But when you look at the biggest offenders in our game most people will name the same players nine times out of ten, and I bet the majority of them are foreign and nearly everybody’s list includes Ronaldo and Drogba.
The problem is they are helping to mould our young players’ attitudes toward the game. The English football team may not be world beaters but we have always been held in high regard all over the world for our honest approach to the game and our stiff upper lip persona, my fear, is that within a very short space of time this proud English football heritage will be lost forever.
41 Comments
Footballers today are a load of ‘ninnies’ compared to yesteryear.
Back in the days of Ron ‘Chopper’ Harris, Norman ‘ bite your legs’ Hunter etc no player would cry or roll over in spectacular fashion as they do today. They would have the ‘magic sponge’ applied, get up and play on, nowadays we have players who roll over, feign injury to the face when they have been tackled on the legs and so much more, it is pathetic!
Unfortunately as you say Jarrod, kids of today of all ages see footballers as their idols and then go and practise what they have seen.
This should be discouraged at all times by coaches and managers alike and the English spirit of ‘get up and play on’ should be the norm and not the cry-baby antics of todays professional players.
As I said they are all ‘ninnies’ and considering the money they get paid, well, forget the shorts next season boys, try Pampers, much more suitable don’t you think?
Oh so true Jarrod !! Professional players have a lot to answer for. When my lad was younger (he’s 21 now !!) I used to help coach a team (helped them from U10 to U15) and all the play acting was prevalent then. I don’t think there’s anything you can do to stop it.
Taking this discussion a little further. At that time (don’t know about now) there was also a very sinister side to youth football and that was the parents !! On so many occasions I’ve seen managers literally bully their players. One parent even threatened to go on the pitch and break his sons leg if he didn’t get up off the floor after a particularly hard (but fair)tackle. I lost count of the times that parents would swear their heads off throughout a game, and we wonder why there is no respect these days !! Don’t know what anyone else thinks about this or can give an insight in what it’s like today ? Is it still Bad ?
Anyway, good blog Jarrod - nice to flex the old brain cell on something other than Albion/Wolves Premiership/Championship etc. Keep ‘em coming my friend.
“my fear, is that within a very short space of time this proud English football heritage will be lost forever”. Too late, entreaties are in vain, your prayer I must rebuff…etc. (Maid Of The Mountains, 1917). Or, ‘All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players’ from ‘As You Like It’ by one of Baggies’ coaches, Shakespeare. Jarrod, these entertainers are on TV every week so they make their stage gestures to the cameras and microphones. And they are STAGE gestures because good film and TV actors just move a muscle, raise an eyebrow, a la George Cole as Arthur Daley in Minder. Now THAT’S class. The footballers are HAMS by comparison.
nice one Jarrod.I did wonder what subject you would get your teeth into ! I think that you are very right in your assumptions, but to take a slightly different route, and i suppose a slightly biased one too, isnt this what having Tony Mowbray as manager has given us. We have come to expect gentlemanly behavior, we have shunned over reaction to fouls, in fact our get up and carry on attitude was a joy to watch, and of course our many goal celebrations were of a team nature. So maybe the “foreign” influence is not the whole reason, and maybe the arrows ought to point to managers and coaches who ask players to make the most of free kicks, penalty claims etc etc. Anyway great blog as ever, and i hope yopur heads getting better !!!!.
Re John Terry, why is it so bad that he cried? If you missed the penalty that cost the Albion a Champions League, would you not cry? I’d be crying for weeks!
Attitudes are a big problem at youth level in this country, ask Harry Redknapp. All the young English Pompey lads are the ones on the lash, the ones that are last to leave the bar. People like Distin and Utaka have made it because they look after themselves - they dont drink.
These kids cant seperate themselves from the party scene, and its a real shame. The foreign lads WANT it more. Thats one of the many reasons why England are NOT good enough!
Jarrod I was kind of expecting something about the fixtures today you have surprised me, but never the less a very good blog indeed.
Our little one also plays he is 9 and them extra 3 years don’t change them, guarenteed every game at least 1 of the players is crying or throwing a tantrum if things don’t go right for them. Now for me if I was manager I know the game is mean’t to be for fun, so if I had any tantrums, crying or argueing with each other I’d immediatley pull them off the pitch and explain nicely why I had pulled them off the pitch, in my belief that is the only way we can now change the mentality of these younger one’s.
Jarrod spot on. who remembers Joe Jordon constantly elbowing John Wile in the face there was no fiening injury they kicked lumps out of each other. At the end of the game shook hands. That would just not happen theses days you only have to look at these foriegn stars and they fall over no bias here Korren does it and Tex loves a good roll around. As you say Jarrod this does rub off on the young kids.
Football in a way is caught between a rock and a hard place firstly you want to the best players in the world perform at your ground but for that to happen you have to put up with the players antics.
5.. I disagree England are not good enough because clubs dont back the young players of today. I visit lots of Football grounds and see lots of youth and reserve football and when you get teams like no disrespect Shrewsbury with 3 or 4 polish 16 year old lads in the reserves what chance has the English game got when the young talent has not for the want of a better word nurtured at a young age
My 15yr old nephew has been accepted into one of the more respected football academies in the Southampton area. One training session consisted solely of man marking at corners with the emphasis solely on annoying the man that was being marked in order to provoke a reaction. i.e. treading on toes,verbal abuse,pinching etc. Our kids are being taught this by supposed professional & respected coaches. I kid you not!
What a good topic. Having been involved with junior football for 15 years or so via my 3 sons, I’ve witnessed the changes you describe gradually infesting the game.
It is true these lads (and girls) are only copying what they see on television, and some of the foreign players antics are worthy of Oscars, but it is my contention that their parents (some of whom masquerade as coaches) should be telling the kids; that gamesmanship of any kind like feigning injury, timewasting or overacting is wrong. Sadly however, with some exceptions, this is not the case, and indeed it is actively encouraged. Where a kid succeeds in gaining an advantage by these means it is seen by some as being clever and improving his nous of the game, and goal celebrations that include parents running onto the pitch, picking up and kissing little Johnny because he has just scored a tap in off his knee from fully one yard out can’t be helping. No! sorry parents and coaches, it’s all your fault!
To highlight the changes in attitude, some forty plus years ago I had the good fortune to score what turned out to be the winner in a very important school match, and whilst running back to the half way line punching the air. I was told by the teacher to stop jumping up and down as I looked like a big girls blouse. What a cheek!….. God only knows he would have thought about the Klinsman dive!
wednesbury albion
I can see your point, its just that kids everywhere see their game on a Saturday or Sunday as important as a Champions League final, when i spoke to my nephew after the game (which they actually won 3-2 with him scoring a hatrick) i tried to explain that there is nothing wrong with not liking losing, but it is important that you let it go, and beleive me when i tell you i am speaking from experience.
I have always been someone who hates losing and have remained the same through my adult life, as a kid i would be upset if i lost at anything.
I was lucky enough when at Uni studying for my degree in nutrition to work with professional athletes including Worcester Cricket team and some of the GB Olympic rowing team.
I quickly realised that the difference between top athletes and others is their mental approach to training and competing.
In other countries including Australia and Germany young sports people are guided towards the benefits of having the correct attitude to go along with their talent.
Many people mock the idea of sports psychology, personally i have witnessed the results and beleive on a lot smaller degree that we can all have an effect on our own kids when competing in sport.
5 Wednesbury.
Maybe I’m old fashioned but I think everything is wrong with this. Not wanting to get too serious but when I see fathers who’s sons have died in Afghanistan crying, I think I can’t imagine the grief they must be feeling. When I see John Terry crying because he’s missed a penalty, I think ‘what a wuss.’ I’m not a racist or a Little Englander but let’s retain some British values. Toddlers cry because they don’t get what they want, men brush themselves off and get on with it.
On a lighter note. The worrying thing is not just that our players are copying the cheating tactics of some of the imports but that we aren’t as good as they are at this aspect of the game either. I’d like to see the FA and the Prem League grasp this particular thorn and take an independant intitiative. Bring in a video panel to vet every Prem game. Where a player has either made a dangerous tackle or simulated a dive or injury to gain an advantage, dish out suspensions. It wouldn’t help the team they were playing but I feel within weeks this would vitually wipe out the cheating. Hopefully it would shame UEFA and FIFA to follow suit. It wouldn’t undermine referees but would make their job easier. Let’s get back to playing the beautiful game in the way that we invented it and kick the cheats into touch.
On a different subject, i know we have had a vast amount of transfer rumours about which players we could be interested in but there are two rumours that i worry are true. Baros and Shola Ameobi!!!
Both would involve heavy investment financially, and i do not rate either one of them!!
I heard a rumour that Baros wages are over £40k a week so surely that would rule him out, and Ameobi has never impressed me and he is injury prone.
Bomber, this is the best article on football I have ever read. Why can the people in charge of football not see what you can see? Scum like Renaldo and Drogba are killing our game and changing it from something you could be proud of to something you would not want to be associated with.
Next season you will probably lose to the Mancs, the cheat will score and we will hear nothing else for days from the Renaldo worshipers. It will be so hard for you to take. If you beat us 20 -0 I could live with it if you had played well and honestly but a dive in the box for a 1-0 win and I would be angry for weeks.
I watch rugby as well as football and although I don’t subscribe totally to the theory that all is perfect with the oval ball and all is wrong with the round ball we could and should learn so much from them.
I like to think I am a reasonable sort of guy but the other day in Malvern I drove passed a bloke in a Portugal shirt with THAT name on the back and I was so close to putting the window down and giving him a load of abuse, that is what he has done to me.
These are not the ramblings of a sad old git, it’d just that I hate what they are doing to my beautiful game.
Bomber I demand that you give up writing these blogs and I want you to take over the FA, EUFA and FIFA today.
Just realised I’ve published post 11 under my pseudonym, meaning that any future artistic postings will now come from the Unmasked Poet.
PS. Seeing the picture of Ronaldo, did anyone else have a funny turn, thinking that Mr Deripaska had arrived.
Jarrod.
Like you I’d worry about both. I can’t imagine that we’ would pay Baros’ wages or that he’d take a 50% pay cut for the privelege of playing for us. Ameobi is one of those that showed great promise but never looked like fulfilling it. If TM sees something there that he can develop, I think he’s done enough for us to trust him but £4 million? Perhaps as a loan.
Did you see the Germans dropping like flys last night, 6 feet + tall and rolling over,and over,then jumping up and carrying on, they should be yellow carded for cheating.
“No new signings, no new owner, no new sponsor, and no new shirts”
Thats a sure sign that the owner wants rid without investing any needless funds………..
I’m not sure we can blame the problems in football on the foreign invasion, in the same way we can’t blame the problems with british youth culture on imigrants….
I think we should look at players like Zola, Klinsman, Schmeical ect to see the positive effects foreign players bring. Even cantona with his infamous kung fu kick is remembered for the right reasons.
In the 80’s I regularly drank with players from villa and Blues in brum - and this would be on a friday night before a game so we were hardley little angles before Ronaldo came here to fall over..
The blame lies squarley with the money available. Who here would not try to win a penalty or even a corner by cheating if the win bonus was 25k ??
Obviously I wouldn’t do that - but I can understand why it happens (yeah right).
17 - yes, this takeover stuff seems to have slowed things down - but whats wolves excuse ??
9. Baggiedad… you’re so right about how it used to be !! - and I’m not saying it was the good old days but you jogged my memory of a game when I was honoured to be the captain of my school U12side I think it was. We were getting pushed off the ball a little too much by a fair but physical side. In an attempt to gee everybody up I yelled come on lads, get stuck in and win that ball. The ref, one of my teachers stopped the game, called me over and said I was behaving in an ungentlmanly manner !! He then threatend to take the captaincy away if I did it again !! My god if we only had that sort of discipline these days we wouldn’t have half the trouble from football.
10. Malvern Wolf…your comment about rugby is so very true. I’m not saying there isn’t and bad in the game but when my lad played for a local team there was no trouble from the parents or players (ref my earlier posting)and the whole game was played with in different atmosphere - footie can learn a lot from that.
13 Malvern… Calm down get your head between you knees and breathe slowly into a brown paper bag LOL..But I know where your coming from!!
I agree “bomber for head of UEFA,FA and FIFA” and when you are bomber I ask just one tinsy little favour! Could you make it illegal in football for teams to beat our beloved ALBION. Oh go on then one more little request any team with a Wanderers in the name must be relagated to Banks division 3 (Just kidding my wolfie friends)
18 happy…how are you my friend ? You say who wouldn’t fall over claiming a penalty for a £25k win bonus. Quite right mate there is too much money at stake, but equally ref my posting at 20, the discipline in my day wouldn’t have allowed for deliberate faking like you see today regardless of the fact that the money available for players wasn’t as great as it is today. I think first and foremost we have to raise the standard of our game through being stricter on these ’simulators’ (to use the modern phraseology !!)
Good article Jarrod. I have to say that it’s only the ‘good’ players that seem to play these silly games. I think we will all be witness to it next season when the Premier players come to the Hawthorns. There will be more artistic dives going on than the Olympic Pool in China!! We didn’t get too much of that when the likes of Colchester & Burnley came here.
Just regarding Milan Baros, is he really only 26 or 27?? he seems to have been around for ages! And no i wouldn’t sign him either.
Morning Jarrod
Having a good off-season? Some of us are enjoying a blog free couple of months, but you put us to shame with your constant barrage of topics.
I wouldn’t worry too much about the lack of activity down at the Hawthorns. I think most clubs will wait to get Euro 2008 out of the way (Spain were my tip before the tourny started and are still…).
We still haven’t managed to shift any of our players and have only made one new acquisition, so I know how you feel, you just want ’stuff’ to happen!
Keep up the good work, I won’t be joining you just yet!
Cheers, Nath.
Jarrod, better still…keep writing these blogs AND take over football (but please totally ignore Baggie Boy’s requests at 21 !! (- no hard feelings my friend !!)
18 Happy.
I agree with you up to a point. Yes the foreign invasion have shown up the unprofessional behaviour of some of our players but why should we accept the bad things they bring with them while embracing the good. Am I being unreasonable in asking for the best of both worlds. In my posting No 11 (yes that was me, a rose by any other name.) I did emphasise that only some foreign players are persistant divers, to me Thierry Henry for example could have indulged in this much more than he ever did.
My main point in that posting was that players won’t self censor and the more that they see others get away with cheating, the more likely they are to think ‘if you can’t beat them etc.’ With the best will in the world, at the pace the game is played now, referees can’t be expected to spot half that goes on
Once again an excellent and thought provoking blog by Jarrod, that with a few notable exceptions has got us talking football instead of yah boo sucks.
great blog agen jarrod,i must hold my hand up about cryin, at our promotion party in the vine when he put the towels on and shouted last orders i felt a tear come in my eye AYE BOING BOING
Anyone else think Holland could be the new WBA?
Just seen that we have a friendly against Real Mallorca on 9/8/08. Trust that all of those that REALLY wanted the open top bus tour will turn up to acknowledge our Championship win.
Thanks Baggie Boy, I feel better already
Hi Bully, we are not even playing Pretend Mallorca
Handbags at 30 paces.!!
They should take a leaf out of Australian Rules Football players, they get a shirtfront, grab a 30 second breather then get back up to win the ball.
Soccer players are a load of nancies these days esp the likes of Ronaldo & Grosso.
Who can forget when that Brazilian player, name aludes me atm. that fell to ground clutching his face when the ball got kicked back to him and hit him in the shin. haha, big punce.
My kids have all played football and yes, they do copy the professionals. It’s quite funny really.
I think the main thing that needs stamping out of the game is ill discipline. We ought to learn from rugby and stamp it out right away.
Can’t agree with the John Terry critisism because he cried. I wasn’t surprised he was distraught. What gets my goat up is watching the wusses in the stands cry when their team is relagated, lost at Wembley or similar. I think get a life. In John Terry’s case - it is his life.
no 32.
Rivaldo!!
The English football team may not be world beaters but we have always been held in high regard all over the world for our honest approach to the game and our stiff upper lip persona, my fear, is that within a very short space of time this proud English football heritage will be lost forever.
….and then maybe we will win something.
Just a thought… we all fondly remember the days of chppoer harris, norman hunter, Billy bremner ect ect…. BUT…. that aspect of the game largely disappeared somr time ago. can you imagine the uproar if foreign imports started to play in that way - we could have Chopper Drogba and Bite ya legs Anelka etc ect.. and then we would all be moaning cos the skillful english game was being ruined by the nasty jonny foreigners and their eveil football.
The game has always had its cheats (hacking a player down is just as illegal as diving), its always had its flair players, its always had its dominant teams - and the englissh game has always been bettered by other countries (thats why we have only won one tournament - and that was played in england).
The main differences are that EVERY game has TV cameras so we see more - and we envy the players for all the wrong reasons.
36. Happy… hello again my friend….you seem to forget that although we had the hard men, we also have had the skilful men as well. The likes of Johnny Giles, Peter Tambling, Gerge Best, Martin Peters, Bobby Moore, Bobby Charlton…the list goes on. People seem to forget that even though we didn’t quite match the skills of Johnny Foreigner we weren’t far behind. However today not many players wear their heart on their sleeve for club or country because of the money involved in the game now. You will find out in the Prem that without big money you will struggle. As I’ve said on many an occasion I hope you do survive - without putting the club in dreadful debtdebt
I think holding down your oponents by grabbing a players shirt at free kicks, corners ect. is just as much cheating as diving is. All players do that, British players very much so. Both diving and shirt grabbing is cheat, and should be punished accordingly. Danish Baggie
Hello Filton, hope you are well….
I think we agree that there have always been skillful players here - Stan bowles, Tony Currie, Frank worthington were all fantastic, if flawed genius’s. Yet we were still unable to win a major trophy after 66….. however, when we think of the real hard men (dirty ??), we rarely name a foreign player.
Todays hard men have to be aware of the barrarge of cameras pointing at them, at that means they often have to more cunning (sly) than in the past.
Your point about needing big money to survive the prem only re-itterates my point that money is THE main problem in todays game.
Would ToMo ask a Albion player to dive in the box or argue for a corner if it meant an extra point in a game ???? Who knows…. but i hope not.
39. Happy… I absoultely agree that money is the major problem. However I also think in general that English clubs tend to stifle individual talent. Look at the times we’ve seen real talent at schoolboy & u18 level and then by the time the big clubs have got hold of them they mould them to fit the system. I think the oldsters that both of us have mentioned were given that freedom to express themselves. Yes they were flawed but by God they were exciting which is more than you can say for most English players these days. That also raises the question again of ‘are there too many foreigners in our football ?’ I think we have to have some but are we over loading the system with them ?
Happy …. forgot to add that I don’t think TM would ask one of his players to do that either.