Sporting Heaven

Weekends like these that restore people’s faith in sport. The weekend came to a breathtaking climax yesterday with Sergio Aguero smashing Manchester City to the top of the table to see them crowned as champions for the first time since 1968. The race for the title was a glorious ingredient in a day of Premier League drama which eventually saw Botlon Wanderers relegated to the Championship along with Blackburn Rovers & Wolves.


This meant Mark Hughes, who was appointed manager in place of Neil Warnock back in January, completed his mission of keeping Queens Park Rangers in the top flight of English football. This morning, Rangers’ owner Tony Fernandes said that we can expect a big announcement from the club in the coming days. This coupled with Hughes’ defiant post-match interview promising the club won’t be fighting relegation under his watch again leads us to assume that they’ll be a busy club in the transfer market this summer.

The other triumphant teams on grand slam Sunday were Arsenal and Tottenham, who secured vital top four finishes. Arsenal finished third which means they qualify automatically for the Champions League, bypassing a qualifying trip to Poland in mid-August. It was a perfect send-off for Pat Rice who leaves Arsenal’s coaching staff having been involved since 1984 and given the turbulent start to the campaign which saw 72% of fans calling for Arsene Wenger to be sacked; it’s not turned out to be a bad campaign at all for the Frenchman. He’s already signalled his intent for next season by signing Lukas Podolski from Cologne as well as being in talks with a handful of other big names, but the true test for him will be getting their talismanic leader, Robin Van Persie, to sign a new contract at the club. After receiving the golden boot award for an incredible 37 goals this year, he hinted that a move was likely, stating,

"I have been playing here for eight years and I love this club. Whatever happens that will never change."

If they can acquire the services of some of the big names, it will show the ambition that Arsenal have been lacking in the transfer window for the past few years. This may encourage the Dutchman to put pen to paper, but with every club in Europe willing to offer him a contract, you couldn’t begrudge him a move elsewhere.

Their North London rivals have a very different situation and they must play the waiting game to find out their fate. Harry Redknapp has already expressed where his allegiances lie and he’ll be hoping that Byern Munich can confirm their position as favourites and beat Chelsea in the Champions League final next week. If Chelsea manage to defy the odds again in the final and win, they earn the right to defend their title, which would mean Spurs drop into the Europa League.

Liverpool finished the season in a familiarly unremarkable fashion as they failed to score away at Swansea to finish 8th in the Premier League. A word of congratulations must be in order for Brendan Rogers’ men who treated 12,000 Elvis look-a-likes to a 1-0 over the Merseyside team. The reason for the mass fancy dress was a quote by the bookmakers at the start of the season who gave better odds for Elvis to play another live gig than for Swansea to be playing in the premier league next season. They’ve finished 11th and have played some wonderful football claiming the scalp champions Manchester City along the way. Kenny Dalglish may have all Liverpool fans under a spell, but the rest of us know he’s got so much work to do and at the moment, he’s simply not coming up with the goods. His recruitment has been diabolical and he’s got into a terrible habit of paying over the odds for distinctly average footballers. Rumours in Merseyside are that he’s in talks with West Brom for a potential £18m move for their reserve keeper Marton Fulop who endured the most torturous afternoon a professional sportsman can experience. He was completely to blame for all three of Arsenal’s goals and if ever there was a man who needed a hug, it was the Hungarian and it’s safe to say that everyone watching would have happily provided a shoulder for the keeper to cry on.

With all these winners, it means of course that there must be losers and no-one lost more this weekend than Bolton Wanderers who took the plunge in the most desperate fashion. They could only manage a 2-2 draw at the Britannia Stadium but both Stoke goals came directly from shocking decisions from Chris Foy. The first goal was nothing short of a farce, Adam Bodgan had the ball firmly in to hands about two yards from goal when Jonathan Walters bundled into him and the impact was such that the keeper and the ball ended up in the back of the net. Foy deemed this to be a perfectly legal act and despite the Stoke striker never making contact with the ball, he was on the score-sheet. The referee’s second blunder came with the score at 2-1 to the visitors when he deemed that Peter Crouch had been brought down by the man Bogdan again. In Foy’s defence, from his angle it looked like there might have been contact, but on closer inspection, Crouch merely fell over leaving who else but Walters to drill home the penalty. Owen Coyle was very gracious in defeat considering the rough ride his team had with the officials and although he explained that the decisions didn’t help, many managers would have been much more forthright in voicing their disapproval of the officiating. He expressed his belief that the side could bounce straight back up given the calibre of the Bolton squad, although, holding onto players such as Martin Petrov may prove a stiff challenge.

The other losers on the day were Manchester United and Newcastle United, though comparable to Bolton’s loss, theirs is like Chris Moyles losing two pounds. Newcastle have had an unbelievable season considering they were promoted last year and Alan Pardew has done remarkably well in sustaining such a consistent season. He’s made two of the best signings of the season by some way in Papiss Cisse and Demba Ba’a and if he can fend off the circling vultures in the summer, it’s a strike-force that can only go from strength to strength. If the Toon Army were offered 5th place at the start of the season, they’d have snapped it up but the way the faded away in the last couple of weeks was a shame, though 5th is the least they deserve.

Manchester United missed out on their 20th title by goal difference and five minutes of injury time. Sir Alex Ferguson was as bullish as ever in his post-match interview as he welcomed the challenge of Manchester City in the years to come and that they’d have to wait 100 years until they reached United’s level of 19 titles. Love him or hate him, you must respect Fergie’s Olympic stamina to keep gong year on year and producing the goods. If there’s one thing the Scotsman knows, it’s winning titles. Fergie said in his bebrief that there’s one thing about the Premier League, if you finish at the top come the end of it, you deserve to lift the trophy.

Whether you agree or not with how Manchester City have won the league given their multi-millionaire investors; they undoubtedly deserve it. They beat their nearest rivals twice including the 6-1 demolition job at Old Trafford and despite being without Carlos Tevez for much of the year; they scored more goals than anyone else in the league and conceded fewer. The weekend, rightfully, belongs to them.

In the euphoria of Sunday’s football, the rest of the weekend’s action was somewhat swept aside. In Swansea on Friday night, we were treated to one of the best Celtic League matches ever to have been played when the Ospreys trounced Munster 45-10 in a game of outstanding quality. On Saturday the Aviva Premiership final was decided as Leicester triumphed at home to Saracens and the Harlequins came out on top against Northampton at the Stoop. Sunday was an epic day, but behind all the football there was an unlikely first-place finish for the Williams team out in Barcelona at the Spanish Grand Prix in F1. Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado registered his first ever F1 win as he took the chequered flag from pole despite heavy competition by runner-up, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso. This had the lot, with Lewis Hamilton being dropped from pole to back of the grid for running out of fuel in qualifying, Michael Schumacher and Bruno Senna crashing and blaming each other for their early retirements, a malfunctioning pit stop where a driver had to drive over a spare tyre and a raging garage fire in the Williams paddock where thankfully no-one was severely injured. On top of all that, Roger Federer won the Spanish Open tennis on the hotly debated blue clay of Madrid, Matt Kuchar won the Players Championship golf and Penarth CC beat Abergavenny CC in their first league match of the season.

Of course, in every pantomime there is a villain and this week it’s been duly accepted by Joey Barton. His embarrassing antics on the field were laughable and his ongoing feuds on twitter reflect him not only as a sportsman, but a man. The reason for the red card may be questionable as it seemed both he and Carlos Tevez were in the wrong, however, his actions after being shown the red card are completely indefensible. He’s publicly admitted on twitter that as soon as he knew he was sent off, he deliberately tried to get a reaction from one of the Manchester Ctiy players so that they would be walking down the tunnel with him. After striking out at Sergio Aguero, he then attempted a feeble head-butt on Vincent Kompany before being escorted from the putch by none other than opposition fullback Micah Richards. This was only the beginning of the fracas as he became entangled in a war of words on twitter with Robbie Savage and Gary Linekar regarding the BBC broadcast of Match of the Day, claiming he was being personally victimised. Mark Hughes is a good manager and seems like a good bloke, the best thing he could do for football and for humanity is sack Joey Barton and send him to the streets where he’ll inevitably end up where he belongs; prison.

All in all, it was a pretty good weekend. All that’s left to do now is keep an eye out Mario Balotteli’s picture on the front of the tabloid papers, because surely his celebration antics are going to be deliciously entertaining.

Red Card Crisis?

Yesterday’s football was unfortunately overshadowed by two red cards, one that should have been and one that shouldn’t.

Queens Park Rangers’ captain Joey Barton was dismissed by referee Neil Swarbrick for an alleged head-butt on Norwich’s Bradley Johnson after the two came together following a clash off the ball. It was a definite turning point as Rangers, who were leading 1-0 through a well taken Barton goal, went on to lose the game 2-1 with the Canaries striking through Pilkinton in the 1st half and Morison late on. Meanwhile, some 130 miles up the country at Molineux, Frank Lampard was centre of attention with a reckless first-half challenge on Adam Hamill which resulted in a yellow card. The tackle was certainly worthy of seeing red as his studs clattered into the lower shin of the Wolves man. Lampard’s instant apologetic reaction may have saved him, but nothing could come to Mick McCarthy’s rescue as Lampard finished off an 89th minute move that he started outside the box to snatch a 2-1 victory.

You couldn’t really have two more contrasting players with regards public perception. Although ‘Fat Frank’ has failed to capture the adoration of the England fans, he’s become ever-more popular with other teams’ fans over the past year (probably because he’s not playing as much and thus not inflicting as much damage) and has developed into a very likeable footballer. Joey Barton, on the other hand, is a hate figure for anyone outside Loftus Road. His criminal record and playing antics have vilified him up and down the country and despite gaining many supporters through twitter; he’s still well-known in the footballing world for being a bit of a dick.

It’s inevitable that this has an impact on decisions over the course of the season, it just so happens that it occurred twice in one weekend and both incidents led to the teams on the wrong end of the officiating coming away from the fixtures with nothing. The two players were again on opposite ends of the spectrum when it came to their post-match analysis of the incidents. Barton was bullish in his defence on twitter posting,

“Hopefully [the] ref sees it retrospectively and sees he's been conned.”

"[I] feel for the officials; they've been conned. I was pulled back first, then kicked second," Barton tweeted after being sent off for the first time in his QPR career.

"Linesman definitely never saw it, all he saw was Johnson's reaction. My head doesn't move forward at all. Ridiculous decision. [I've] seen 25 replays."

And he was backed by his boss, who in his post match interview stated,

"The assistant referee has guessed, if I'm honest, who says cheats don't prosper? Bradley has conned him.”

Frank Lampard was far more withdrawn in his verdict of the events as he admitted,

"My heart was in my mouth, there was no malice - and I honestly mean that - but I was late and I might have been a bit lucky to stay on the pitch. I said straight away to Hammill that I was very sorry. I was trying to get my foot in and I was maybe lucky."

No maybe about it, Lampard was lucky, Barton was not. There’s a classic cliché used in the world of football – “you make your own luck in this game”. Let’s take a look back at an incident at the start of the season when Barton was playing for Newcastle. He played centre stage in the pantomime that was the sending off of Arsenal’s Ivory Coast international striker, Gervinho. The two came together following a blatant Gervinho dive, Barton pulled him up by his shirt to confront him and Gervinho pushed him away, slapping Barton’s face on the way through. He duly collapsed into a heap clutching his face and the Arsenal man was given his marching orders by Peter Walton, who incidentally the referee who was in charge at Molenieux on Monday. Although he later admitted he was not proud of his actions, it was still a despicable example of gamesmanship that has become all too familiar on a football pitch.

Conversely, Frank Lampard’s reputation might well have saved him. You rarely see him confronting referees or opposition players in the manner in which many premier league players do, including Joey Barton. He was probably spared the red card because ‘he’s not that type of player’. Although this is completely wrong, it will always work in your favour whereas if you ‘are that type of player’, more often than not it will count against you.

This is where the officials need assistance. There is so much of it going on that they can’t possibly spot everything. In almost every other sport there are citing officers, but in football, there is nothing. Once the 90 minutes is up any foul play, with the exception of verbal abuse, is left unpunished. Citing officers could see the end of the most aggravating feature in football, players who dive. This could also have a role-reversal whereby red cards given could be over-hauled without the club having to risk an appeal and dismissing the 3-match bans that are inflicted on players on the receiving end of a sending off.

Far too often, challenges and incidents are influenced by the people involved and the countless times we here managers coming out defending their players with the catchy tag line “he’s not that type of player, he’s a good kid”. The player’s character should be irrelevant when it comes to sanctioning punishment for on-field actions. Although Joey Barton got his just deserts, the decision in itself was an incorrect one. Neither referee nor linesman saw the incident; otherwise play would have been immediately stopped. They made their judgement on the basis of the players involved and the reaction of the players. This is where rugby league is miles ahead of any other sport in the world with their report system. With so many physical confrontations in a match, they share a difficulty with football referees in that they simply cannot keep an eye on every aspect of play. If an incident occurs in rugby league and the official isn’t 100% of what has happened, he raises he stops play, calls the player over and explains to his that the incident is going ‘on report’. He then signals with his arms crossed above his head before restarting the game in the appropriate manner.

It’s understood that a refusal to use video replays and television match officials in football is down to the stoppages affecting the flow of the game. If that’s the case, then what’s the argument against citing officers or the ability for referees to place players on report? Surely fans, players and managers would prefer a referee to say I didn’t see it fully, I’m not entirely sure what the sanction should be, therefore I’m going to put the incident on report and the players involved can be punished retrospectively as opposed brandishing cards and hoping that they pick the right colour.

Picture the scene, Neil Swarbrick walks over to Bradley Johnson and Joey Barton having spoken to his assistant and says,
“Lads, neither me nor my linesman have seen the incident and I can’t punish something I haven’t seen. I’m going to place the incident on report, now cut out the niggle and get on with it.”
Barton stays on the pitch, the game is played out 11 against 11 and no one can have any complaints.

If football really wants to clean up the game, then it’ll happen. Unfortunately, incidents such as yesterday are seen to be part and parcel of the game, which is very tragic indeed.