Latest Blog posts from 5aside.co.uk

Don't Let Three Bad Apples Spoil The Bunch

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Night will follow day. Football fans will find something to moan at whatever happens, managers will blame referees when they lose, Britain’s Got Talent will be a topic of conversation in the office and I will lose the will to live.

And Carlos Tevez, Joey Barton and Jermaine Pennant will find a way to ruin everything.

All three have been at it again this week, Baton is facing a long ban for his antics during THAT game on Sunday, Tevez for his ridiculous holding up of a “RIP Fergie” banner during City’s victory parade, while today Pennant has been convicted of drink driving and driving without insurance (he has been given a suspended sentence.)

All three will have their excuses of course: Barton says he tried to take a couple of Man City players “with him,” Tevez “got caught up in the moment.” We haven’t heard from Pennant yet, but I am sure he’s bound to blame someone else.

Its tempting to say the behaviour of these three people is indicative of some general malaise in football, it is tempting to think that footballers are all egotistical, hedonistic money grabbing morons who don’t live in the real world but that is not the case.

I am always reminded at these points of something a mate of mine said about 10 years ago when Lee Bowyer spent more time on the front pages than the back. “An idiot is an idiot,” said my friend. “Whether he’s £300 a week or £30,000” and that is a viewpoint I have agreed with over the years.

All football does in that respect is mirror society and just as the vast majority of people are law abiding, reasonable individuals then so it is with footballers. Pennant, Barton and Tevez are no more representative of all footballers than they represent the whole of society.

The key difference with these men is they keep making the same mistakes and seemingly don’t get properly punished. Tevez is a fabulous footballer, Barton and Pennant are less good, obviously, but they still receive more adoration than criticism and that doesn’t seem right. And don’t get me started on John Terry!

These people need to understand how lucky they are to do a job that all of us would love to do. But they don’t, because as my mate pointed out a decade ago, an idiot is an idiot.

And as we know idiots never lear n

Best Season Ever? You Sure?!

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No one can argue that the end to the Premier League season was remarkable. The scenes following Sergio Aguero’s goal were something that we haven’t witnessed for a generation and those last two minutes might just be the most exciting climax to a season ever – certainly since 1989 when Michael Thomas’ goal gave Arsenal the title with more or less the last kick of the season.

No one can dispute either that – particularly when the big teams met – there were some great games and that some of the football played was superb on occasion. There was also a tally of goals that apparently is the best since the Premier League began in 1992.

But when, on Match of the Day on Sunday night, Messrs Hansen, Shearer and Lineker proclaimed it to be the “best ever “ Premier League season, are we sure they weren’t just engaging in a bit of hype?

Simply put, I would argue differently. I would argue that whilst the end was exciting (and the way Man City overhauled the lead of their rivals was quite incredible) the quality just isn’t there in the way that it used to be.

City and United were the best teams, but the rest rather flattered to deceive. Arsenal were a shadow of their former selves and came third because they had Robin Van Persie. Spurs showed that they were nowhere near title contenders. Newcastle worked miracles to get where they were with the team they had and Chelsea’s period of transition looks like it might be couple of seasons before it’s completed.

What of the rest? Everton were ok, Liverpool’s expensive gamble didn’t pay off and then there were a vast amount of teams in the middle who will not look back on the campaign with any pride. The likes of Sunderland, Stoke and Villa have largely just plodded along, doing just enough to not seriously be in trouble really.

Norwich and Swansea performed admirably in their first season up and The Swans in particular impressed many with the standard of their football, while QPR for all the money they spent, just kept themselves up.

The teams at the bottom were bad. Wolves had a horrible season – despite briefly topping the table in August, Blackburn was a car crash waiting to happen and Bolton never recovered from their bad start in the way Wigan did. And in fairness to Wigan, who was better to watch than them in the last two months?

This is the first time for 10 years that all three promoted teams have stayed up. Now, granted QPR took it to the last day and spent a lot of money to do it. But that is not the case for the other two. Both Norwich and Swansea, it is fair to say stayed up with ease and never looked in any serious danger of going down. Is this a one off blip, or does it signify that the gap between the Championship and the Premier League is closing? And if that is the case then is the quality getting better in the Championship, or is it a top level decline?

There is more to a great season than just a list of teams. It’s about moments. It’s about skill and the quality of player seems to have diminished. There are some fine players in the Premier League, of course, but it does seem to me that the standard of the players is not as high as it was a few years ago.

Where are Bergkamps, the Le Tissier’s, the Henry’s, the Cantona’s? Those magnificent players that you would have paid to watch. This is – by common acknowledgement perhaps the worst Manchester United team for years and yet it came second. What does that say about the other contenders? Indeed, what does it say about Manchester United themselves that they were able to pull a man out of retirement and he looked their best player? In fact, what does that say about the rest of the league?

It is true to say that there is always a tendency to look back at the past and think everything was better and maybe there is an element of that here. However, if Manchester United had beaten Wigan and Everton as they would normally have, would anyone have been saying it was the greatest campaign in the last 20? But a great finish to the season does not necessarily accurately reflect what has gone on in the other months.

So maybe, when the dust has settled and the euphoria has died down, the 2011/12 Premier League season will be remembered as “the one with THAT end, but apart from that nothing else much happened.”

Not that Manchester City supporters are ever going to care.

There Ain't No Business Like The Football Business

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Working as we do in a business that deals with selling football it is tempting to view the greatest game in the world just in terms of pounds and pence.

However on Sunday it reminded us of all its wonderful, glorious majesty. How it can be the finest and most exciting thing there is.

Two goals in injury time to win the league? It’s like the plot of a Hollywood film they rejected for being to far-fetched. Hell, even Roy of the Rovers might have tried it and had to apologise the following week.

In the midst of the unbridled joy on the terraces and on the pitch there would have been no one who was seriously thinking, “blimey, we have just made a lot of money here.”

The point I am making here is that yes, there is plenty of money in football, of course there is – and equally there is plenty of money to be made from it. But the most important thing in football (or indeed any sport) by a million miles are those moments of achievement. Whether it is at the top end with Man City, or at the bottom with QPR staying up, or indeed in the middle where the fans of Norwich and Swansea can justifiably look to their summer breaks with a feeling of tremendous happiness at what they have done, it is about meeting those little personal goals that you set yourself and not the money.

And nowhere in the sporting calendar is this better shown than in two games on Saturday that are reckoned to be the richest in club football. First West Ham take on Blackpool for the right to play in the Premier League again. Apparently this marks the first time that two relegated sides have contested the final, which is some testimony to the teams themselves. Then after that Chelsea take on Bayern Munich to who wins the Champions League final.

The winners of the play-off final will probably swell their coffers by around £70m when you take into account around £40m in prize money then parachute payments if they went down, whereas the Champions League is just an excuse to print money.

But will the fans – or the players for that matter – be thinking about the money on offer at the weekend, or just the glory? There is a theory that the top level players are obsessed by money, but I would question whether that was strictly true.

The reason I say that is if club A and club B both offer £100,000 but club B wins trophies, then I will bet I know where a player would sign. Players want to win things. And the fans? The fans just want to feel, just once, the way the Man City supporters did last weekend.

Of course the owners and Chief Execs will quickly move from euphoria to pragmatism and will be thinking about the benefits to the club (and players too will soon be thinking of win bonuses) but largely its about the moment. It’s about feeling the way that only football can make you feel.

And that is why the football business is a business like no other.

Last Day Drama - And Stupid Comments From Owen Coyle

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The 2012 football season will be forever remembered for what happened in Manchester on the last day. Whatever else the season has been or not been for the fans of the other 91 clubs in the Premier League and football league will not matter to the annals of history. It will always be the season that Sergio Augero found the composure to smash the ball in the back of the net in the fourth minute of injury time to win the league for Manchester City.

While all this drama was unfolding Refs Jobs was watching it through an unusual prism. As regular readers may know me – your blog writer and all round website type bloke at Refs Jobs – is a Stoke season ticket holder and was at The Brit on Sunday watching the match between Stoke and Bolton. Thus, with The Potters safe, the prism we were watching through was the reactions of the Wanderers fans.

So we knew QPR were winning from the atmosphere in the away end. We knew that when Tim Ream missed with that late header that Bolton would still have been down – and then, from the concourses where people had gone to stand after the game, we knew that Man City had scored, one, and then two goals. It seemed like something that Roy of the Rovers creators came up with. It just doesn’t happen, does it? The Bolton fans were left to reflect on the fact that if Thomas Sorensen hadn’t made that late save from Ream they would have stayed up after all.

Of course, as tempting as it is to talk about moments deciding things, it’s not quite like that. If Wanderers had got more points during in the season they would have stayed up irrespective of what happened on the last day. Just the same as at the other end of the table if Manchester United hadn’t lost to Wigan and drawn at home with Everton a twentieth title would have been theirs.

The point I am making here is one we have consistently made since these blogs started. That people can only influence what they do. This is a point that Wanderers Manager Owen Coyle seemed to have forgotten after the match when he talked about the fact that bad decisions had cost his team.

Now, I will be totally fair to the Bolton boss here. Refs Jobs sits at the other end of the ground to that where Jon Walters scored the game’s first goal. We could see from there that it was a foul. There is absolutely no way that the goal should have stood, and Referee Foy got it wrong – just as wrong, it could be argued as Bolton have got it all season. Coyle’s team have only won four games at home. That is where the problems lie. Have refs cost them in all those games too?

In blaming Foy for what happened all Coyle did was become the latest in a line of Manager’s that seem unable to accept responsibility when their team loses.

However, happily for Coyle – and Referee Foy who made the decision to allow Stoke’s first goal - on this occasion, the wider world won’t remember.

Why Our Stance On Diving His Hypocritical

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There is a programme on IT4 at the moment called The Big Match Revisited. Every Saturday Morning it shows old highlights programmes from the early 1980s. It is a fabulous trip down memory lane for those who are old enough to recall the games and a magnificent look at the pre-Premier League age for those that aren’t.

The season they are currently showing is 1982/83. Amongst the many differences the programme shows us, both in football - where each week you muddy pitches, players who are anything but athletic, far fewer foreign players and harder tackling - and in the coverage itself - where there is only three games shown from all leagues not just the top division, there is almost no punditry and hardly any interviews with beaten bosses - there are certain things that seem to prove that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The other week on the show the main game was a Merseyside derby. An Everton player made a sliding tackle on Ian Rush who went over when he felt the contact and a free kick was given outside the box. Kenny Dalglish stepped up and dispatched the free kick and Liverpool won the game.

Fast forward 29 years. Move venues to old Trafford and Ciaran Clark hangs out what Gary Neville termed a “lazy leg” on last night’s Monday Night Football and Ashley Young goes down. Wayne Rooney converts the penalty kick and Man Utd are on their way to beating Aston Villa 4-0.

The point I am making here is that “diving,” “feigning injury” “cheating,” “simulation,” whatever you want to call it, is nothing new and for all the hysteria over recent days over what happened or didn’t happen, it isn’t going to stop either.

It won’t stop because, whether you like it or not, professional sportsmen and women are seeking to gain an advantage in anyway they can. Whether it is ball tampering in cricket, drugs in athletics or cycling, or eye gouging in rugby, they will do whatever they can to win.

Of course, this doesn’t make it right. And you cannot and should not tolerate it if it is seen. If people are caught cheating in football they deserve to be punished. Just the same as they are in the sports we mentioned in the previous paragraph.

The specific case we saw at the weekend was highlighted for a couple of reasons. Firstly it was a big game at either end of the table and, with it being live on Sky’s Super Sunday it couldn’t be ignored. But second, it was the second time in a week that the Man Utd man had found himself embroiled in a controversy.

His “dive” against Villa (and I think he went down to easy and that it wasn’t a penalty) was arguably less blatant than his “dive” against QPR the previous week, for which United again were given a spot kick and the Londoners had skipper Shaun Derry sent off. He has done it before and he will do it again. He did it when he was at Watford and he did at Aston Villa. He simply did what all players do – try to win the game for his side.

As much as we all like to get outraged about cheating and who can forget the outcry when Thierry Henry’s handball deprived Ireland of a World Cup spot? We all – and lets be honest here – keep a little bit quieter when our own team is it. Moreover, can any footballer really admit, hand on heart that they wouldn’t have done the same in Henry’s situation?

Surely, that is the point? Last night when Arsenal lost to Wigan we saw Arsene Wenger hopping up and down on the touchline while Wigan wasted time. But the fact is, and we all know this, any team, Arsenal included, would have done the same thing in the same situation.

In this context, all the anger and hot air about diving is all a little bit fake. I can think of at least four or five times this year when I have been at games and my team has scored a goal as a result of this player or that player “going over when contact was made.” Do I wish they had stayed on their feet? Yes. Would football have been better off if they had? Yes. Did I cheer the goal when it went in? You bet I did. Does that make me a hypocrite? No, it makes me a football supporter.

So spare me the sanctimonious moral high ground about all of this. We as football fans cannot on the one hand condemn the opposition and cheer our own side for doing exactly the same thing.

Diving has gone on for decades and it isn’t going to stop just because it’s the current flavour of the media week.

Why Atkinson Wasn't Wrong

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I know you were promised part two of a blog last week. A blog where we were going to try and help referees out of the current controversy they were mired in. But after the events of this weekend we had to change plans and discuss what was happening right now.

But before we get to Martin Atkinson’s performance in the FA Cup semi, this morning we saw a prime example of the problems faced by referees in the modern game.

Sky Sports News announced as part of its breaking news this morning that Phil Dowd was the referee for the cup final. That is almost a full month before the match. Then they will criticise the same official for hogging the headlines. Of course it is an honour for Dowd to ref in such a prestigious match, but the fact that this is massive breaking news doesn’t do Dowd any favours.

He doesn’t want to be in the limelight, he has no training for what to do when he is, but such is the scrutiny on refs now he has no choice.

And the limelight is exactly what Martin Atkinson has found himself in over the last few days. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the consistent vilification of refs, at the top level – and moreover in a high profile game like that - he has to accept that every decision that is made will be scrutinised. But what scrutiny he has been under!

The “phantom” goal. The “ghost” goal. “The Goal that Never Was.” Juan Mata’s goal in the FA Cup semi has been called all those things. There has been an hysterical reaction in the press, calls for goal line technology and all the other predictable responses including Emmanuel Adebayor’s bizarre claim that Spurs “had to blame the ref” for the defeat, conveniently forgetting the four other goals that were scored. Simply put, if you lose 5-1 and blame the ref you look like a bit of an idiot.

There is another issue at play here – and we will not even deal with whether goal line technology would aid the game, as we have written extensively on this subject before – and it as a rather complex issue than it might first appear.

Was the referee “wrong” to give the goal?

We have said before that referees – and this all they can do – give decisions as they see them as honestly as they possibly can. Mata’s goal did not cross the line, that is clear, but from the angle the referee was looking, it looked like it did.

There was a picture soon doing the rounds (and we are sharing it below) that shows the incident and shows the referee. On that picture, it does look like the ball went over the line and that, from the angle the ref was at, it actually was the correct decision.

If you look at the picture you will see that the Assistant Referee had no chance of doing that. He simply couldn’t assist the ref because he couldn’t see through the five players that are in his way, so the ref had to make the decision on his own. Which he did. As honestly as he could.

If you do what to carry on the vilification of the Referee, that’s fine, but have a look at the picture above and tell me that Martin Atkinson on Sunday evening as wrong as you thought he was.

A Football Good News Story? Yes Really!

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In an age where football and footballers never get any good press it was gratifying to read a very pleasant story this week about a fine gesture from the players and management of Cambridge United.

A world away from the did-he-or-didn’t-he-dive of Ashley Young, the was-it-or-wasn’t-it a goal of the FA Cup semi final, Cambridge United were playing Barrow in a Blue Square Bet Premier game.

By any stretch of the imagination that is not a trip you undertake without thinking about it (a mate of mine once went to watch his team play Barrow and remarked that it wasn’t the sort of place you went “by mistake.”) but around 80 hardy souls made the 268 mile trip to watch a game between two mid-table teams with nothing to play for.

As a reward for this, Cambridge boss Jez George decided to buy their tickets at a cost, apparently out of his own pocket, of around £1120. On the way home the Cambridge players chipped in and got Pizza for the travellers too.

This has now become common knowledge, although George said: "It was a small thing we wanted to do quietly. We didn't really want any publicity. It was just a way of showing we really appreciate the support they give us.

"We work for them. We want to make them happy every weekend. It's a very, very small gesture from us, just as a big thank you.”

There is nothing we can really add here, except to applaud it. We have written on this blog before about Bolton players who didn’t even have to park their cars at The Reebok when we were at a game there in November and it is interesting to contrast the differences between football at the rarefied level of the Premier League and the top level of Non League.

I understand the myriad differences between the clubs at that level and at the top, but it is just good, on occasion, to remember that all footballers – and indeed all football – are not and is not the same.

Why There's No Such Thing As Nothing To Play For?

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With the football season drawing to a close and the major trophies are going to be dished out, together with the pain or relegation and the elation of promotion. It is also a great time for football clichés.

It is often said at this time of year that this team or that team has “nothing to play for” but surely that is rubbish of the highest order. First of all professional footballers would not be professional footballers if they did not have professional pride. The clue there is in the name, surely? And that leads us to the second point; it is that professional pride that means the team that is presently sitting in 12th, say, will do its best against a team that is second bottom or second top.

They are professional footballers – they want to win. They have a hunger to succeed that most of us do not. And even if that isn’t the case, then they owe to the fans of the club, or the people that pay their wages in the boardroom to do the best they can, and moreover they owe to it all the other players in the division to do their bit and make sure to competitive.

The situation is even more pronounced in the Premier League, where not only do the players have to do their best for their own personal pride they are doing their best – or they had better be in case the chairman is watching – for something rather less prosaic.

Cold hard cash.

It is reckoned that at Premier League level each place is worth £750,000 in prize money. Now, that might not be a massive amount to the Man City’s and Man United’s of this world. But even this rarefied Premier League environment, it is a lot of money.

Taking Norwich for example. So bunched are things in the middle of the Premier League, the new boys could conceivably finish as high as seventh (ninth is more likely) or as low as 14th. Or in short, if reported figures are true £6m. This would perhaps mean a couple of new signings, perhaps more the way Paul Lambert can find unpolished gems in the football league.

Still think Norwich have nothing to play for?

The idea that teams in mid-table can go on metaphorical holidays come this time of the year is one that needs to be debunked. In the football league teams can make the play-offs with a good late run, and as Macclesfield are seeing in League 2, if you get on a bad late run you are in serious trouble.

And of course, if professional pride, playing for the fans, the manager, the chairman don’t grab you, then how about something that might just appeal to the average Premier League footballer: naked self interest.

Bonuses, dear boy. And those bonuses depend on where the team finishes in the league.

No, these days the average player doesn’t go on his holidays in April. Why would he when there is an expensive one to pay for in May. So whichever way you want to look at it, there is no such thing as “nothing to play for” anymore.

Fabrice Muamba and The Power Of Social Networking

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There can be little doubt that the outpouring of support and emotion for Fabrice Muamba will be of great comfort to the player and his family in these difficult times, but it is also provided an interesting insight into the modern world.

Like many I was watching the game live on TV shocked at what I was seeing, but I had to go out later on in the evening, but was desperately keen to find the latest news on what was happening to the Bolton man.

So like millions and million of others I was logging on to Twitter to see what was going on. Fabrice Muamba was trending all around the world, people from all sorts of countries were passing on their good wishes, and desperately enquiring as to how he was.

This will, whether he likes it or not – and you suspect that he wont – this will make Fabrice some sort of celebrity as he completes his recovery, but it does show us the power of Social Networking.

The last time something like this happened in the UK was 2007 when Irish International Clive Clarke suffered a Cardiac Arrest while playing for Leicester against Forest in the Carling Cup. The fact that Clarke’s plight is nowhere near as well known as Muamba’s tells us two things. 1) it tells us that he wasn’t a Premier League player and (arguably more important) 2) it tells us how the world has changed in five years, and just how important Social Networks like Twitter and Facebook have become as a way to find out news and share information.

The Hashtag , a word that wouldn’t have even been known when Clarke suffered his illness (from which, thankfully, he recovered) “Pray For Muamba” which was used on Twitter seeped into our National conscience, and appeared on t-shirts of footballers around the world. It is still being used on the site to encourage people of all faiths, or indeed no faith at all, to send positivity.

But we saw the other side of Social Networking too a little later in the evening, as Liam Stacey achieved his fifteen minutes of infamy. Acts of stupidity that could now see him end up with a prison sentence. Everyone who was looking for info on Muamba would have seen the condemnation of his extremely offensive Tweets, and within minutes he was the internets most wanted man. Many people, including the broadcaster and former footballer Stan Collymore contacted the police, and on Sunday morning Sweeney was arrested. After initially trying to claim his account was hacked he admitted his offence in Court on Monday and could now end up behind bars.

It is only right that people pay for what they say in “Cyberspace” so we at Cheap5aside.com applaud the police for taking the action they have. However we also applaud the vast majority of people, whether they are football fans or not and regardless of they support, for their genuine caring attitude.
Football is occasionally a force for good and we cannot let idiots being offensive let us cloud that fact.

Everyone at Cheap5aside.com sends our good wishes for a full recovery to Fabrice Muamba and hope that his family have drawn strength from all the well wishes.

Fabrice Muamba: Some Good To Come Out Of The Tradegy

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The news the Fabrice Muamba has today had a “brief chat” with his Manager Owen Coyle is a great fillip to everyone who cares about football, or who was watching the game on Saturday either at White Hart Lane, or as I was, on TV.

What we have seen in the last few days really shows that football, for all its faults can still be a tremendous force for good. It can bring people together in a way that other sports, and indeed pretty much anything else, cannot.

We have seen football fans put aside their petty – and sometimes nasty – rivalries in order to support a player with which, perhaps, we can all identify, we have seen opposing players, often as we all know guilty of appalling acts of cynicism on the field genuinely care for Muamba, and we can only hope that the players himself when he is well enough, and his family and friends now can derive great comfort from the emotion.

And while making his recovery, if Fabrice is looking to draw strength from recent events he could do worse than have a look at the tale of one time Irish international Clive Clarke.

Clive Clarke was a full back or midfielder, primarily at Stoke City, for whom he made 262 appearances in between 1998 and 2005. In 2007 he was at Leicester on loan from Sunderland when he collapsed at half time in a Carling Cup Match between The Foxes and Nottingham Forest.

Just like Muamba, he was a young, fit footballer, slightly older than the Bolton man, he was 27 and too he had suffered a cardiac arrest however, like we all hope that Muamba will, was recover and carry on a normal life.

Clarke spoke to the BBC the other day and told how the dreadful events at Tottenham had echoes of what had happened to him four and a half years before. “"I came down the tunnel at half-time feeling a little bit dizzy, light-headed," he said. “"I went into the changing room, sat down and the next thing I knew I woke up in the back of an ambulance.

"I think the players and management staff probably feared the worst. They thought that I had probably died in the changing room.

"I was lucky I had good people around me who acted very quickly and saved my life."
And the story is much the same for the Bolton man – largely due to his position as a Premier League player thankfully, he was able to receive the best medical care available and perhaps more immediately than most would have done in the same situation.

Clarke said that it was only a couple of days after the event that he began to reflect on what had occurred that day. Doctors did tests, but no one knows why a fit young athlete should be struck down with a Cardiac Arrest in the first place.

And, that perhaps is the biggest mystery of them all and one of the reasons why there has been so much emotion towards Muamba. It just shouldn’t happen to one so young, and so fit. On the flip side of that, though, that natural fitness and youth is probably what saved both Muamba and Clarke before him.

The Irishman was unable to resume his football career at top level. He was advised not to by Medical Staff, but remains in the game as a part time agent, and just last month was calling for routine heart scans to be brought into the game as a matter of course.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, given what he has been through Clarke is heavily involved in a charity called Cry (Cardiac Risk In The Young), something he admits he wasn’t aware of before it happened to him.

It’s fair to say that, perhaps the story of what happened to Clarke perhaps isn’t as well known as that of Fabrice Muamba, but it is easy to forget that, even in 2007 the world was a very different place. The place most of us followed the news of Muamba on Saturday night was on Twitter, which was relatively unknown even five years ago.

If the fact that so many millions of people around the world are now aware of the risk of health problems amongst young people because of the terrible things that happened both to Muamba and to Clarke then we can all be thankful that something with a long term positive effect has happened.

Everyone at Football Business, Soccer Business and Football Franchise would like to send our best wishes to Fabrice Muamba and his family and friends at this difficult time.