Monday, March 24, 2008

Heavy Leather Balls

So, yet more talk in the media about the behaviour of footballers. This is the problem when you pay peope too much money and they start to think they are important. I know it's a tactic to try and harass the refere but it's not a particulrly positive one.

How I long for the day when a goal was celebrated by jogging back to the halfway line with nothing more than a handshake with your colleagues and perhaps a pat on the back to encourage a young player.

Players with short back and sides, long shorts and simple unbranded jerseys, shinpads, boots that soaked up the water, along with a leather laced up football that left imprints on your head when you headed it.

Modern football players wouldn't survive in that environment. Diving wouldn't have been tolerated had anyone bothered to be so ungentlemanly as to have tried it. Stud marks up and down your legs were part of the game, not something to roll around on the floor as though death was imminent.

Heigh Ho, those times are not coming back, pity though. And yes, I know the argument is that the skills on display are so much better.

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