Now then. I am aware I've not put forward my view on things for a while, and I'm going to change that by sharing my views on the recent "tackling" debate that has arisen in the world of football recently.
This whole debate really started to become public after the Manchester Derby, when Wayne Rooney got Vincent Kompany sent off for a well timed challenge. I know that that statement will have got a few people wound up, but I don't care about that. Let's look at the situation shall we? This was a very well timed challenge. Kompany, undoubtedly won the ball. He did not touch the player during the tackle. A lot of people have said things along the lines of: "Well if he'd got it wrong, it could have been dangerous." My point here is that he didnt get it wrong. Tackles are good when timed well and when they aren't, and they become dangerous, a referee is more than entitled to step in. For this reason I feel the referee was seen to punish a player for timing a challenge to perfection.
I also want to look at this in terms of the rest of the game. The incident happened just over ten minutes into the game. This, for me, spoiled the game. Now I don't really feel that it spoiled it for me personally, mainly because I didn't really care about the result, nor do I care if the millions of people watching on TV thought it spoilt the game. My concern is for the 46808 people at the game, most of whom will have paid very good money to watch, what should have been a very close and entertaining game. In the end it appears they still got that, given the 3-2 result, but Mr Foy wasn't to know that at the time. As a fan who has travelled around Europe to watch pre season friends, as well as a lot of football up and down Britain, I think it is important that football thinks of it's fans. Dangerous tackles should be punished, and I don't think there is a genuine football fan out there that would disagree, but we have paid to watch a contest, in a contact sport, involving a team we are passionate about and I feel a sending off of a player who wins the ball ten minutes into a game spoils that. We want to see a contest, and we want to see players have a desire to win. It is, as former Sheffield United and Wimbledon (amongst others) manager Dave Bassett said: "I'm looking for eleven players to win a football match, not eleven blokes to marry my daughter."
Thirdly, and probably most controversially, I want to look at the role Wayne Rooney played in this affair. I'm not going to say much about it, because I don't need to. If you watch the footage of the tackle, the referee does nothing until Mr Rooney has told him to. Whether you like Rooney or not, and whether you agree with me or not isn't really the point here. I don't like him and I think he got Kompany sent off, I make no bones about that, but the main issue really is the way modern Premier League footballers seem to crowed the referee at any given opportunity. I have played five-a-side football in a league that suffered from erratic refereeing judgements, so I know first hand it can be hard not to want to share your views with the official. At the end of it all, though, players should play and referees should make the decisions.
Finally I feel duty bound to mention the tackle itself. I, personally, don't think it is a two footed challenge and I feel we can clearly see that Kompany won the ball. I don't feel I need to say much more than that as the debate could go on all night, and nobody wants that.
The long and short of all this, for me, is that football is for you and me and not for ****ing industry. It's a sport, with fans. Let's consider what they go through every weekend. Let's not have referees, and others, spoiling games for the very people they are there for, the fans.
And now the much awaited bad joke (we all know that's the only reason you all read this!)
I fell out with my neighbour the other day, because my trees were sticking out over the fence into their garden. It turns out extending the olive branch only made things worse.
Keep the faith!
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