One Rule For One....

Earlier this month somebody let a smoke grenade off at Chelsea’s training ground. The incident was widely reported in the press and the football club promised a “full and thorough” investigation into what had happened would take place.

Last week the results of that investigation was published and young midfielder Jacob Mellis was sacked after being identified as the man that committed the act. A fellow reserve, Billy Clifford, was fined for being the one that brought the grenade in.

I have absolutely no problem with either of these punishments. Quite frankly, if anyone let a smoke bomb off in their place of work they would be lucky to keep their jobs.

But then, you have to say that the same would apply if you shot a student with an air rifle too. So, you do have to wonder why Ashley Cole still plays for Chelsea if Mellis doesn’t and Clifford was disciplined.

The answer, of course, is that it’s far easier to sack a reserve teamer than it is an England International. Mellis, who is now on trial at Burnley, has previous experience of playing for Barnsley and Southampton has played for England at Under-16,17 and 19 levels, but he hasn’t played nearly 350 games in the Premier League and 93 times for his country like Cole has.

With all the off-field stuff that comes along with Cole, it is easy to forget that, whether you love him or hate him (and most people are in the latter group) Ashley Cole is a superb full back, perhaps one of England’s few genuine World Class players, but does this give him the right to behave in any way that he wants with no real consequences?

Maybe not, but if this particular turn of events is to be believed then it really does give that impression.

I mean, far be it from me to say that it is one rule for one and one for another, but it doesn’t half look like that. Perhaps its that culture that leads footballers like Cole, Mellis and Clifford to think they can behave in any way they choose, with no consequences.

I have no idea how much Mellis gets paid, but I will wager it’s a lot more than me, similarly Cifford signed a new four year deal last summer and although he remains in Chelsea’s reserve team you can bet he isn’t exactly poor either. As for Cole, this is the man who became public enemy number one in England (even in the days before he cheated on Cheryl Cole) for saying his £55,000 a week wages were an insult (if the bosses here would like to “insult” me with those types of pay packets they can feel free!)

The point I am making here is that we, the public, assume footballers are out of touch with reality. This is most probably grossly unfair, then something like this comes along and you think “no its not.”

Ashley Cole is probably thinking about letting a smoke bomb off right now, to see if he could get away with it – and I will bet you he would!

Fabrice Muamba and The Power Of Social Networking

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.