If you get a chance to take a look at the TV footage of the incident in which Mike Dean is hit by a coin in the Cardiff vs Swansea game on Sunday, cast your eyes behind Dean and at the crowd. There, in a snapshot of about 100 faces, is pure hatred. Not the outrage of a genuine sports fan but hatred, the desire to physically harm another person over nothing more important than one decision given in the 41st minute of a game that did not result in a goal, a red card or anything dramatic. Dean's decision resulted in a flurry of coins being thrown from the crowd, one of which hit him in the head.
Hats off to Mike Dean, who showed courage as well as physical and mental strength in carrying on. I'm aghast that Roberto Martinez, widely thought of as an up and coming young manager, should show himself in the worst possible light by blaming Dean for awarding a penalty against Swansea, saying Dean was "emotional" because of the coin throwing incident. What a prat!
But back to the crowd. Really, is this the future of football? Raw hatred from crowds made up of primitive thugs? In that case, perhaps it's best that match officials stay at home, forget all rules and let the players and fans kill each other in some kind of ritualised violence every Saturday afternoon. And is this the kind of mentality that results in 10-year-olds almost killing children their own age in fits of brutality.
Good Lord, what hope is there?
1 comment:
You ask 'is this the future?' It sounds more like the past, a time many of us thought has passed. Sadly it appears not.
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