I’m a runner not a fighter at the footie. I’ll throw the odd insult but never a punch
I WAS at West Brom vs Wolves last month, and a right horrible business it was too.
You know the one — the local derby cup tie which turned nasty in the stands.
Punches were thrown, some blood was shed and a player had to rescue his young children out of a melee.
Everyone, up to and including the Prime Minister, said it was a disgrace.
They were right, although things being as they are these days, big news turned into old news into forgotten news with alarming speed, and now everyone seems to have forgotten about it.
One minute football hooliganism was back and the sky was falling in, the next minute everything’s fine again.
Neither of these things are true.
We’re not back to the bad old days of the Seventies and Eighties, far from it.
But we need to have a word with ourselves before we sink any further in that direction.
This season alone there have been significant disturbances at, among others, Chesterfield, Crewe, Sheffield Wednesday and Chelsea.
This weekend, all over the country, football fans will descend on football grounds to engage in another round of raucous supporting and, inevitably, some will cross the line into lunacy.
I think we all know where the line is but, just in case guidance is needed, here’s a little refresher on what is allowed, and what can never be excused.
First of all, it’s OK to be loud, angry and sweary.
Use obscene language, if you must, and, if you can’t help yourself, accompany it with obscene hand gestures.
I don’t go in for this kind of thing much, but it has been known.
Obviously, sexist, homophobic or racist language is always bang out of order.
Don’t worry though — that still leaves plenty of words with which to insult or upset whoever you feel the need to insult or upset.
A simple rule which we can all follow: The only thing you’re allowed to throw is an insult.
Don’t throw anything else — flares, plastic bottles, meat pies, fruit pastilles whatever — at the taker of a corner or a throw in, or at a fellow fan.
This isn’t much to ask, is it?
OK to be sweary
And something else you must never throw: A punch. If you do see punches thrown, you have only two options: Stay where you are or walk away.
Do not move towards the incident. Clear?
By the time play resumed on that miserable Sunday at West Brom, I was on the M5 heading home.
I’m a runner not a fighter, and proud of it.
Another rule: Unless you are capable of quite inhuman levels of self-control, do not sit with fans of the opposing team.
If you do, tread very carefully indeed. If they score, try to look happy about it, or at least not unhappy.
If you score, don’t celebrate.
And don’t start antagonising the fans all around you or, before you know it, you’ll cause a whole load of trouble.
It is possible.
I have friends who are Wolves fans who sat with West Brom fans and got away it.
In fact, one of them was rocker Robert Plant, who was sitting behind me with the directors of both clubs.
He’d told me the previous day that he was going to the game “incognito”.
Be mad, not bad
I thought this was hilarious — as if Robert Plant could ever disguise himself to look like anything other than the venerable rock legend that is Robert Plant.
And he was fine.
Because he’s a good guy and didn’t dare speak to me until three hours after the final whistle when he called me from a safe distance.
So this weekend let’s all of us watching football focus on doing the job properly.
It’s fine to behave in a way which would disappoint your vicar or your nan.
But let’s not let things get out of hand.
In the name of the game and the clubs we love, let’s be mad, but not bad.
Daft but not dangerous.
We all know where the line is. Let’s not cross it.
Can you share the magic touch, Tay?
I’M not much into American Football but I knew for sure that Kansas City Chiefs would win the Super Bowl last weekend.
How? Well, Taylor Swift is dating the Chiefs’ tight end (no, me neither), Travis Kelce.
And the whole world knew she was flying halfway around the world from Tokyo to get to the game to watch her favourite, er, tight end, in action.
And it was clear to me that there was no way on God’s green Earth that, with Taylor Swift having come all that way, the Chiefs would lose.
That kind of thing doesn’t happen to Taylor.
Everything she touches, every song she writes, turns to gold.
And the same applies to whichever team she’s backing because she’s a winner and can do no wrong.
I’m trying to get her together with a West Brom player, just for a fling until the end of season.
I reckon Kyle Bartley would suit her nicely.
He’s a fine specimen – any right-thinking woman would trade in her tight end for this centre half.
And with Taylor’s backing, we’d be dead certs for promotion. It would be written in stone.
Adele’s not for posties
I ONCE met a postman who was a Chelsea fan.
I asked him if he went to Stamford Bridge to watch his team play.
I’ll never forget the look he gave me – it was as if I’d asked him where he parked his Ferrari.
“I’m a postman,” he explained patiently. “I can’t afford to watch football.”
This should be the test for any club worried about excluding ordinary fans: Could a postman afford one of your season tickets?
If not, then think on.
The same test could be used by whoever sets prices for concert tickets.
£984 to see Adele?
No postie I know will be going to that one.
Wright lack of ego
STEVE WRIGHT was someone I loved as a radio presenter and liked very much on the occasions I was lucky enough to spend time with him.
He was as funny, clever and kind in real life as he was on the airwaves and richly deserved all the heartfelt tributes paid this week.
That said, I wonder if he’d be a little embarrassed as the praise for his talents has got ever more effusive.
The broadcasters’ broadcaster, the legend, the absolute master of his craft, and so on.
Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t argue against any of that, but the key to him was his lack of ego.
I doubt he ever thought of himself as any of those things.
And trust me, in my business there are plenty of people who look in the mirror every morning and tell themselves they are all of those things and more.
To simply be funny, clever and kind, on radio or in whatever you do, is the mark of greatness whoever you are.
Sheri’s lucky, like me
ACTRESS Sheridan Smith is now one of us.
She’s been diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 42 and, sincerely, I’m pleased for her.
She, as I did, will find her whole life suddenly starts making sense.
She’ll understand herself better, and so will everyone else.
She’ll make some better life choices and, when she makes bad ones, she’ll know why, and how to make things right.
She’ll be less stressed.
The good things in her life will bring her more joy and the bad things will cause her less pain.
Good news all around. So what’s my problem?
Well, I’ll bet you anything that her diagnosis, like mine, came about because she was able to pay to see a psychiatrist privately.
There are so many people who need treatment much more, I’d argue, than we do, who haven’t got the money so will wait forever.
These will often be people who under-achieved at school and in the workplace and in relationships and in anything else you care to mention.
For them, a diagnosis and treatment could be a life-changer or life-saver. It’s that serious.
A friend of mine, a GP in Worcestershire, told me about a patient of his with significant addiction and behavioural issues.
Suspecting ADHD was at the root of the man’s problems, he tried to refer him to a specialist, only to be told there was a five-year wait.
When he called up the young man’s file to write to let him know, my doctor friend saw his address had recently changed to His Majesty’s Prison Somewhere.
ADHD sufferers are wildly over-represented in the prison population.
High-achievers like Sheridan Smith deserve help as much as anyone else, and it’s good that she shares her story as it helps tackle any stigma around ADHD.
But the stigma’s now a secondary issue.
The problem is finding the treatment.
The people who really need help most aren’t going to get it any time soon on the NHS – and that’s a terrible tragedy.