After last night's triumphant win / scrappy three points (history will eventually delete as appropriate) it's easy to think that the world of football is all back to normal, England will qualify easily and Portsmouth will stay up (I know that doesn't have much to do with last night, but I've found it's important to keep saying it).
But one thing, right in the middle of the joy and worry in equal measure before Ukraine scored that goal, I found my thinking of the well-written article by James Henderson which asked the media and fans to lay off Ashley Cole as the scapegoat of all that is wrong with the beautiful game, and I found myself thinking... well... he IS.
I'm not saying that Ashely Cole is by any means a bad footballer, nor does he not warrant a place at one of the top teams in the country, or even the world. I don't begrudge him for earning whatever he does... he's pretty much middle of the road for a Chelsea first teamer, and you wouldn't ask for less in a job out of principle.
But what I do take umbrage to, and I think this is the point that Mr Henderson missed, is the notion that we should celebrate him in some way just because he's good at football, and we, as football fans, should love anything that can kick a ball in the right direction at the right time.
Last year I wrote an article called 'Thinking of jacking it all in' where I said I wanted it all over. I wanted to walk away from football and not have the worry and fear of Saturday at 3PM (or Sunday or Monday or Wednesday when Sky decides that a game needs to be moved).
I've barely been a football fan for a third of the time some of the more world-weary and long sufferering fans I know have been, but I still am starting to despair at the state of the game as we currently see it.
But here's Henderson's theory: "And for everyone who thinks this [that footballers are cocky foul-mouthed morons] is true then why don't you put that
extra bit of money you earn every week into the savings account instead
of paying to watch these animals play a sport you are falling out of
love with. It's as plain as the nose on your face."
I'm sorry, but surely you realise it isn't that easy. It's not like giving up chocolate. Or smoking. It's not even like finally ending a relationship that stopped being pleasurable years ago... it's something so much worse.
Call it tribal, call it an escape, call it what you want, but the love for your football team cannot be eradicated for the simple reason that you disagree with the morals of a player, it's in the blood, it's part of your childhood and growth into an adult, it's as much a part of you as your hometown and often more... because you can leave the place you were born.
But that doesn't mean that you should be forced to accept it when the state os the game starts being something you don't agree with. I don't think that booing a player on the pitch is ever going to help matters, but Ashley Cole should be (and is being) held up as Exhibit A in the case for the falling standards of football.
We can all accept that footballers want to go out with their mates and have a few drinks. We all do it, and we all have at some point pushed it to excess. And yes, probably at that point were we to be harassed by a mob of photographers that want to claw and lech at our every move, twisting and turning it into something terrible for a few more paper sales, then we might end up doing something drunk and disorderly.
But after the allegations with that hairdresser, coupled with this incident (and the 'issue' of not enough money, and the fact he constantly disrespects referees, AND the fact his wife has seemingly become a national treasure that would surely be the best friend and fashion guru of all our girlfriends if only they got the chance to meet her... apparently) it holds him up to be the reason football is failing.
It's not fair to just point the finger at Cole. He could go and live the life of a monk and only come out of the monastery once a week to play at the weekend (although he might not have the level of fitness required, but I'm sure something could be worked out) and football as a concept wouldn't suddenly get better.
We would still have Ronaldo being accused of diving, still have Terry accused of haranguing referees, still have a number of players refusing to play for the reserves because they think they're better than that.
But that's the problem. Football has become so distanced from the fans that we're forced to just guess at what's happening behind the scenes. We can't watch training the way we used to if we wanted to see our heroes any more. We don't see them walking down the street any more because they live in massive houses with gates and long driveways miles and miles away from the stadium that's a Mecca to its fans.
No, we have to pay more, and more, and more money each week, each month, each year, in tickets, programmes, travel, even blooming PIES (why is it around £7 for a pie and a drink now? Is it sprinkled with magic? Does the team captain make them? Actually, I'd pay £7 to have that, watching him sprinting off the pitch at half time to deal with the rush).
And because we know those costs are almost directly related to the wages being paid to the footballers, we start to get frustrated. We want to vent somewhere, at someone, because you can't really do it against the club you've loved for so long without feeling a sense of betrayal.
No, we choose a player who we think we'd hate to socialise with, and unfortunately for Cole, he's the one that pushed his head furthest over the parapet with his antics. If players like him want to stop being singled out for abuse, then they should make the effort to change and show the world they're doing it, not just retreat and 'let the football do the talking'.
Because the sad fact is it no longer does. You invest £100 a weekend to go and watch something for 90 minutes (and with Pompey these days, it invariably has ended with a sigh and trudge) and you expect to see players pushing for everything as hard as they can. We don't care about what happens to them at the end of their career. We don't care whether they had to sacrifice it all as a child. We don't even care about their outside life, just as long as they maintain grace and dignity in keeping with wearing the shirt we all love. We just want to see football played by players that love the club as much as we do and represent the values we (often romantically and erroneously) associate with it.
So when my friend laughed at the TV when Ashley Cole made yet another poor 'Hollywood' pass as he called it, then turned to me and said 'I hate Ashley Cole'... I couldn't disagree.
Gareth Beavis
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