Debate: to boo, or not to boo?

Click here to read Martin Samuel's column

There is no Italian equivalent of the traditional English pantomime, but perhaps Fabio Capello will understand the Wembley crowd’s reaction to Ashley Cole better if he thinks of the Commedia dell’Arte, with its heroes and villains, wise men and fools. The crowd goes to boo and to cheer and this audience response becomes part of the performance.

That is where English football is now. Cole makes a bad mistake: boo. David Beckham completes a routine cross: hooray. We shouldn’t have opera singers belting out the national anthem before England matches, we should get Christopher Biggins to do it dressed as Widow Twankey.

Debate: To boo or not to boo?

Comments

[Joseph]

Alan Gourgay posted:

"It has to be said that he brings it on himself by his attitude and his general behaviour which people don't forget easily, particularly if you are one of those supporters who have followed him throughout his 67 cap career with England something which must have cost each of them close to £15000 of their hard earned earnings".

Funny thing is there's an assumption that all these retard supporters work hard and are genuinely nice people - some maybe - but not many. Personally, I dislike Ashley Cole (and most of the squad) and understand the booing - once - but for the rest of the game? Really?

People forget that they comment on, and have the so-called "right" to participate in, things that they really have no say whatsoever in - like who should play, who should manage, and my favourite - "its our club"!!!

You wouldn't believe the ridicule me and my buddies received for bigging up Owen Hargreaves before his World Cup 06 performance and subsequent Man U signing - he wouldn't play for Bayern Munich if he wasn't any good now would he?

Also - do you feel the same way about movie stars earning £15m a movie, or singers earning X amount for albums, etc? I'm with you when you say they're greedy, or overpaid, or bad role models, but totally against most of you that feel as supporters you have the God-given right to do things such as booing. While supporters may be seen as the lifeblood of the club (in money terms), you're essentially only along for the ride. Deal with it, get a life, or GTFO.

[Steve the neighbour]

Legacy of banal, turgid, passion free football played by overpaid prima's
+
good acoustics from the North end
+
(Sat afternoon = no work tomorrow and all day to yourself before the game
Wembley = no parking = no driving responsibility) x availability of booze
+
Hideous, awful, unpressurised cock-up at a crucial time of the game

= really, really hacked off core supporters who, short of physical harm have no other recourse but to berate the offending idiot.

they don't like the abuse? Get a different job.

[StuartHall]

Is this not what the game is all about! you boo you cheer, you play good football and we cheer you play bad football we boo. It really is that simple and yet it comes down to the money you are paid you will never get away from it i struggle to live on the small amount i earn please give me Coles wage and i will stand on the pitch at Wembley and let the crowd boo me for 90 MINS none stop. PRO FOOTBALLERS GET A LIFE and think about the guy/girl who needs go and work nights just so they can eat tomorrow.

[barry samways]

We pay your wages, we have the right to express our feelings. I earn a fraction of his weekly wages every year and if I make a mistake I could be out of a job. Footballers do not belong to the real world, but should not be upset when it, occassionally, impinges on theirs.

[Josh Dickson]

They're just morons, england fans, complete utter prats. I can't tell you how frustrating it is watching an England game and being on edge about whether the idiots will continue to conform to the booing culture and affect a team I actually care about and want to see do well. And it does affect the team, no matter who says it what, it has to, it creates some sort of negative atmosphere and must make the team feel under pressure to do the unessescary. As your report excellently reminded us, England under Capello appear to have learned not to push the panic button, but we shouldn't have that dilemma in the first place! Matt Dickinson wrote about it today in his column, and I agree with what he said. Remember Crouch and Hargreaves. I'm always positive about england, i'll always back what they do. I don't buy into the tabloid bile that the players don't care, I really do think they care. Listening to Alan Green's phonein after the game was interesting. Some people sought to justify themselves by saying because they were experiencing difficulties in their life (financial mainly) then people had a right to resent cole! What utter crap! Lets boo him because we're bitter! It's got worse; people seem to be claiming its okay, because Cole's a dispicable person! You don't go to a football match to pass moral judgements! Maybe your right mate, maybe its just like a Theatre. The great villians: Edmund, Angeo, Iago and....Ashly Cole! Its absurd. Perhaps we should explore a different route of support. Now, instead of favouring the most talented FOOTBALLER we should simply pluck for the most morally desireable. I hate to break it to these clowns, but just because Ashly Cole unwittingly has revealed his erm, distasteful character through book revelations etc, it doesn't mean he's any less of an arse hole than alot of footballers. We'd love football to full of nice guys to look up to but let's be honest, its probably not. Bottam line is, who cares? Its football. Ashly Cole made a MISTAKE, born not out of malevolence but more likely a lapse in concentration. To boo him for that is just madness, complete utter madness, and I don't care how much your ticket cost, if you decide to boo someone for that, you shouldn't be there. If I didn't care so much about the team, I wish someone like Lampard (world class in every sense) would've turned round and told the hecklers where to stick it.

Sorry this has turned into what looks like a self righteous rant and I've not worded what i meant to say very well. Thanks anyway, cause im glad there's been a debate about this. It doesn't matter what Capello thinks about it in the end because he was too busy consoling Ashly Young which probably did more damage to Cole's ego than the booing!

[Stephen Parkinson]

How come when Ashley Cole gets booed it is front page news but when the likes of Stewart Downing suffer this every single time they set foot on the pitch, it receives not a single comment. One rule for players from small clubs and one rule for players from the glamour clubs.

[T]

I can't believe my ears when people say they boo Cole because he cheated on his wife. What about 90% of the rest of the team then? Then there are the ignorant fools who say only in England. The whole of the stadium in Brazil chanted 'Dunga you're a donkey resign' for 90 minutes.

Personally I blame Wembley.

The FA built it for ego reasons (because it's a status symbol round the world) and greed.
Tradition! They bulldozed that, it's a boring identikit stadium built in the same old inaccessible dump. The atmosphere is rubbish, the pitch is rubbish, Cardiff is a 1/4 of the price and twice as good.

For example, in Porto they built a new stadium, but because the pitch was bad they decided to go back to the old stadium until the new one improved. The new Wembley is a disaster for England, so they should move it away until it (the fans, the pitch) improve. Or maybe put the stadium on wheels and move it to a part of country that has proper fans (not London).

David Davies you should be ASHAMED, best stadium in the world - sure!

But no-one cares about us fans.

[timothy]

i dont think it is good for our fans to boo, this could discramnate a player. footbal is not an esay task. ashely cole made a mistake, yes i acept he made a mistake.those fans would booed him are not even up to his standard

[Thom]

players are booed in domestic football by the other team's fans, who are supporting a team in the English league so you'd expect fans to be English too. If it's not considered 'racist' or 'discriminating' in domestic football for English football fans to boo a player in domestic football, why is it frowned upon so much when he's representing his country in a World Cup qualifier where he shouldn't be making those mistakes. this is PC gone mad!

[John White]

Many moons ago England had a captain who was far from an angel off the field. Bobby Moore and a couple of teammates were seen in the wee early hours of a Blackpool night club before he led West Ham to a disastrous four nil defeat in an FA cup tie. Role model? At the time there was talk of him being transferred to Spurs. I can remember a night game at Upton Park where he was booed by West Ham fans because he was no longer seen as one of us. Football is full of wonderful contradictions and there are exceptional players who manage to upset most of the fans most of the time. Ashley Cole made a stupid error which gifted a goal and was roundly booed. Earlier in Saturdays encounter another England player almost gifted a goal with a sloppy back pass but it is a pound to a penny that even if a goal had been scored Upson would not have been booed. If there is a problem Ashley should look in the mirror he might find the answer.

[Will]

I don't particularly dislike Cole and he's a top player, but he made a horrendous back pass and there is nothing wrong with a bit of booing. Surely he understands. It's called a spectator sport.

What reaction do the experts prescribe for a player who has gifted a goal by a senseless pass? A polite tennis clap to let him know we're watching? Silence? A hearty "better luck next time" chant?

When I'm at a match I tend to be on the supportive side, it helps the team win, but I'm not going to start dictating the proper conduct. Racism and straight out belligerent and vile chants are one thing, but how far would like it to go?

[jose manuel]

At least this not happened in Madrid. If not, UEFA closes for six years all the sport facilities in Spain because of shouting a black player.

[Anon]

Don't pick him for the squad if the booing is too much for the team. I think he will suffer such treatment for the rest of his career. Whether he deserve to or not i don't care. For 55k pw nor should he.
People have the right to express their views, it doesn't matter if you agree with them. Both the FA and the players should consider what they owe us rather than what we owe them.

[Natalie H]

The argument 'to boo or not to boo' is confused by the recipient - Ashley Cole.
As a generalistion booing players, particularly those in a struggling team, is unlikely to be a profitable act in the long-term... However for the majority of boo-ers at the weekend I dare say it was nothing to do with 'an England player' making an (albeit costly) mistake - it was because it was Ashley Cole making the mistake. The lack of encouragement for the left-back comes as a concequence of his many on and off field dalliances with narcisism... We can accept he is a good player, but nobody likes the guy. So when his play is as bad as his attitude, there is little surprise when some sections of fans decide to voice their displeasure.

[Bill]

Reading these posts has depressed me. I had no idea our rights obsessed culture had plumbed such depths. 90 per cent of responses seem to be saying that it is right to boo because we have the right to boo. So that's it then. No thought of whether it helps the team or the individual, no thought to the majority of fans who's fun you're spoiling, no thought to the boost it gives the opposition to hear home players beeing booed, no thought at all really. It's mi right innit!!! Pathetic is what it is. Infantile and pathetic.

[Nimrod]

I absolutely agree with a number of your other contributors to this page - Ashley Cole was booed because of how he has behaved over the years, not because of one mistake (if Upson, Brown or Ferdinand had committed the same error on Saturday night, would there have been any booing? Of course not).

I am a Chelsea fan, and my heart sank when I heard we were signing Ashley Cole - excellent player though he is, his whole attitude is just poor.

[Tom]

I think Ashley Cole is one of the most objectionable people in modern sport, and generally would agree that any spite towards him is well-aimed, but this obscures the fact the booing from your average block-headed England fan is usually the preserve of muppets too thick not to lose themselves in a bullying, witch-hunting mentality, where any and all public spectacles must come with a helping of humiliation for someone, somewhere.

The vicious booing of players as diligent and hard-working as Peter Crouch and Owen Hargreaves, for no reason that I could fathom, just shows these people up for the colossal morons that they are. That the persistent denigration of Frank Lampard is stupid and counter-productive is so obvious it hardly seems like it should be pointed out, yet England muppets (sorry, "supporters") seem to need some help there.

[Andrew FR]

people have the right to boo but what's the point? booing never made anyone play better. i assume the boo-ers (if thats a word) had England's best interests at heart, but how are those interests enhanced by booing an individual player during the game?

[Ben]

Once upon a time, a school master was afforded respect by his pupils unconditionally. Today, unfortunately, our teachers must earn the respect of their pupils. However, once gained, the effect is the same: were the teacher to make a mistake on the board, his pupils would correct him, or joke about it, rather than greet the error with a roar of derision.

I may regret comparing Ashley Cole to a teacher, but the analogy is rather apt. Cole has done little to earn our respect as a man, hence his amateurish mistake was greeted by widespread booing. Oddly though, he did the right thing by responding in a positive way, and managed to win the crowd over by the end of the match.

Tigerboy is quite correct: a £55,000 weekly cheque must come with a few conditions. Learning to cope with the pressure from the crowd is surely one of them. So my point is this: fans were right to heckle Cole for an atrocious error, yet his response was excellent, and a fair crowd will therefore support him next time around.

[Daniel Pettinger]

The fans pay good money to watch England play and of course have the right to boo players who are playing badly, or in the case of Cole, make a stupid decision. He should use this to make sure he does the next thing better.

Due to his lifestyle choices he is one of the England players more likely to be booed, but that is what you get by having a public persona off the pitch. If he wants to be booed less he should make less mistakes on the field, but also work on his image off it.

[Danielle Blake]

While I think booing a poor team performance at the end of a half or match is reasonable, it's very sad that we have reached the stage where an individual is now being jeered for making a mistake. A player must feel terrible and ashamed at the time, and as this feeling will only be compounded by booing he is likely to play worse, not better. Indeed, it may put him off playing for England, if that is his thanks for it. Some perspective is needed too - look at Iwelumo's quite unbelievable miss against Norway. A far worse blunder than Cole's, as it cost Scotland 2 points in the end. Yet he was not booed by the Scottish fans.

[TigerBoy]

Kitchen, Heat etc. For £55,000 a week i would put up with a bit of booing if i made a schoolboy error.

[Alan Gourlay]

It has to be said that he brings it on himself by his attitude and his general behaviour which people don't forget easily, particularly if you are one of those supporters who have followed him throughout his 67 cap career with England something which must have cost each of them close to £15000 of their hard earned earnings.
What I find as disconcerting is that he isn't even a good allround full back because he doesn't have a clue how to defend. It will only be a few years now and he will be compared with the likes of Bobby Charlton, Billy Wright and Bobby Moore when we come to measure him by the number of caps he has won. My word how our standards have slipped.

[James]

Should you boo your own players? No. Does it help their performance improve? No. Did that mistake lose us the game? No. Would the same thing have happened to any of the other England players, had they made a mistake that led to a goal? I don't think so. But Ashley Cole's public image is such that it can hardly be unexpected for fans to have reacted this way. He's best known for being greedy and cheating on his wife!

[Niall Orr, Sydney]

The country needs to take it easy on England - currently, no other team in Europe has had a more successful start to their World Cup campaign - with England on 9 points with a goal difference of 9.

Applaud and show some respect - how inspiring is it to the team when there's an electric atmosphere

Although Ashley Cole might deserve a little off-field booing