I don’t know if it’s just me but I think that sports writers often go over the top with their eulogies of player’s behaviour. I am thinking for instance of Frank Lampard taking a penalty for Chelsea, a few days after his mother’s death towards the end of last season. It was, we were told, an heroic act.
Accepting that he was very close to his mother and that it could have been the goal that settled the premiership title, what’s heroic about taking a penalty? Firemen going into a burning building might much more justifiably be called heroic. Soldiers in Afghanistan going out on patrol knowing it could be their last, seem much more to fit the description heroic that taking a penalty, particularly when it takes five years service to equate Lampard’s salary for a week.
Hilary Lister, a quadriplegic, paralysed from the neck down, who is attempting to sail solo around the British Isles, only able to control her boat by blowing into three straws, doesn’t think she’s heroic. ‘Just bonkers,’ she says.
What about referees? We always tell new referees on the first day of their course, that one of the qualities a referee needs is courage. But does that make them heroic? Take Howard Webb, England’s refereeing representative at Euro 2008. Poland were heading for a much needed victory against host nation Austria, when Webb awarded a free kick against them, some way outside their own penalty area. No arguments but the players carried on in the manner that now seems obligatory at such situations. They scurried back and forward in the penalty area, trying to stop one another, with arms outstretched arms around opponents. This was one of the areas that UEFA had instructed referees to give special attention to during the tournament and UEFA actually sent representatives out to the countries involved to tell them what referees had been told to look out for.
You can’t say they weren’t warned.
In fact Howard Webb delayed the taking of the kick to speak to two opposing players who were pulling and pushing one another. When the kick was finally taken, the Polish player, ignoring the warning, put his arm around the opponent, grabbed hold of his shirt and pulled him to the ground. Was Webb’s decision to award a penalty for holding a brave one or even heroic? Of course not, although it may have been cowardly if he had shirked from what he thought was the correct decision, which Alan Sheerer in the BBC’s pundit room, seemed to suggest he should have done. ‘Players are holding shirts all the game,’ he said. Incidentally, did anyone else feel the BBC team were just a little bored with it all?
I’m sure that even if Howard Webb had realised the reaction it would create, he would still have made the same decision. Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, said he wanted to kill Webb. Sounds more like a mafia boss than a Prime Minister. ‘Referees make mistakes and this was an obvious one that harmed us all.’ he said. Television replays showed of course that it wasn’t an error but a correct decision. Howard Webb indeed received death threats from some of the large Polish community in this country and I’m told that even now in Poland you can buy t-shirts with the slogan ‘Kill Webb’.
In view of all this, his decision not to tell UEFA about the threats, in case they stopped him refereeing at the tournament, may seem at least as heroic as taking a penalty but he wouldn’t think so. Nor did his Premiership colleagues who at the national referees’ conference, where he received a standing ovation, exhibited ‘Wanted – dead or alive’ posters, with his face in the middle. Life may be tough at the top in football but heroic? I don’t think so.
Dick Sawdon Smith
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© R Sawdon Smith 2008