Source: Telegraph
John Terry affair highlights Fabio Capello's lack of options for replacement England captain
Sportsmen are not angels. They are not even, to borrow that most imprecise of phrases, 'role models'. They are human beings, with the same flaws and foibles as the rest of us, except they have greater opportunities to indulge them. [LNB]Eddie Paynter, the great Lancashire batsman, was once asked by a group of younger cricketers about Wally Hammond, perhaps the greatest batsman this country has ever produced. 'Wally', said Paynter, pausing for thought. 'Liked a shag, did Wally'. [LNB]So, on the principle that there is nothing new under the sun, it may be wise not to get too worked up about John Terry's latest indiscretion. Far better players than he have done far worse things, and lived to tell the tale in a thousand saloon bars. [LNB]Like many footballers, Terry's brains are in his boots. Like far too many of his comrades, the Chelsea defender has been blinded by money and notoriety (not fame, which is a rare and noble flower, plucked by few). [LNB]But that was always the case. Bobby Moore, the greatest of all England captains, and, like Terry, a Barking boy, was never mistaken for Albert Schweitzer. He liked a drop, and knew unsavoury characters. Unlike Terry, however, he had a natural dignity, grace and ease in office. [LNB]Moore was one of the rare ones, who tasted true fame, because he was a genuinely great player who never defiled the game. Terry does not appear to know that one must honour the game at all. The only thing he seems to care about is what he, a goodish though far from exceptional player, can take out of it. [LNB]Leave to one side his notion of l'amour (seducing a teenage fan in the back of his Bentley classy or what?). Consider instead the way he bullies referees week in, week out. Worse, he blubbed like a baby when he missed a penalty in a Champions' League final. A captain who blubs in defeat should be removed of his stripes on the spot. [LNB]Terry is not alone in committing these malpractices, far from it, but he is - or, as we might soon have to say, was - the captain of England, which brings its own responsibilities. Let's be honest about it. In any decent staff room his card would have been marked NOC: Not Officer Class. [LNB]But who is? Look around English football, and the landscape is bare. Rio Ferdinand served an eight-month ban seven years ago for missing a drugs test he had been warned about that very morning. He went shopping, and turned his mobile off possibly a first for a footballer, who, as a breed, spend most of their waking hours with their ears clamped to cellphones. [LNB]Ashley Cole, another splendid example of fidelity on and off the pitch, felt Plod's hand on his collar after an altercation at a South Kensington nightclub where he had been enjoying an 'intellectual discussion' (his words!) with a young lady. [LNB]Steven Gerrard appeared before the beak last year on an assault charge and, though he was acquitted, as Terry was in similar circumstances back in 2001, one wonders about the company that these players keep. [LNB]Yet to whom can they look for a good example? We are often told that David Beckham is a fine 'ambassador' for football, and for England, in which case let's find ourselves a Sir Les Patterson figure as soon as possible. Beckham remains the only England player to be sent off twice, and the only one to be dismissed while captain. That's the stuff of leadership! [LNB]Of course we could skip a generation, as Sir Alf Ramsey did in 1963, and appoint a younger man. That brings us to Wayne Rooney, a brilliant player, who stands on the threshold of greatness, if greatness will admit him. [LNB]Yet this is the man whose last act in the World Cup of 2006 was to earn a red card for treading on Ricardo Cavalho's gonads. [LNB]Ah, his admirers said (and still say), but the boy felt 'frustrated' by Sven-Goran Eriksson's tactics, which left him all on his ownio up front. Superb player though he is, Rooney is no more a leader of men than Beckham. [LNB]It's not much of an inventory, is it, for our 'national game'? In recent years rugby has given us Will Carling and Martin Johnson. Cricket has supplied Nasser Hussain and Michael Vaughan and Andrew Strauss hasn't done too badly. Football provides a cast of mardy little boys you wouldn't pay in washers. [LNB]Terry isn't uniquely bad; just poorly advised. Still, they make a pretty big club in his cloistered world. If English footballers owed membership of the national team to basic intelligence, Fabio Capello would struggle to raise a quorum. [LNB]
