Thursday 27 December 2012

Random Jottings on Simulation


The Laws of the game call it simulation, the media calls it diving and the man on the terrace calls it cheating. Whatever we call it, it has universally been accepted as a Bad Thing; indeed Stoke City manager Tony Pulis recently called for Liverpool striker Luis Suarez to be banned for three matches following a dive by the Uruguayan during a game between the two clubs. Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers believes that his player doesn’t get the penalties he deserves, although in fact Suarez is now like the boy who cried wolf; his reputation means that he will probably have to tied to a goalpost and be whacked about the body by a defender using a corner flag before he gets a penalty. Likewise Fernando Torres, another player who is no stranger to controversy in the “was it a foul or was it a dive?” stakes.

The fact that Suarez and Torres are Uruguayan and Spanish respectively is grist to the mill of those who believe that diving is an aspect of the game that we have imported, however the truth is more complex than that.

In 1972, Francis Lee set a British record for the number of penalties scored in a season, with 15 of his 35 goals scored from the penalty spot. Lee himself earned many of these spot kicks, some of which he was accused of winning by diving, resulting in him being dubbed Lee One Pen. Latterly ex-England striker Michael Owen has admitted that he could have stayed on his feet when winning not one, but two penalties in World Cup matches with Argentina. Somewhat hypocritically, Owen says “I’m totally against diving but.........I have been guilty as well, at the 1998 World Cup I was running flat out, got a nudge, went down. Could I have stayed up? Yes probably.”

The belief that diving was imported along with the influx of overseas players probably stems from the dual facts that there are now so few British players in the Premier League together with every Premier League game being covered by TV with a multitude of camera angles and every decision scrutinised ad nauseam by the panels of pundits. Back in the day when Franny Lee was banging in his fifteen penalties not only was there no blanket TV coverage, but those games that did appear on the box were only filmed by a limited number of cameras. Frequently the pundits and the viewers had no better a view than the referee. Diving is probably only a little more common now than it used to be, it’s just that these days there is no hiding place from the TV cameras. Whatever diving did take place back in the 1970’s was however, highly frowned upon when or if it was spotted, and if it was exposed it was often at the time of the incident and by an opponent who had little compunction in taking matters into their own hands, either immediately or later in the game. It would have taken a brave forward to dive in games against certain 1970’s defenders who were renowned for administering their own justice, regardless of what decision a referee might have made.

The media have rightly taken against diving, or cheating, or simulation or whatever you want to call it, although sometimes they can be somewhat sanctimonious on the matter, as though they are shocked by the idea of sportsmen in general, footballers in particular, and especially British footballers, cheating. Once the rewards are great enough, the possibility of detection remote enough and the penalties for being caught slight enough, it will happen in professional sport, just as it happens in finance and politics and whether the media likes it or not, in journalism.

This piece first appeared in the programme for the Romford v. Heybridge Swifts match in Ryman League Division One North, 24th November 2012.

Ironically, perhaps, the day before publishing this piece here, Liverpool visited Stoke City and guess what? Liverpool were awarded a penalty, their first of the season, for a foul on Luis Suarez that not even Tony Pulis could contest. Not that it did 'Pool much good as Stoke ran out 3-1 winners.

Random Jottings on Technology


I heard once that today’s smart phones have more computing power than NASA had available for the first moon landing. That may be an urban myth, but there’s no doubt that the iPhone and its competitors like the Samsung Galaxy range or the BlackBerry are incredibly sophisticated computing and communication tools. They should probably be more realistically called multi-functional devices as actually making phone calls is almost just an afterthought and only a small part of their purpose. Accessing the internet using these hand-held devices, or through your computer at home or work means that news and information that is constantly updated is available to you 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Twitter for instance can feed you scores from even the Ryman League in real-time. There is an iPhone app for Football Web Pages that will keep you up to date with the latest results and League tables from Steps One to Four of the non-League pyramid and of course most of us will exchange texts with fellow Boro supporters who can’t get to matches.

There is also now an iPhone app specifically for the Ryman League, providing news, results and league tables and allowing the user to select the club they support to personalise their view of the application. For non iPhone users here is apparently an Android app in the pipeline. Coverage on the internet, both on your home PC or smartphone, of Premier and Football League scores can be found from any number of sources and the ESPN Goals app allows you to see Premier League highlights as the games progress.

This is a far cry from the days, not so many years ago when, if you missed the reading of the classified football results in Sports Report at five o’clock, and you couldn’t get a Saturday evening paper, it might be Sunday morning before you could find out the results from the Football League, let alone non-League football. Indeed there were occasions when I first started supporting Romford that it might not be until the Romford Recorder came out on a Friday before I could learn how Boro had done in midweek or even the previous Saturday. In fact in the early days of the 1990’s there were a couple of Romford games that passed me by completely and which I wasn’t even aware were due to take place until I saw the result in the Recorder. Mind you the last of these was in November 1995 (a 6-0 win over East Ham United at Rush Green, in case you’re interested).

All this new technology is marvellous for keeping up to date with the news from non-League football in particular as the traditional media like the press, TV and radio devote very little space or air-time to the subject; indeed Twitter is a great source of news about football in general and the non-League game in particular. Twitter is however very much a double edged sword for individuals, if not for news organisations. Whereas the latter will bring you news and information, the former bring you their thoughts and opinions with an immediacy that makes one wonder if they actively put their brains in gear before committing their thoughts into the ether. When David Cameron remarked, as long ago as 2009 that “too many tweets might make a twat" he was referring to members of the Conservative party, but he may just as well have been aiming at professional footballers; I’m sure you can imagine who I’m talking about!

This piece first appeared in the programme for the Romford v. Potters Bar Town match in Ryman League Division One North on 3rd November 2012.

The Green Ink Brigade

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