adminLONDON. — English football is “in danger of losing its soul” because of selfish players, avaricious owners and managers obsessed with the short term, according to one of the game’s leading power brokers, Gordon Taylor, of the Professional Footballers’ Association. The summer has seen player power writ large again in the behaviour of Luis Suárez, Wayne Rooney, Gareth Bale and Papiss Cissé. Clubs tour the world, chasing the baht, yen and dollar. Assorted troubles continue to bedevil the game from racism to the fleecing of fans to England’s latest stumble. No wonder Taylor’s mood on the eve of the new season strayed into the dark and mournful.
In a broad critique of modern football, the chief executive of the players’ union turned his disapproving gaze first on his own members.
“The players don’t know how lucky they are nowadays,” said Taylor. “I went the other day to see one of our former players, Gary Parkinson, who played for Bolton, Preston, Burnley, Blackpool, Middlesbrough. He was working with youngsters at Blackpool all hours and had a stroke (in 2010). Terrible.
“He has locked-in syndrome. A speech therapist, who’s really good, has been working with him, using ice lollies to work his mouth open.
“Gary can now move his tongue. The difference in him is brilliant. I went to see him the other day and drove away, thinking of some of the cases I’ve got (with awkward players).
“It would just be good if I could say, ‘Just come with me this morning and you’d really appreciate what you’ve got. You owe the game a bit. You don’t need all this, prospective moves, refusal to wear a shirt, different problems with lads twittering because they are not in the team. Try to be a bit more professional’.’’
Taylor paused. He knows the national game still has plenty of positives.
“Football hasn’t completely lost its soul when you see football helping Gary Parkinson. The support from all his clubs has been fantastic.
“The way the sport rallied around Fabrice Muamba showed the soul is still there. But we need a few more fairytales like Kevin Phillips, a lad still going strong at 40, scoring in the (Championship) play-off final.
“We don’t have a divine right to be that major participant sport. The biggest problem is youngsters. Rather than being couch potatoes, and getting a buzz from drugs, they should be shown how to get involved in sport, particularly football, to see the benefits of team spirit and making a living at it.”
He said it was “unbelievable” how English football had retained its popularity, “but we need to encourage a lot of youngsters to aspire to be Kenny Davenport”. Who? Davenport was the Bolton Wanderers inside forward now credited with scoring the first ever league goal in 1888 when the Football League began. This was a particular delight for Taylor, himself a Wanderer of old.
Yet Taylor knows that Davenport, a modest Bolton boy, would struggle to recognise the millionaire modern footballer.
“It’s hard enough for the likes of Tom Finney and Jimmy Armfield to recognise the modern footballer,’’ sighed the PFA chief executive.
“It’s my job to protect players but when you think what some players earn, I do feel we need to get them to embrace a lot more responsibility for leaving the game in a better place than when they joined it, being more like Kenny Davenport.
“Tom Finney, an icon, earned less in his career than some of the modern players do in a week and that it is really (wrong) with the contribution they make.
“Next year we will be remembering 100 years since the First World War when a lot of footballers died. Our Donald Bell, the first player to sign up, won the Victoria Cross (for subduing a German machine-gun nest at the Somme).
“It’s a time of trying to remember that football is a sport, an entertainment. Football has a real social responsibility for bringing people together in a world where there are a lot of tensions, whether economic, racist, religious, political. — The Telegraph.
Online Reporter