Morality and Football

[BillyStubbsTears]

See me? I've never bought into that Shankley-esque crap about football being more important than life and death.

Football is a reflection of life. Your personal attitudes, your morality, courage, stoicism, fortitude, your ability to be a big man in defeat and magnanimous in victory, in short, your ability to do the right thing,  are all amplified in football.

Football, like life, is NOT about winning at all costs. It's about doing the very best that you can, but accepting that there are limits on behaviour. There are higher rules that govern the morality of how you conduct yourself.

Now, God knows I've had my rants about our manager over the last 4 years, but on the criteria above, Sean O'Driscoll is a fine, decent, courageous and morally correct man. The sort of man that society needs more of. He showed this in his dealings with Sheffield Utd over Billy Sharp. He showed it in his dealings with that odious runt of a Chairman at Burnley. He showed it in his dealings with Hayter and Oster after their little escapade.

Chris Hughton has always struck me as a decent and upright individual. Until last night. If he's prepared to turn a blind eye to an incident that put his club captain in hospital with a fractured jaw, and to allow the alleged assailant to pull on a club shirt, then he clearly belongs in the camp that thinks that winning is everything and morality comes a poor second.

See me? I'd rather be in the Conference with a good man of a manager than in the Premiership with a morally bankrupt ducker and diver. And I mean every word of that.

[MrFrost]

I agree BST. As a fan, if for example, our leading goalscorer, in this season's case Billy Sharp put Brian Stock in hospital by decking him, I wouldn't want him anywhere the team again and i'd swiftly want him moving on.
Newcastle have shown that Carrol is obviously bigger than the club, allowing him to play after the incident.
I honestly believe Newcastle will struggle again next season in the Premiership. They have a team full of thugs, Barton, Smith, Carrol etc, and the incident at their training grown shows that there is unrest. Their quality might come through at this level, but they need cool heads on their shoulders next season, which they don't have.

[Hounslowrover]

Totally agree, obviously promotion is far more important to Hughton than integrity and footballers as role models, not playing Carroll would make little difference to Newcastle's promotion, but would have sent out a good message.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Hounslowrover wrote:

Totally agree, obviously promotion is far more important to Hughton than integrity and footballers as role models, not playing Carroll would make little difference to Newcastle's promotion, but would have sent out a good message.

It would have actually sent out several good messages.

1) To their fans in general. The impressionable young uns in particular, like the little cock-end who walked up to may car and gobbed at my window last night while we were stuck in traffic. It would have sent a message, however minor, about acceptable behaviour.

2) To Carrol and the rest of the squad. It would have said: \"I'm in charge here and you lot f**king well live up to my expectations in your general behaviour or you're dispensible.\" As it is, who's in charge there now?

3) To the rest of the division. It would have said, \"We're a big club, we have the confidence that we're better than the rest of you, and we don't have to scrabble and grub about to win this division.\"

Chances missed. Hughton's authority, both moral and in general control over his players is now far weaker than it was.

[Filo]

I agree with that BST, Carrol is already on bail accused of glassing someone in a Newcastle nightclub apparently, he`s now allegedly broke the jaw of another person, that alone should have breached his bail conditions and the police should have had him locked up until his trial, regardless of whether Taylor wanted to press charges or not, in any other occupation what he did would be classed as gross misconduct and instant dismissal

[London_Rover]

Of course Carroll could just have been standing up for himself with unfortunate consequences and maybe the real culprit of the alleged incident was the one not playing...

I seem to remember there was a lot of talk before about Hayter and Stock and their days at Bournemouth. I don't know whether there was any truth in it at all but nobody seemed to mind about that.

Two things I would state my mortgage on are that SO'D is a very moral man and also, that as footie fans, we are often remarkably ill-informed...

[en aitch]

Judge for yourselves - believe it or believe it not - pointless speculation or otherwise:

Carroll has been involved in many off the pitch incidents in his career. On 14 September 2008, Carroll was arrested by police called to the Pudding Chare in Newcastle responding to a report that a woman had been assaulted, and later accepted a police caution for assault. In 7 December 2009, He was arrested in the aftermath of a nightclub brawl, accused of smashing glass in a man's face. He was charged with assault and is currently on bail awaiting a Crown Court Trial.

Carroll, along with Scott Sinclair & Ryan Bertrand, was also sent home from the England U-19 squad after breaking curfew on 14 October during preparation for a match against Romania.

Carroll was also involved in some training ground bust-ups. He got into a training ground fight with French teammate Charles N'Zogbia over a late tackle on Carroll's counterpart. Then-Newcastle manager Joe Kinnear decided not to punish the two saying \"It was just handbags, and it's been blown out of all proportion,\" and \"I can't stop players being passionate, and wouldn't want to. I won't be taking any action\". On 23rd March 2010, it was reported that Andy Carroll had apprently broken fellow Newcastle United teammate Steven Taylor's jaw in a fight at the club's training ground. The fight reportedly is a result of an exchange of text messages between Taylor and Carroll's former girlfriend. allegedly

However, he did take his chance well, and I accept that all that we read isn't necessarily fact - never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

[Fulham Rover]

My brother those were damn fine words!!

[Wokingviking]

Personally I couldn't have watched Rovers if we'd signed Lee Hughes.  Although DRFC would always remain in my heart, I would have waited until he'd gone before I came back.

[silent majority]

I agree with all of that BST, and so do a good few Newcastle supporters too. Some of my friends who were down from Newcastle for the game were very surprised that he was in the squad and felt that this again was a wrong decision made by their club quoting the original Barton incidents as classic mistakes by a certain K. Keegan. The one thing they were all convinced of is that Caroll is going down for a long time.

[silent majority]

I agree with all of that BST, and so do a good few Newcastle supporters too. Some of my friends who were down from Newcastle for the game were very surprised that he was in the squad and felt that this again was a wrong decision made by their club quoting the original Barton incidents as classic mistakes by a certain K. Keegan. The one thing they were all convinced of is that Caroll is going down for a long time.

[bedale rover]

not sure how relevant it is but he apparently used to write a column for the socialist worker when he was playing for spurs and has also instigated a players committee to liaise with management to increase involvement in the day to day affairs at the club

so it may be more to do with inertia that oppurtunism and immorality