Imagine what George Best’s WhatsApp groups would have contained when he was 25; how Paul Gascoigne’s life would have looked if recorded and shared on Instagram; or what the teenage tweets of any of a thousand working class white lads made good in the Football League in 1970’s Britain would have read like. How many tragic pictures of footballing divinities like Tony Adams and Paul McGrath would we have seen after a post-training all-dayer. It’s doesn’t bear thinking about, but we should think about it as we as a society seek to nail everyone for every indiscretion, not because of the indiscretion itself, but because they are, supposedly, “role models”.
It’s been quite a few weeks for sports stars and for those who seek to ascribe this nebulous, ill-defined status to them, for merely being very good at something young people are into. I’ve always been uncomfortable with this aspect of fandom and sport. It’s a tag that rarely gets mentioned about other professions that are supposed to inspire our kids. How often are famous musicians, actors, authors, comedians etc. who go off the rails hanged for this specific offence. I don’t know if its modern parenting or the absence of a moral compass for society since the end of organised religion as a universal force in the Western world, but for people to rely on professional sports stars for an ethical map is ludicrous at best, and deeply offensive at worst.
It is ludicrous because most people – society lets call it – know nothing about these stars. They don’t know if they came from stable or broken homes – were they subject to domestic abuse or bullying as kids; were they absolutely dirt poor; was their neighbourhood violent; have they best mates who died with a needle in their arm or a knife in their stomach; do they have a background with mental health issues; have they been surrounded by racists, sexists or homophobes all their lives. In other words, society, parents, moral guardians, generally have little idea as to the cultural milieu in which these people were produced.
It’s offensive because it degrades the job of parents, wider families, teachers and the people around kids (the “village” it takes to raise them) by claiming there is an equivalent or higher power – a public figure who has been granted this authority over them because they’re good at football or rugby or some other sport. I would be massively pissed off if someone told me that a Liverpool player or Ireland international was a great role model for my kids, because I have no idea what he or she is like off the pitch or who he or she associates with. Is he more likely to be found giving his spare time in Crumlin Children’s Hospital or being fucked out of a nightclub and involved in a scrap? We don’t fully know and we’ve seen enough, particularly in recent weeks, to say that we never truly know what anyone is capable of on their worst days.
Jamie Carragher personified everything I would want my kids to be on a football pitch. Loyal (once he saw sense and swapped blue for red), passionate, inspirational and reliable. He never won the title but he won everything else – 7 major trophys – in a series of Liverpool sides that never quite got there, but close. Off the pitch, I have no idea. I’ve just seen that he married his childhood girlfriend and has two kids and does the bit of charity work, as most people of all professions should if they are fortunate enough to have the resources of time and money. According to Wikipedia, he was awarded the Freedom of the Borough of Sefton for his local charity work and “the exceptional example he sets to the youth of today” in 2008. This source also states he is a Labour party supporter, which means he is at least not a fucking Tory. Who is on Merseyside, I hear you ask. So he seems like a reasonable chap – a role model you may even say. Certainly the former Mayor of Sefton John Walker who bestowed the rare award on him would agree with that.
He then went and gobbed on a car with a young girl in it. Does this negate everything else he has achieved on and off the pitch? Is he now a scouse scumbag, as a huge number of southern English Tory types and Perennially Offended Commentariat would have probably viewed him anyway. Should he never work in the public eye again? I would answer every one of those questions with a resounding no.
It was a scummy horrible action. A vile thing to do. Context is important, however, and we all know modern media has zero time for context. Sure how would you fit context into a clickable headline; how do you pause in your bilious talk-show phone-in for a moment of reflection and consideration. So Carragher is immediately branded a scumbag for a few days until the next disgrace comes along. Granted, even if we looked at the context, his actions can never be excused, but they can at least be understood. Here was a man driving home from work minding his own business, when some hilarious genius decides to drive alongside him, whip out his phone (i.e., drive while using his phone, endangering other road users and his passenger – his child), to video himself goading Carragher having seen his United team beat Liverpool. Epic bantz for the man behind the camera. Imagine how big his balls would have felt the next Monday morning in work after all his colleagues had seen it! What a gas ticket, a card, a great lad, loves the bit of craic!!!
The unnamed driver, however, is not burdened by the weight of the “role model” tag. He gets to do what he bloody well wants. He gets to endanger his daughter and other road users for the sake of banter. Banter, bloody banter. Alongside diving and gambling, the greatest pox on the modern game. And Jamie Carragher reacted extremely poorly to some obnoxious banter and he is being punished. I hope he returns to our screens; we all know how much he regrets it and we all know how much he has brought to football. What we don’t know is if the gas lad behind the camera regrets it or if he will be punished for what he did. I assume every parent regrets those moments when they did something stupid with their kids watching on, particularly when they share it with the whole world. But then not all parents are the same.
If the Carragher incident exposed a nasty side to football banter, the Belfast rape trial has shown up the sinister side of society in general, viewed through the lens of rugby’s ultra macho culture. This trial brought up a lot of themes – entitlement; the force of an institution like Ulster Rugby; alcohol; misogyny; pornography; and above all else, the notion of consent itself. An awful experience for all concerned, yes all. While it’s abundantly clear that there was one victim that night, there were a number of lives turned upside down and which will never be the same again. I’m not going to delve into the details again as those of you who were interested would have read or seen the absolutely ludicrously over-the-top non-stop blanket media coverage throughout this sordid trial. One which laid bare the dignity of one woman, and the depths to which a number of young men sank for the sake of a good night out and a bit of action.
Instead, I’d like to focus on how in the name of god a couple of rugby players could be bestowed and burdened with the role model tag. Rugby players for fucks sake!!! I know this is a football site, and I accept all the shit that goes with our game and the fact that I am biased to an extent, but who in their right mind is looking to rugby players as role models? No sport wears as much obnoxious dickishness as a badge of honour more proudly than Rugby, in particular in south Dublin. Ross O’Carroll Kelly may be a work of fiction, but people like me who grew up in a rugby heartland in Blackrock, surrounded by the game, recognise, loike, soooo much of Paul Howard’s work, and we’d remember what these boys were like as they became men in their late teens. So I don’t know how any parent would look to them as role models. For every sound Brian O’Driscoll type of rugby player or fan I know (and I’m friends with plenty) there’s another lad treating someone as their inferior – the nerdy guy in the office; the waitress; the barman; or the woman beside him in bed. They plough through life blissfully unaware of their actions, and to some extent for some of them, they are shielded from the consequences. While most of this does not result in anything serious, the night in question did, and we did see a scrap outside Kielys between kids from Terenure and Michael’s very recently, which if had involved Rovers and Bohs fans, the media would have screamed “Hooligans!!!” from the rooftops. And let us not forget Annabels.
Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding are not role models. It should not be in their job description and if it is, it speaks to the arrogance of their employers more than anything else. They are young men who are very good at Rugby, who played a central role in a deeply degrading incident which all parties regret. They have been adjudged not as criminals, but the court of public opinion will see them as it sees them. Should they work again in Rugby? It’s up to them and their prospective employers. I can’t understand why they would do what they did that night. I don’t know if that’s normal behaviour nowadays among twentysomethings, just like when that fucking disgusting stuff emerged about Wesley disco all those years back. I couldn’t believe that was normal either! But I just don’t know. I do hope that this case can act as some sort of watershed moment around many of the above themes it brought to the fore. I’ll leave the issues of consent, porn etc. to others more qualified who have already written on these matters and who will carry on seeking to address them in the future, but in the case of role model sports stars, I think it’s clear. Rugby, despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary, still sees itself as the nice sport played and followed by nice middle-class people. Surely that myth is well and truly blown at this stage, as it has been for other sports for many, many years, football being one of the first. And surely at this stage, the Irish public will seek more than a private school education and a nice accent before they judge a young man as someone they would be happy to have alone in a bedroom with their daughters.
Moving on from that desperate episode, just when you think there was nothing more that famous sports people could do to kick that role model tag into submission in recent months, along comes the biggest, mouthiest fucker of them all to pummel it into submission. Conor McGregor. Straight off the bat, I’ll be honest and I will offend at least half of you, I think the entire UFC is a load of absolute bollox. I detest everything about it. I hate, hate, the violence of the sport itself; the macho culture it promotes is vile; the PR is a con job; and the entire mode of communication around the whole damn thing is repugnant. I now judge people on whether they like it or not and I put people into boxes based on it. So if you’re a fan of it, first thanks for still reading, and second, I probably won’t like you that much if I met you!!! (Ah come on, there’s a smiley face meant at the end of that line.I’m not that much of a prick!!!)
The notion, therefore, that yer man McGregor, is some sort of role model for young Irish men and boys, makes me a bit queasy. The notion that there are legions of these kids who think any word that comes out of that man’s mouth, or that any of his actions in most recent years, are ideals by which to live your life is a poor reflection on modern Ireland. Are we that cheap? Are we that tacky? Are we that so wrapped up in post-recession consumerism and want, that we are unable to judge that not all money is worth having at any cost? Is Conor McGregor who we now are?
Is he fuck!!!! He’s a multi-millionaire because he dedicated his life to reaching the top of the UFC tree – and despite my views on the sport, to dominate anything the way he dominated this, was admirable beyond belief. He ruled the world and shook things up wherever he went. And I absolutely respect him for that. He’s also the lad who has used racist and homophobic language in public. He’s the lad who out-machoed even the biggest clowns in town when he sped away from his court appearance for driving offences in Dublin. He’s the lad who jumped into the ring of another fight; and now he’s the lad with serious criminal charges hanging over him in the United States.
Yet again, the role model tag is rolled out. I mean come on!!! How can anyone believe he is a role model unless you simply value cash, and cash alone. Is there any other value that he stands for? Hard work, yeh I get that, but that applies to every single sportsman or sportswoman you have ever heard of. Dignity? Humility? Sportsmanship? Respect? What do you want from a role model? If it’s the ability to gather copious amounts of cash from people so you can flaunt it all you want, then yeh go for it. But I would certainly disagree with you. At this stage though, it is becoming a Shakespearean tragedy. Despite my views, I hope he ends up ok after all of this. Glory is a fleeting thing in all sports. Revel in it while you can, but you have to look after it too…
Sportspeople can be role models. Of course they can. The point I am trying to make is that they don’t have to be and being one is not an intrinsic part of the job. Success is measured on a scale and being the best at one thing may contribute to your failings in many other areas out of the ring or off the pitch. We should not look to them to provide a moral or ethical pathway for our children to follow, other than their application to their job. Sportspeople reflect their society. They are not there to fix it.
A Yard of Grass 