MUCH MORE OF THIS and they will be debating a total ban on football at Westminster. Consider the evidence from The Hawthorns: A malevolent pack of overpaid loafers clad in garish outfits rampage aimlessly around verdant areas of urban England. If they are not cursing and swearing, they are brawling with one another.
Worse still, not content with badger-baiting tactics directed at men with small flags, they relentlessly stalk an innocent man to the point of exhaustion. Once their prey is surrounded — in this case, Michael Dean, of the Wirral — they squeal with baying yelps for his blood.
As Gary Megson, the West Bromwich Albion manager, said: “It was a bit tally-ho, wasn’t it?” He may have meant to say “gung-ho”, but his phraseology was apposite.
From the demented look of the flame-haired Billy Bremner to the manic, bulging eyes of Roy Keane, the red mist has descended for decades without warning on footballers and their herd mentality. But if the brightly packaged, sanitised, corporate game thought that it had rid itself of the neanderthal lurking inside many professionals, events in the Black Country at the weekend proved it was grossly mistaken.
“Premiership players now earn a lot of money. I am not sure if we fine them a week’s wages or two weeks it will hurt them,” Chris Coleman, the Fulham manager, said. The affable Welshman is a refreshing addition to the Premiership, but the obstinate defence of his players smacked of misplaced, or even naive loyalty.
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When Papa Bouba Diop lashed out at Darren Purse on the hour, the Senegal player’s dismissal was entirely warranted. To compound matters, Andrew Cole was sent off seven minutes from time after throwing several punches at Neil Clement, the West Bromwich midfield player, who seconds earlier had also been shown the red card for tripping Luis Boa Morte.
For Cole, it was a disappointing finale after his sliding effort in the 72nd minute seemed sufficient to secure victory. His reaction, though, was reminiscent of last orders on Saturday nights in Hyson Green, the less than salubrious area of Nottingham where he grew up and where the local police station used to lock up shop when the natives became restless.
A three-match suspension is certain to be imposed on Cole and Diop. Nothing by Coleman, however. Instead, he blamed a first-half challenge on Diop by Purse, the West Bromwich captain, for inciting the riotous assembly.
“If we were throwing in really nasty leg-breaking, career-threatening tackles, then I would react badly to my players, but not when they put in a performance like that,” Coleman said. “It (the trouble) all stemmed from that tackle in the first half. Players know when a tackle is a bad one and a leg-breaker and that definitely was a leg-breaking tackle.”
The challenge, which merited a caution, was rash but nothing more and did not vindicate the subsequent ill-disciplined Fulham response. Had they kept their composure, a valuable win would have been the London club’s, harshly so for West Bromwich. Kanu, who operated on a different planet from colleagues obsessed with hoofing a ball down the channels, saw headers thwarted by the woodwork and Edwin van der Sar. Robert Earnshaw, on his debut, was denied, too, by the Fulham and Holland goalkeeper, who then applied brinkmanship when the home team was awarded a penalty for handball by Moritz Volz in the 28th minute.
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In a week that has seen team Arsenal, dad Batman and son of Bryan Ferry orchestrate protests with varying degrees of success, it was inevitable that Fulham would stage their own, laying siege, in vain, to Dean for more than two minutes.
Van der Sar’s further prevarication earned a yellow card, but the stalling tactics worked as did the goalkeeper’s positioning at least a yard off his line as Earnshaw spooned a woeful penalty over the top. Kanu’s headed equaliser in the 88th minute was just reward for Albion.
Amid the furore, what also emerged was two teams who must try harder to contain not only their emotions, but also opponents. To judge from this, it is going to be a long, hard season likely to end in tears.