Role models?

After England, with its clean cut manager and captain, rehabilitated football as a sport with the wider British public in this summer's World Cup, rugby and cricket are vying to take over football's crown as the sport of undesirables and the kicking boy for the media.

In cricket's case the wheels of justice ran very slowly so the Ben Stokes saga will be played out over more than a year. One might call it a "timeless test", but only if you are a cricketing nerd. Stokes disgraced himself outside a Bristol nightclub last September and became a media anti-hero mainly due to a CCTV clip appearing promptly on youtube. One wonders how this happens but it isn't the first time (Joey Barton was another). Are people with access to the systems taking copies before the police collect the evidence? I accept this interpretation may be being charitable to the police (Barton clearly thinks the police leaked his meltdown, which was possibly even more spectacular than Stokes's). After all, if it is correct, why aren't the people who post this stuff being charged, as one would have thought it was prejudicial to a fair trial. Though this isn't the most concerning aspect of our legal system at the moment, as the CPS appears to be dysfunctional to the extreme. The Stokes trial is just the latest example of incompetence by the CPS, the not guilty verdict appearing to indicate that the CPS brought the wrong charges. Indeed, they tried to bring other charges at the start of the trial but were understandably given short shrift by the judge, as it could not possibly have been fair to the defence at that stage. With the lamentable failure to understand the first principles of disclosure in other, well publicised, cases one wonders whether anyone at the CPS has actually studied law. (I am, of course, a barrack room expert....)

As for Stokes he still has to appear before the cricketing overlords (should that be Over Lords?) so that will rumble on for some time yet. If they decide a suspension is merited, the fact that Stokes missed the last Ashes series is apparently not relevant as Stokes wasn't suspended then, he just wasn't being picked, which seems a peculiar take on fairness.

In contrast rugby player Danny Cipriani's case for resisting arrest (a mild charge given that he seems to have assaulted a female police officer while resisting arrest in Jersey) was heard almost before he had sobered up. His club took action against him within days and then the rugby authorities also had a go but, despite him attending the hearing in a classic "sod you" outfit (see below - at least he wore a tie to go with his untucked shirt, trainers and presumably borrowed ill fitting jacket) they decided not to go for some kind of triple jeopardy and apply further sanctions while finding him guilty of bringing the game into disrepute by behaving in a manner that "fell below the standard expected of a rugby player". (Er, what standard would that be? Biting, eye gouging, raking and excessive force being staples of the game as far as I can see, let alone no dress sense in Cipriani's case).

Cipriani is now left to wonder whether England boss Eddie Jones will select him or not. I would have had Cipriani in the squad for most of the past decade based on his playing skill, so one wonders whether other factors have kept him out. Jones will have to decide if Cipriani is reliable or disruptive as a member of the England squad.

It's easy to think that players misbehaving is a modern era problem when it was probably just easier to get away with things in the past - this whole business about role models strikes me as a modern era phenomenon. To show it's nothing new, England were without their wicket keeper in the first ever cricket test match in Australia in 1877 as Ted Pooley was in a cell in New Zealand after an altercation at the end of a match on which he had wagered money*. Pooley had previous - he had been suspended by his county after winning a bottle of champagne in a bet with a colleague, drinking it for breakfast and having to be replaced as wicketkeeper after lunch. The plot thickened in New Zealand when the chap Pooley had beaten up for reneging on a bet brought other charges about damage to property. Pooley was bailed for several weeks before being found not guilty. He returned to England a month after his team mates got home.

I've often said that I don't get the whole role model issue about sports stars, saying that they are only role models in terms of their sporting ability, not as people. It shouldn't be difficult to point out to youngsters the problems that aberrant behaviour can cause, as illustrated in spades by Stokes. David Walsh recounted a story** about a very famous but aging tennis star playing on the celebrity circuit who told his then 10 year old son to "f### off" when the lad was presumptious enough to politely ask if he could have the sweaty headband the tennis player had just removed at an invitation tournament. The look on his face made the lad's siblings laugh. Although the 10 year old was only just beginning to learn swear words, Walsh and his family weren't outraged.  "Conor would hear worse when he started playing football for Comberton Crusaders under 12s and hearing a tennis star swear didn't exactly scar those within earshot". The story never fails to amuse whenever it is told in Walsh's house. Walsh summarises what I feel admirably:

"It is not our youngsters who demand or expect athletes to be role models. It's us, the parents, hoping that sports stars will do our job".

So now it's clear that rugby players and cricketers are no different from footballers will the press and public lay off diving, cheating, occasionally loutish and hugely overpaid footballers and let ordinary justice take its course when they misbehave? Not a chance. Because of that word "overpaid". The comments tend to be fuelled by self righteous resentment and that's not in short supply.

* http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/539294.html
** David Walsh's Sunday Times column, 19 August