Man of Harveys
Well-known member
Simon Hattenstone, as ever, shows how it should be done:
http://football.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2017564,00.html
This year's footballing Oscar goes to ... Craig Bellamy
Simon Hattenstone
Wednesday February 21, 2007
The Guardian
The awards season is upon us: Brits last week, Oscars this. And now our very own Top Tosspot in football gong. Apologies to those who failed to make the short list: they might have been nominated had the field not been so fertile.
First, a trip down memory lane. Who could forget the colourful contributions made by the following? Vinnie Jones, for squeezing the life out of Gazza's knackers and biting a lump out of a tabloid hack's nose; Gazza himself for services to drunkenness and domestic abuse; George Best for much the same; Harald Schumacher for smacking France's Patrick Battiston to Kingdom Come; Mark Bosnich for his Nazi salute and coke binges; Duncan Ferguson for his four assault convictions; Stan Collymore for punching Ulrika Jonsson; Eric Cantona for kung-fu kicking a Crystal Palace fan; Roy Keane for deliberately crippling Alfe Inge Haaland; Andoni Goicoechea ('The Butcher of Bilbao') for breaking Diego Maradona's ankle with a psycho tackle, then framing the injurious boot in a glass case in his living room. All have a place in football's hall of gratuitous yobbery.
Despite their achievements, none of these distinguished louts makes the short list. However grievous the damage they wreaked, they were "characters" or traditional hard men rather than out-and-out tossers. At times one could even pity the likes of Gazza and Collymore. They were human; they could cry. There was a certain nobility in Cantona's attempt to combat crowd xenophobia and even Ferguson partly redeemed himself by assaulting a pair of burglars. Today he may be regarded more as a populist vigilante than a thug.
A number of distinguished contemporary louts failed to make the short list. Paolo Di Canio, still playing in Italy, earned himself a magnificent 11-match ban for pushing over a referee. But he transcends mere thuggery by embracing the political. He is not just a mindless yob, he is a good old-fashioned fascist, with a touch of the circus clown: witness his much-loved Mussolini salutes. Joey Barton was a sure-fire contender with his history of eye poking, cigar burning and bottom flashing but his recent assault on the banal Gerrard and Lampard memoirs has revealed a hitherto unknown propensity for speaking sense.
And so to the lucky few. In reverse order ... a surprise entry at number four is Lampard himself. His urbane exterior can blind one to the qualities that saw him "romping" with Rio Ferdinand and Kieron Dyer, asking two girls to perform a lesbian sex show. And do not forget his drunken chunterings, alongside John Terry, in front of grieving Americans the day after 9/11.
Bang in at three is face-arranger extraordinaire Ben Thatcher.
At two is Lee Bowyer for being Lee Bowyer. He was fined £4,500 way back for hurling chairs at two Asian workers in a McDonald's restaurant, having said "I don't want to be served by no Paki"; former girlfriend Emma Keeney alleged he dumped her after discovering she was half-Indian and feared they might have a "brown baby"; and he had a punch-up with his Newcastle team-mate Dyer mid-match.
Despite the fact that he received only a six-match ban for stamping on the head of Malaga's Gerardo while playing for Leeds, despite the fact that he was cleared of assaulting an Asian student Sarfraz Najeib and despite his insistence that he is not a racist, we feel he is a worthy runner-up in the tosspot stakes.
But the winner is ... Craig Bellamy. Craig has not only shown magnificent past form - police caution for common assault and £100,000 club fine after an incident involving a 20-year-old female student, £750 court fine for drunken, abusive behaviour outside a Cardiff nightclub, numerous bans - he has sustained it. Last year he was cleared of assaulting two women in a Cardiff nightclub and, when he joined Liverpool this season, he announced he had turned over a new leaf. "I believe I've a wiser head on me now but I'm not naive enough to think people will suddenly start saying what a nice bloke I am."
Indeed not. He is to be fined £80,000 by Liverpool after threatening to attack his team-mate John Arne Riise with a golf club. The Guardian citation says: "For managing to spit in the eye of fortune when given yet another chance, for betraying the trust of those who invested so heavily and believed so fervently, and for unrelenting stupidity and nastiness, Craig Bellamy is football's Top Tosspot of the Year."
http://football.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2017564,00.html
This year's footballing Oscar goes to ... Craig Bellamy
Simon Hattenstone
Wednesday February 21, 2007
The Guardian
The awards season is upon us: Brits last week, Oscars this. And now our very own Top Tosspot in football gong. Apologies to those who failed to make the short list: they might have been nominated had the field not been so fertile.
First, a trip down memory lane. Who could forget the colourful contributions made by the following? Vinnie Jones, for squeezing the life out of Gazza's knackers and biting a lump out of a tabloid hack's nose; Gazza himself for services to drunkenness and domestic abuse; George Best for much the same; Harald Schumacher for smacking France's Patrick Battiston to Kingdom Come; Mark Bosnich for his Nazi salute and coke binges; Duncan Ferguson for his four assault convictions; Stan Collymore for punching Ulrika Jonsson; Eric Cantona for kung-fu kicking a Crystal Palace fan; Roy Keane for deliberately crippling Alfe Inge Haaland; Andoni Goicoechea ('The Butcher of Bilbao') for breaking Diego Maradona's ankle with a psycho tackle, then framing the injurious boot in a glass case in his living room. All have a place in football's hall of gratuitous yobbery.
Despite their achievements, none of these distinguished louts makes the short list. However grievous the damage they wreaked, they were "characters" or traditional hard men rather than out-and-out tossers. At times one could even pity the likes of Gazza and Collymore. They were human; they could cry. There was a certain nobility in Cantona's attempt to combat crowd xenophobia and even Ferguson partly redeemed himself by assaulting a pair of burglars. Today he may be regarded more as a populist vigilante than a thug.
A number of distinguished contemporary louts failed to make the short list. Paolo Di Canio, still playing in Italy, earned himself a magnificent 11-match ban for pushing over a referee. But he transcends mere thuggery by embracing the political. He is not just a mindless yob, he is a good old-fashioned fascist, with a touch of the circus clown: witness his much-loved Mussolini salutes. Joey Barton was a sure-fire contender with his history of eye poking, cigar burning and bottom flashing but his recent assault on the banal Gerrard and Lampard memoirs has revealed a hitherto unknown propensity for speaking sense.
And so to the lucky few. In reverse order ... a surprise entry at number four is Lampard himself. His urbane exterior can blind one to the qualities that saw him "romping" with Rio Ferdinand and Kieron Dyer, asking two girls to perform a lesbian sex show. And do not forget his drunken chunterings, alongside John Terry, in front of grieving Americans the day after 9/11.
Bang in at three is face-arranger extraordinaire Ben Thatcher.
At two is Lee Bowyer for being Lee Bowyer. He was fined £4,500 way back for hurling chairs at two Asian workers in a McDonald's restaurant, having said "I don't want to be served by no Paki"; former girlfriend Emma Keeney alleged he dumped her after discovering she was half-Indian and feared they might have a "brown baby"; and he had a punch-up with his Newcastle team-mate Dyer mid-match.
Despite the fact that he received only a six-match ban for stamping on the head of Malaga's Gerardo while playing for Leeds, despite the fact that he was cleared of assaulting an Asian student Sarfraz Najeib and despite his insistence that he is not a racist, we feel he is a worthy runner-up in the tosspot stakes.
But the winner is ... Craig Bellamy. Craig has not only shown magnificent past form - police caution for common assault and £100,000 club fine after an incident involving a 20-year-old female student, £750 court fine for drunken, abusive behaviour outside a Cardiff nightclub, numerous bans - he has sustained it. Last year he was cleared of assaulting two women in a Cardiff nightclub and, when he joined Liverpool this season, he announced he had turned over a new leaf. "I believe I've a wiser head on me now but I'm not naive enough to think people will suddenly start saying what a nice bloke I am."
Indeed not. He is to be fined £80,000 by Liverpool after threatening to attack his team-mate John Arne Riise with a golf club. The Guardian citation says: "For managing to spit in the eye of fortune when given yet another chance, for betraying the trust of those who invested so heavily and believed so fervently, and for unrelenting stupidity and nastiness, Craig Bellamy is football's Top Tosspot of the Year."
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