Published at 09:36, Friday, 27 November 2009

ZUT alors! What a furore fallen idol Thierry Henry created last week with his “Hand of Frog” goal against Ireland!

Had he been playing for Broken Cross Primary School’s first and only XI, he would have been in real trouble.

He would have been taken into the study of the gimlet-eyed headmaster, Old Pop Willy, and been given half a dozen swishes with the wicked little cane he used to keep beside his desk.

Before the punishment was administered, a check would have been conducted to ensure he did not have a copy of Paris Match stuffed down the back of his shorts.

His coveted red shirt with the button down cuffs would have been taken from him, and he would never have been allowed to don it again.

Indeed, he would not have been allowed to represent the school at any other sport – ever again.

He would have also been taken to the Irish team’s headquarters, and made to apologise in person to every opponent for his blatant cheating.

The school would also have withdrawn from the competition, whether or not the wrongfully ejected Irish team took their place.

But, hey, that was the 1950s, when playing the game was the thing, and not confessing to a handball was akin to stealing the milk money

Now, it’s not the game that is important, it’s what you can get away with.

The elegant Henry was rightly regarded as one of the best players ever to have graced the Premiership during his glittering career with Arsenal.

But all those glorious goals and silky touches will now be forgotten, as he goes down in history as a shameless cheating chien.

Despite the Gallic shrug which informed the world’s press he is not the referee, Henry will suffer the same fate as arguably the best player the world has ever seen, Diego Maradona, who instead of being revered like Pele, is remembered as a bloated, drug ravaged twister for his ‘Hand of God’ goal against England in the 1986 World Cup.

People have forgotten he scored one of the greatest goals in the history of the World Cup in the very same match

Doesn’t the hypocrisy of all the outraged commentators just take your breath away though?

It’s a well known fact that football is full of cheats, twisters and charlatans, who will do everything in their power to ensure their team wins.

Honesty and sportsmanship come a long way down the average footballer’s priority list.

If they can get away with a blatant foul or piece of skulduggery, they will do so.

If they do own up that the defender never touched them in the penalty box, or that the ball was out of play before they crossed it, they are castigated or perhaps fined by their managers, rather than being held up as shining examples.

It is widely assumed that widespread cheating only came into the British game with the influx of Johnny Foreigner players into the Premiership.

But we didn’t need the Klinnsmann triple somersault or the Drogba duck dive to teach the locals how to hoodwink the officials.

Remember Scotland’s Big Joe Jordan trying to take the lace out of the ball in a World Cup qualifier against Wales at Anfield in the 1970s?

The referee, God bless him, somehow decided this effort entitled Big Joe to a penalty.

But did the gap-toothed Jock put an arm round the official and confess he had handled?

Did he hell, and the penalty knocked brave little Wales out of the World Cup.

But the Welsh themselves are not whiter than white.

What about that cheeky wink from Cymric winger Micky Thomas which used to start Match of the Day, after he had swallow dived his way to a free kick?

England players too – step forward Michael Owen – have been known to go down like the walls of Jericho at the merest brush of an opposition sleeve.

Other sports long ago embraced the notion of video technology, and the football authorities are burying their heads in the sand by pretending it doesn’t exist.

Every controversial decision is already dissected from every conceivable angle by television anyway, so what is the problem in making it official?

The “You Cannot Be Serious” explosions at Wimbledon have been eliminated in tennis by technology, and both rugby codes accept without question the intervention of the video ref.

Cricket, too, has benefited from the third umpire, so why should football be any different?

Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk