The loyalty factor

By Paul Flower on Jun 18, 09 01:03 PM

This week's blog could've been encompassed within the few words I wrote on my twitter feed yesterday - we get relegated, he gets promoted and I get stuck with a season ticket I no longer want. This was, of course, a response to the inevitable resolution of the long-drawn-out saga over whether Tony Mowbray would go to Celtic.

Like most football fans I am slightly one-eyed but even I recognise the overwhelming lure of power and money, no-one can really deny that Mowbray is moving to a bigger club, a club that can buy top players, a club that has the potential to win things. It is regrettable that he chose the immediate post-season to remind his players about the value of loyalty but we all know that loyalty has no place in modern football, he may as well have saved his breath.

So, I wish Mowbray well, there's no point in bleating about it. A similar point could be made to those Villa fans still sore about Gareth Barry's departure. I try to see both sides of any argument and how many of us would've turned down the opportunity to increase our salaries by that amount? He even wrote you a letter - how many players would bother to do that?

Whilst you may see me in a new light of magnanimity, see PF in his coat of charitable colours, you should be under no illusion that I'm similarly disposed towards existing players who demonstrate or vocalise their desire to be elsewhere whilst being gainfully employed and paid by my long-supported club. These players seem to have very short memories and a shockingly small conscience that their input may be at least partly responsible for placing us in this diminished position.

Witness Paul Robinson, the slapstick left-back, claiming that also he'd love to join Celtic, or stay in the premier division. He may flatter himself that such clubs are interested in him; footballers seem to share these peculiar delusions. I suspect he may have forgotten how his clownish plodding around the pitch leaving gaping holes in the defence contributed to goals conceded by West Brom last season. He must also have neglected to remember how his lunging mistimed challenges led us to playing matches with a reduced number of players on numerous occasions. To paraphrase a Frank Skinner line about Nathan Ellington - if I thought anyone was interested in him I'd drive him there myself.

The same comments, slightly doctored, apply to Filipe Texeira. Tex is a supremely talented player, one whom I loved to watch when he first joined the club. Then he got injured and spent a very long time on the treatment table. When he returned towards the end of last season he wasn't quite match fit, which is understandable, he also seemed to be carrying a bit of extra weight. Given that we paid him and 'nursed' him back to health you might expect a bit more loyalty than to hear that he wants to bail at the first opportunity.

I'm hoping that there's some language or cultural reasons why a player like Tex might suggest to a journalist that he wants to leave because 'he didn't get to play much last season'. Perhaps he forgot the half-season on the treatment table when he couldn't play, or the doughnuts he may have eaten during that process, possibly he also hasn't realised that the man who didn't pick him to play has just left the club.

Football is no longer like real life. Could you imagine making any of the above statements publicly if you wanted someone else to employ you? Any, and all, of the above would qualify you as some kind of disloyal lightweight with no sense of responsibility or your role within a team or organisation. If footballers ever wonder why we hate them perhaps they could place themselves in our shoes for a change, there's plenty of us who'd like to be in their boots.

As for the role of football in society, it has been gradually inching away from us as the money rolled in and the twats continued to get fatter. The current transfer bargaining free-for-all would indicate that some teams still have money to play with but, as in life, the gaps between rich and poor will be growing ever-wider.

This recession may see an end to the golden age for top football clubs, if broadcasters go under and are unable to pay their way there will be less competition and the money on offer may start to fall. The banks to whom certain clubs (Liverpool, Man Utd) are indebted may also call in their loans, it may be a reverse of the recession - possibly things will get worse for most of us before they get better in general. Or maybe I just won't have to worry about getting stung with a season ticket as there'll be no team to watch, rather than just a team that may not be worth watching.

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