Corrupted by excess

When rock n' roll first made its name the media tried to scandalise it: teddy boys ripping up cinema seats, fighting with rockers in Brighton, Beatles & Stones on drug-busts. Rock 'n' roll became less of a musical style than a description for a state of mind, a way of behaving (badly) and for normal-thinking-moralistic-types to take offence over.

As the years flew by and we grew ever more liberal, it became much harder to cause offence. Musicians behaving badly were hardly new-news; it was more of a cliché. Into the 70's a few footballers - George Best, Stan Bowles, etc - took on the lifestyle but even then they were not on the hedonistic level of Led Zeppelin, Keith Richards or even The Eagles.

Into the 80's and 90's footballers became finely-honed athletes and professionals who were frankly rather dull. There may have been scandals but they were kept under wraps or disguised so that the media kept the teams & players on-side. Film-stars briefly took up the mantle until they became so famous that they could become invisible or have their big parties behind closed-doors.

Now we're somewhat bored of badly-behaved rockers. The last one to make regular headlines was Pete Doherty but his drug-taking and addiction were too grubby and seedy and he was never well-known enough for music alone. When he was no longer attached to Kate Moss the glamour had gone and all big stories need a little glamour to keep us interested.

Guns N' Roses may have been the last proper rockers to implode under their own excesses but there's no longer enough there to keep us involved. Axl Rose has a day job as a musician, one who takes almost a decade to release an album and never comes on-stage on-time. Why is that? Possibly because he no longer has to work hard and is surrounded by sycophants who live off the Axl-dollar. No-one tells him what to do or when.

Footballers have that parallel. They're all very rich young men, egos-inflated by their ability and material-worth. You wonder why they failed in South Africa? Maybe it's because they don't depend on England for their daily bread, nor do they want a disciplinarian like Capello telling them what to do or treating them like employees. They are stars and stars have a tendency to behave badly when given free reign.

Most of them are wise enough not to abuse their bodies with too much drink and regular drug-tests probably mean they avoid the substances; consequently the major vice is women. They have become the rock stars who when surrounded by so many women began to lose respect and treat them badly to maintain their own interest, or just pay for them and discard them.

They are also in general working/middle-class kids, under-educated and married too early because their clubs encourage it - they think it helps them to 'settle down' and concentrate on football. Sadly there's now too much temptation and too many opportunities and everyone wants a slice of the easy-money, whether they're hookers or hangers-on. It seems that too many people are happy to take advantage of these situations and sell-out for whatever they can get.

As detached observers we love the stories, it's an age-old tale of those who become corrupted by excess. We may like to live that life vicariously and where we once did it via rock n' roll, we now do it with football: it's the new rock n' roll.