Arsene Wenger loses his temper in the emotional aftermath of Arsenal’s draw with Birmingham on Saturday – and Eduardo da Silva’s awful injury – and calls for Martin Taylor, the former Blackburn player involved in the tackle, to be banned for life. A few hours later he comes to his senses and retracts his words. Too late. As the stable door is bolted back into place the horse is already in the next county.
The injury that befell Eduardo is heart-breaking and bleak. Will he play again? He’ll certainly have more chance than those unlucky footballers who have gone before him. Like Brian Clough who knew, aged 27, as he lay on the frozen turf at Roker Park on Boxing Day 1962 with his cruciate knee ligaments wrenched out of shape, that his playing career was over. Eduardo is in the hands of the experts. It is Taylor for whom the rest of us can do something.
No story was more depressing today than the Daily Star’s front page splash that death threats to Taylor have been posted on the internet. By all accounts it is true although it is, as ever, difficult to know whether to take those involved seriously. It is certainly difficult to know whether to take seriously anyone who refers to themselves as “Babass47” or “Grone4ever89” – those the Star quoted as responsible for the threats.
In the great blogging stratosphere that has found life on the internet it is a pity that certain aspects of traditional correspondence have been lost. Newspapers’ letters’ pages – like that of The Independent - include names and hometowns of correspondents unless there is a very good reason for anonymity. That lends accountability to people’s opinions. Even reporters in newspapers have their names, and occasionally their faces, on top of their stories. Would those who issued such dire threats against Taylor have been so brave if their names and hometowns were attached?
Wenger did the right thing in retracting his comments, but it was his initial more incendiary remarks about Taylor being banned for life that were always likely to attract more attention. It was an enormous thing to say about someone, especially when it turned out that Wenger didn’t actually mean it.
Football, indeed all sport, is full of the kind of inexplicable moments that befell Eduardo on Saturday. They don’t have a rationale and, unlike the movies, there is rarely a good guy and a bad guy – upon whom we can conveniently heap the blame. Clough picked himself up and won two European Cups as a manager but it was debatable whether that ever compensated him for what he lost when his playing career was cut short.
Football tends to defy the neat Hollywood ending. Surely no-one believes Taylor set out to hurt Eduardo; simply that events ran beyond his control. That is what occasionally happens in football, our great unscripted weekly drama in which no-one can predict the ending. It is what makes it so sad at times; and so great.
The fact that he didn't retract his foot just before the moment of impact and instead followed through with the momentum showed his perhaps subconscious intention to hurt. The recklessness of the tackle doesn't warrant a harsher punishment but the lack of integrity in perjuring it as a total accident does. Shame on you crazy diamond.
Posted by: william done | 08 March 2008 at 06:14 PM
cripes this rubbish article really takes the biscuit. Who SHOULD we blame, pray? Shirley Williams? There's been less wsympathy for the bloke who's now in crutches than the clogger who broke it. Even if Taylor didn't mean to harm a far better player than him (who knows, other than taylor?), even if he is as nice a bloke as they say, even if he is a model husband and father, even if he leads the singing in his local church every sunday, and even if we accept all that and more besides; he sure as well set out to intimidate dudu witha REALLY bad - awful in fact - tackle. It was late; it was studs; it was high; it broke dudu's leg and with it possibly our season, given that RVP is made of glass, Ade and Nick don't get on and Theo's not quite ready yet. SURELY we have a right to be angry at taylor, who knew full well what he was doing?
FIFA evidently think so; they've asked the useless clowns currently ruining, sorry, RUNNING it to reassess punishment. and quite right too. He should have got a 12-game ban, becuase that's the only way we'll stop such tackles, and such cloggers dragging british footballl down.
And there sure is a xenophobic element to this; if it had been an arsenal player (given that Englishmen aren't good enough to play our way) on, say, Shrek Rooney, the press would have been screaming about it for weeks.
Posted by: saafgooner | 20 March 2008 at 08:41 PM
taylor is so good boy.zou didnt see pelaic's injury 2 months after eduardo's.it's even more painful and harder
Posted by: hajduk split | 07 May 2008 at 02:55 PM
Justice is done! Arsenal loses the EPL title due to the unavailibilty of one of their top marksman WHILE Birmingham City is OUT of the EPL... Fair enaf..
Posted by: Tada | 04 June 2008 at 01:43 PM