Shattered legs can lead to shattered dreams

Yes, accidents happen and in all walks of life. However, just like in all other walks of life, shouldn’t football look to learn from those accidents and work to minimise the chance of them happening again?

Accidents can happen anywhere in life. Walking across the street, cooking a meal, playing a contact sport; life is full of potential danger. That’s just a fact, and yet as humans, the survival instincts we have are to make sure that any threat of harm to ourselves is as small as possible. Sometimes however that choice is taken out of our hands, as was the case with Aaron Ramsey on Saturday evening.

The broken leg suffered by Ramsey was an accident, a horrific accident. I’m sure of that. Just like I’m sure that breaking someone’s leg was never a thought in Ryan Shawcross’ head as he flung himself into the fateful challenge. However, just because something was as a result of an accident does not mean that it wasn’t a product of recklessness and irresponsibility, and just because something was an accident does not mean that the perpetrator should walk away scot free.

It’s tricky. I am not for one second saying that we should lock Shawcross up and throw away the key however questions will be asked; does a red card in a game and a subsequent three match ban represent an appropriate punishment for an incident which at the very least ends someone’s season and in the long run could have serious repercussions on a young man’s career?

I feel that taking the discussion down this route however rather clouds the real debate that needs to be had. Clearly, and rightly, there will be discussions about how Shawcross should be dealt with, but one needs to look at the bigger picture here and ask ourselves how we can stop this sort of thing happening again.

As I said at the opening of this piece; accidents can happen in all walks of life. Indeed within football itself there are countless examples of players getting serious injuries from the most innocuous of incidents, where a stud can get caught in the turf or a player can just fall awkwardly. However that was not the case at the Britannia on Saturday. Clearly you hope the intent was not to break a leg, but what was the thought process to launch into such a reckless, potentially violent tackle?

To win the ball, to tackle an opposing player, to break up an attack, to protect your side’s goal, bottom line, you go into a tackle to help your side win. As a contact sport we all accept this, but it clearly can go too far. And it went too far this weekend.

“He was going for the ball”

“It was an honest attempt”

“It’s a man’s game”

These are the usual defences given to reckless tackling. Given the nature and rules of the game, football necessitates physical contact. However I’m sure if you ask most fans and pundits out there, they would argue that over the last few years we have lost all the physicality out of the game. Clearly Saturday showed that this isn’t the case. Again, if you did a straw poll of fans and indeed pundits, and asked them what they felt was most wrong with modern football I bet you’d get a far larger proportion answering ‘diving’ than ‘leg breaking tackles’. To most, it’s the lack of physicality that’s the real issue.

I guess I’m something of a hypocrite. I too enjoy the physicality of football and I too get annoyed when someone falls over at the merest waft of wind, however the English game itself continues to breed this climate of mindless aggression by frequently exonerating thuggish behaviour as ‘commitment and passion’. As Martin Samuel argues in this morning’s Daily Mail; “Stoke City are not a dirty team and Pulis has done an exceptional job there, but is it beyond the realms of possibility that he employed one of football’s many euphemisms, prior to the game? Something about letting them know you are there, or seeing if they fancy it? What do these phrases mean if not ‘go in extra hard and test their courage’? And, at that point, are the margins between hard/fair and hard/dangerous not frighteningly small?”

What we hear constantly in instances like this is; ‘he’s not that type of player, he was not intentionally trying to hurt him’. I’m sure that’s true, but was a player intentionally trying to be overtly physical to intimidate an opponent? Only the player himself knows that. We also hear constantly from those within the game that fellow professionals would never seek to try and hurt one another, but I’m sure everyone who has played football out there, regardless of what level it‘s at, has experienced people out there who revel in the opportunity to ‘go in hard’.

Anecdotal this may be, and the football I play every week is only a local 5aside league, but I’ve seen players going in unnecessarily recklessly. Is it simply because they enjoy looking tough, or is it because they feel that playing a game of extreme physical intimidation is the best way that some players think they can achieve a victory?

This latter argument, is perhaps what we saw at the weekend, and perhaps gives an explanation for why some players continue to dive in to challenges that everyone can see will have potentially dangerous repercussions. From numerous ex-professionals in the media, we see the following line trotted out; if you want to beat Arsenal you have to ‘get in their faces’ as ‘they don’t like it up ‘em’.

Whilst it’s not explicitly stated, what people are basically putting forward is the argument that if you want to beat Arsenal, you can’t match them in a fair fight (which is a ludicrous and insulting claim to the talent of many football players and teams out there) and that you need to kick and foul them into submission. As Samuel states; “Wenger feels that because English football believes Arsenal’s largely foreign squad is excessively fancy, this creates a climate which legitimises rough tactics as a way of beating them.”

In a way we are all guilty to some extent. We’ve all been to games and encouraged players to get ‘stuck in’ and ‘get physical’, but it’s the attitude within the game that’s more damaging. Numerous foreign players that arrive on these shores are amazed with the leniency that referee’s show. Paul Gardner within World Soccer magazine showed statistics which showed that English Ref’s, on average blow for far less fouls than their continental colleagues.

Many within the English game would argue that this is in fact a good thing, and that foreign ref’s are too fussy whilst foreign football has too many ‘divers’ and ‘cheats’. Within English football we are always quick to implore ref’s to ‘show more common sense’ and to ‘let the game flow’. Howard Webb has managed to become England’s top referee by adopting this very stance; the way he referees games is to not take decisions. Within this county you constantly see players, with the commentator’s reaffirming, arguing that ‘it’s their first challenge’ just after they’ve flown through the back of someone. A dangerous foul, is a dangerous foul – regardless of whether it’s the 1st or 91st minute, it should go punished.

This laissez faire attitude to officiating helps foster the culture, in which people feel the need to launch in to excessive, dangerous and over the top challenges. Egged on by some fans that see a horrendous challenge as the true embodiment of ‘passion and desire’, those within the game itself indulge dangerous tackling through ridiculous notions of showing ‘manliness’ and ‘machismo’.

Hackneyed phrases like ‘let him know you’re there’, ‘they don’t like it physical’, ‘there wasn’t much intent’ and ‘he’s not that kind of player’ reveals an attitude of complete obsession with a ‘win at all costs’ mentality, one which helps to create this atmosphere of irresponsibility around players well-being.

Yes, accidents happen and in all walks of life. However, just like in all other walks of life, shouldn’t football look to learn from those accidents and work to minimise the chance of them happening again?