Football - boo hoo!

I love a game of football. Whether it is on TV or whether it involves making the trek to a football ground and watching it in the flesh, so to speak, I can appreciate its drama, the skill and the spectacle. It's a bit of fun. I started watching football in the late seventies long before big money came into the game. Players were paid the same as the average teacher and many in the lower leagues would supplement their income by taking second jobs. In those days, it felt like just about any team in the top division could have a shot at winning the league. Yes, there was some hooliganism associated with the game and the pitches were generally pits of mud come February, but there was something honest and wholesome about the game.

A good old fashioned Centre Forward

But what a bunch of complete moaners modern players and managers have become. Professional moaners - all of them. There is hardly a weekend that passes without one or even several top flight managers getting all in a tizzy about some decision that didn't quite go their way. In a lot of cases, it is of little consequence - other than having to put up with the spectacle of a grown man blubbing and whining. Take Arsene Wenger of Arsenal or Alex Ferguson of Man Utd - two big girl's blouses if ever I saw one.

Arsene Whinger

Arsene's big moan was that a perfectly good goal was ruled offside and disallowed. As it turned out, he was correct. The slow motion replay, together with studio-imposed lines drawn on the screen, did demonstrate that the assistant referee (linesman) had got it wrong - just. The problem for the linesman - and this is were Arsene's anger is misdirected - is that it took a slow motion replay and technical wizardry to demonstrate this. In the heat of the moment, the linesman did not have the benefit of these aids to help make the decision. His anger, if anger is even appropriate, should have been aimed at his players who squandered chance after chance. His praise, if praise is something Arsene has ever considered, should have been forthcoming for the opposition, who did a great job keeping his team of highly paid warriors at bay. But, once again, the story is about an official - who was just doing his best - and Arsene comes across once more as a complete whiny moaner.

Ferguson - in a characteristic moaning pose

Ferguson's team went to Anfield this weekend and got comprehensively beaten. You would hardly think so if you read the sports' reports this morning. His anger was once again directed towards an official. One of his players was substituted after a bad tackle. It should have been a red card. Then again, one of his own players should also have received a red card for one of his tackles later in the game, but Fergie somehow managed to overlook that decision. The referee could have taken firmer action in both cases but chose not to do so. In a fixture that has often become hot-tempered, the referee took a low temperature approach to two decisions and, in the process, took a bit of the heat out of the mix. That may just have saved the match from turning into a brawl. But Mr Ferguson had other ideas. He has saved his moans for the official once again - something he has a long and predictable history of doing.

Celtic's Lennon squares up to Ranger's McCoist in front of the cameras

Still, most of the time, there are few real consequences of the petty girly moans we hear from football managers. Sometimes, however, the actions of management can have real and lasting consequences for ordinary people. The Old Firm game in Scotland is shrouded in centuries of bitter rivalry between the warring religious factions of another age. The most recent game was a bad-tempered affair - with a number of players being dismissed for frankly violent behaviour. The game ended with the disgraceful scenes of Celtic's Neil Lennon turning his end-of-match handshake with Ranger's Ally McCoist into a brawl. With tempers already running high on and off the pitch, there was a real responsibility amongst the management to set an example - to bring some civility to an otherwise bad-tempered occasion. But, in the full view of the cameras, the two had to be pulled apart and the police had to intervene.

In recent years, members of the public have paid the price for the petulent antics of players and managers. There have been stabbings and deaths after recent Old Firm games. For these victims, the price has been a high one. The players and managers take to the field and act out their rivalry in a bad-tempered manner, without any apparent thought for the knock-on effects.

Gascoigne - thinks he's fighting the Battle of the Boyne

Football is just a game. In Scotland, it could be an opportunity for healing between these communities. Instead, the players and managers have allowed themselves to be drawn into the argument. There is something truly bizarre about players from far-flung parts of the world getting emotionally involved in this parochial affair. Who can forget the sight of Paul Gascoigne 'playing his flute' (in imitation of protestant marching bands) after scoring a goal for Rangers in one such game? By now, and after so much violence, you would have imagined that the players and managers would have had this well and truly sorted. But still, time and time again, we see the pathetic hot-headed battles on the pitch and on the touchline light the fuse for the easily-influenced thugs and innocent people pay with injuries and death.

More often than not, the whinging and whining of managers and players is of little consequence. Pathetic though it may be, it rarely does little more than provide the red tops with something to write. But it does influence some people in a negative way and, in some cases, in a violent way. Taking responsibility for this, and acting accordingly, is not beyond the reach of these people. Perhaps they should just shut up and do their crying in private. Getting on with their own job - leaving officials to get on with theirs - accepting that, in football, some decisions will go against you whilst others will go for you - and understanding that you have a high public profile and responsibilities that go with it - might just return football to its rightful place. It is not - as the great Bill Shankley once remarked - 'a matter of life and death'. It is, or at least should be, just a bit of fun.