Heroes Fit for our age of obscenity

Last updated at 10:43 08 March 2005

Must we simply accept that some professional footballers are foulmouthed louts and cheats? Is their behaviour an irrevocable part of the world we live in? That would be the view of many people.

But Martin Ward, deputy general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, does not share it. He believes that the bad example of some professional footballers - cheating, fouling and swearing - is making it 'infinitely more difficult' to teach ordinary schoolchildren. Some pupils have adopted these people as their role models and seek to emulate their appalling behaviour.

Mr Ward is referring to the likes of Manchester United's Wayne Rooney, who was recently ordered to receive anger counselling after directing more than 100 swearwords at the referee during a single match against Arsenal. The experience does not appear to have done him much good, since he was booked against Crystal Palace last Saturday for further foulmouthed abuse of the ref.

Mr Ward's proposed solution is that television companies should display more 'moral authority' by refusing to broadcast the ugly tirades of outraged footballers. He also suggests that such incidents should not be shown until after the 9pm watershed.

This is not a thought that is likely to meet with the approval of many broadcasters. Peter Salmon, BBC director of sport, has dismissed the notion of a 9pm watershed for football as 'clearly a ridiculous idea' which 'would affect the future of live broadcasting as we know it'.

There speaks the amoral voice of the modern television executive, concerned only with ratings. Mr Salmon, and many others like him, will not mind too much that children's behaviour in school might be influenced by the violent behaviour of footballers whom they regard as role models. So far as he is concerned, his only responsibility is to broadcast football - and society can look after itself.

But let us leave Mr Salmon and his ilk for a moment. David Sheppard, the former Bishop of Liverpool, died last Saturday. As a young man, was a gifted cricketer for Cambridge University, Sussex and England. Anyone over 50 who is at all interested in cricket will remember his elegant cover drives. At all times, needless to say, he was the perfect sportsman, but he was also a committed professional who worked hard to improve his technique. Anyone further removed in temperament from the spoiled brats of modern professional football would be hard to imagine.

As Bishop of Liverpool from 1975 until 1997, David Sheppard championed the poor, and in his statements on social policy sometimes irritated Margaret Thatcher and the Tories. By a nice irony, Wayne Rooney, as foul-mouthed a sportsman now as David Sheppard was a courteous one, was born and brought up in the city in which the Bishop ministered to the under-privileged.

Whether one agreed with David Sheppard's social views or not, he tried to leave society in a better condition than he found it in. Perhaps one should not pick on Peter Salmon, who may be a charming man who reacted unthinkingly to the suggestion that football might be banished to after the 9pm watershed. But it is impossible not to draw a distinction between the social engagement of David Sheppard and what seems to be the dismissive and perhaps uncaring attitude of Mr Salmon.

Isn't it a matter of enormous concern that the behaviour of some pupils should be influenced by the likes of Wayne Rooney? It is not only Mr Ward who says that it is. Two weeks ago, Chris Howard, of the National Association of Head Teachers, said that Rooney's bad behaviour going unpunished led children to suppose they could, or should, get away with similar antics. A similar point was made by David Kidd, chairman of the Incorporated Association of Preparatory Schools, last September.

When David Sheppard was playing cricket for England, he was an ideal role model for many young boys. Though he came from a comparatively well-off background, his influence had nothing whatsoever to do with class. His captain, Len Hutton, was humbly born, but just as fine an example of sportsmanship. The same could be said of the working-class heroes who played football at that time. They did not lie, swear or cheat.

Of course, society has itself become more loutish and violent. Previously undreamed of amounts of filthy lucre are widely supposed to have corrupted footballers. And yet standards of sportsmanship at least survive and sometimes thrive in many lucrative sports - in cricket, golf, rugby and tennis. Somehow all the worst aspects of our age are concentrated in the so-called 'beautiful game,' whose following and influence remains greater than any other sport.

If a child sees a much-feted footballer being rude without censure to the referee, who is one kind of authority figure, it is not altogether surprising that the same child might think it permissible to be rude to the authority figures whom he encounters in his (or her) own life, such as teachers.

The worst offenders may not be the players. Wayne Rooney is, after all, a 19-year-old who probably has never been taught how to behave and who has himself suffered by not having had half-decent role models. But managers such as Arsenal's Arsene Wenger and Manchester United's Sir Alex Ferguson should know better. Yet they cheerfully trade insults and conduct themselves as sulky schoolchildren. Alex Ferguson has been known to use fourletter words to journalists. If a successful and celebrated manager with a knighthood talks in such a way in public, how should a 19-year-old know any better?

We might be tempted to shut out football from our lives, to pretend that it doesn't exist, but it is an inescapable reality. However much we may dislike its yobbish quality, we have to live with it. But if professional football is having such an insidious effect on society, if it really is teaching young children bad habits, then something will have to be done about it.

The Football Association and referees should not tolerate loutish behaviour. Managers should not excuse players who foul and cheat. But since we know that none of these people is likely to institute improvements very quickly, we should look to television executives to stop indulging petulant behaviour by giving it huge bursts of publicity. The same should be asked of the Press, though many newspapers are harsh on foul-mouthed and cheating footballers in a way that television, with its immediate impact, seldom is.

Will the likes of Mr Salmon at least consider that the well-being of society might be far more important than the result of 22 men running around a football pitch? David Sheppard knew that it was. As a cricketer, he understood that winning, though vital, should never be at the expense of civilised behaviour. As a bishop, he cared for his flock. In both roles he displayed the moral authority which those who run and promote football so patently lack.