Three and in – not just another football blog

From a story about Barcelona’s players appearing on stage with Shakira to celebrate their Champions League win.

Unless Busquets is even worse than I think that’s nicely done.

What an amazing place Twitter is. A true social media, a great leveller, where the hoi-polloi can mix and engage with heads of state, celebrities from A list to Z, writers, reality TV ‘stars’, sports people and, of course, footballers.

It is a place of intelligent discourse, witty repartee and reasoned, measured debate which improves society and the world we live in. It’s the kind of place where a footballer can create an account and be welcomed generously and openly to the party by fans of the team he plays for. It’s certainly not the kind of place where a footballer can create an account and then shut it down two hours later because he simply can’t be arsed with the invective directed at him.

Oh wait, yes it is.

It’s the kind of place where a footballer’s sister can receive the following message because her famous brother has, apparently, broken up with his old girlfriend started going out with somebody else.

Footballer’s personal lives are of little consequence to me but if you follow the trail of Tweets from the one above you find a strange and frankly discomfiting undercurrent. Fans of players, I understand. Young women who are into these players ‘Beatles style’, I also understand, but some of what you read is really quite disturbing. If this were ‘real’ life you’d be looking at restraining orders and increased security. It’s cyber-stalking and bullying of the worst kind.

Often it’s faceless and anonymous but not always. For some reason Twitter has made people think it’s perfectly ok to eschew all manners and decency. Journalist who writes something fans take exception to? ABUSE. Fan of a team whose opinion differs to that of a fan of the same team? ABUSE. Opposition fans? ABUSE. Footballer who says anything at all? ABUSE.

Today, Bolton striker Kevin Davies announced he was going to quit Twitter. I’m no fan of him as a player but his feed was interesting and intelligent, a decent look into the life of a professional footballer, and far, far removed from inane LOLZy banter of some of the more high profile players. And he’s quitting because of the abuse. Really, who needs it?

Last week I read, rather incredulously, two Arsenal fans argue on Twitter and one of them, quite seriously, decided the best way to solve the problem would be a punch-up in real life. Mad, I know, but on one level that guy had a point. He took exception to some name calling and wondered, quite reasonably in my opinion, if the other guy would have ever called him that to his face. I doubt it. Yet on Twitter anything goes.

There are great things about Twitter. It does bring people together, it does allow you to engage and debate and talk to people you wouldn’t normally have a chance to. More importantly, it allows you to talk with your peers, to discuss football, politics, Glee, whatever. And it opens up a new world of opinion, new cultures, ways of thinking and more.

Yet underneath it all, bubbling just below the surface, is this viciousness, this nastiness that makes you despair at times. In years to come we might discover the best thing about Twitter is that it makes the people who are nothing but spiteful and horrible so easy to identify.  Four step program:

Step 1 - Receive Tweet

Step 2 - Check person’s timeline

Step 3 – Realise person is an angry, bitter, ill-mannered cunt

Step 4 – Block or just ignore

I don’t expect fans of rival teams to be friendly with each other, or with players from rival teams, but it goes beyond that. On a basic human level the lack of manners is a sorry reflection on those involved. You can disagree with somebody without name-calling, you can argue with somebody without abusing them, and you can differ entirely without resorting to half-witted, tedious barbs which lack the intelligence to strike home.

Sometimes it is best, if you’ve got nothing good to say, to say nothing at all. You’re only making yourself look stupid and making it easy for the rest of us to know you are.

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To call us cunts on Twitter, click here.

On Saturday Wayne Rooney elbowed James McCarthy in the side of the head. It was unprovoked and worthy of a red card.

Despite video evidence Rooney has gotten away with it. Ref’s chief Mike Riley said:

Mark took the correct course of action with this incident. In this incident Mark was following play but caught sight of two players coming together and he awarded a free-kick because he believed one player had impeded the other. We should be clear that Mark did nothing wrong in officiating this incident as he acted on what he saw on the pitch.

Clearly Clattenburg didn’t see what happened. You might suggest he did but I choose to think he didn’t. I choose to believe that he was unable to see exactly what Rooney did and it’s only the vagaries of the system, which says a player can’t be punished by video evidence for an incident already dealt with, which has prevented Rooney getting the ban he deserved. I choose to believe that had he seen Rooney’s elbow he would have sent him off. The decision to give a free kick was based on his belief that it was just a coming together.

I try not to buy into referee conspiracies, the widely held belief that Man United get away with more than anyone else, for example. You might think that, but ask United fans and they won’t agree. They’ll say Arsenal get away with more, or Liverpool, or Chelsea. It’s a matter of perspective. And as fans we can only have one.

And while I think the game has some issues if referees really are bent then we’re in big trouble. What has to change is the rule, the loophole, which prevents referees taking a second look at something they may have only caught out of the corner of their eye. In this day and age it’s stupid and prevents justice from being done.

So while Clattenburg is never going to top anyone’s list of ‘officials that are better than Stevie Wonder’ the real issue is the rule which has let Rooney get away with violent conduct.

And take part in three games crucial to United’s season. He’s a lucky boy.

It started well. After two minutes Wayne Rooney put Man United 2-1 up in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final against Bayern Munich. It ended badly. He left the stadium on crutches after picking up an ankle injury. At the time United described it as ‘not serious’ and Rooney was back to play in the second leg. He was subdued, a shadow of the player he had been up until then, and lasted only 55 minutes before being replaced by John O’Shea.

The goal in Munich was his last until a penalty against West Ham on the 28th of August. It remains his only United goal of the season and he has just one goal in his last ten games for the club.

You can point to the goings-on in Rooney’s personal life if you wish but I think most players, certainly ones with the character and desire of Rooney, see football as an escape from the difficulties they suffer off the pitch. If anything we see improved performances. I’m not suggesting he’s not been affected by the tabloid guff but it’s more likely Wayne Rooney is a player shorn of confidence exacerbated by lack of fitness.

United needed him at the end of last season. Before the second leg of the Bayern tie he had scored 34 goals. He was carrying the team with little or no help from those around him. £30m Dimitar Berbatov got the last of his 12 goals in the game before the first leg against Bayern. Without Rooney’s goals Alex Ferguson knew United couldn’t win the league. He took a gamble, Rooney played through the pain for United and England, and it has backfired.

The United manager dismissed reports that Rooney’s injury was an ‘injury’ and designed to give him time off because of everything else that has been going on. He said:

What do you want me to say? Do you want me to describe every ligament? Christ.  I think Wayne will be [out for] two to three weeks. In fairness, he’s a strong lad and has recovered from injures in the past.  Nobody likes to be injured, it’s straightforward. Wayne would like to be out here training and playing with us but he’s not.

Berbatov’s improved form allows United to get Rooney properly fit but even now that the Bulgarian has found his shooting boots you don’t simply do without a player like Wayne Rooney unless he’s genuinely injured. All players go through periods of bad form, Rooney is clearly going through one now, but struggling with form when not fully fit makes it so much harder to pull through the other side.

If it takes longer than two to three weeks that’s something United should live with. The spell on the sidelines may give him to reflect on his life off the pitch but more importantly it’ll ensure he’s well again on it.