THE TORQUAY INITIATIVE

By John Taylor        

The recent press reports prompted by the announcement from Torquay United chairman, Chris Roberts, that he would sack any of his players who indulged in cheating on the pitch has initiated some interesting debate in the workplaces and pubs of the land, if what I've heard is to be believed.

I take my hat off to the man for highlighting what is probably the biggest malaise in the game at the moment. Last summer's World Cup was spoilt from a playing perspective, largely because of this factor, which was mainly ignored by officials. We even had the undignified spectacle of the vastly talented Thierry Henry stooping to the depths of diving against Spain to obtain a free kick that led to the French taking the lead. To that point, despite his gloves, I'd always been a massive admirer of the man, but that incident left me regarding him with disdain. The Portugal v Holland match was the ultimate for diving and feigning injury, which led to the referee, Valentin Ivanov of Russia completely losing the plot and showing 16 yellow and 4 red cards.

I travel frequently to Holland and the Dutch fans are very upset with their team and their attitude, especially in respect of this diving issue. Nowadays, it is almost becoming the norm for players to drop to the ground holding their heads in mock agony after nothing more than the waft of a shirt sleeve within a foot of their person in an attempt to get their opponent dismissed.

We even saw 2 pathetic examples of this sort of behaviour in our match with Doncaster last season. The issue is even worse in the Premiership and European competition where we have had several high profile occurrences in recent times. Unfortunately, some of the worst examples have involved Chelsea who are now so powerful that it is scandalous that they also resort to such depths to maintain their position, though last season's media coverage on Drogba appears to have led to his moderating his behaviour this term so far. It is really worrying that the players of today are so intent on behaving in such an unmanly underhand way and the perception that the trend is accelerating swiftly.

There could be a temptation, however, to resort to such tactics in retaliation when referees don't see through it and the innocent team ends up being punished. In one game last season, Mark Allott was twice scythed down, but got to his feet instantly and our opponents were not cautioned. Later in the same game, Allott committed his first foul of the match, the opponent writhed in mock agony and Allott was booked. Once the card was out, the opponent got to his feet in a miraculous recovery. A similar thing happened recently in the Cheltenham match when Caleb Folan was booked for a clumsy challenge on Brian Wilson who stayed down long enough to secure the booking then was running about like a spring chicken once the card had been shown. I'm not saying in this case that Folan shouldn't have been booked, but Wilson's actions ensured that he did. It is interesting, though, that the incidence of this behaviour declines in prevalence as one drops through the leagues. I've had occasion to watch Matlock Town a few times recently and it is very noticeable that when players at that level get tackled, sometimes pretty crudely, they tend to get up fairly quickly with nothing more than the odd curse at their opponent. It should be noted at this point that players at this level use the same footwear and shinpads as those used at international level.

This diving and feigning injury in the attempt to get opponents dismissed has been a long established cultural norm in other parts of the world and I know that the South Americans merely see it as part of the game and are utterly astounded that we make an issue of it in this country. Recent media attention has started to highlight the problem and Alan Green on Radio Five, though not everyone's cup of tea, has been at the forefront of getting the debate going so that the authorities might try to eradicate this malaise. I firmly hope that this can be done and swiftly because I'm sure it is already being replicated at schools football level and that is really a sad state of affairs. I'm surprised that the players' union has done nothing about this because it's their members who suffer when cautioned unjustly. Unless the authorities do something to curb this nonsense, I'm convinced they will find that the miserable cynicism of it will start to tell on attendances and, more importantly, in the power stakes of today's footballing world, the television audiences. I must admit, that if there's one thing that will turn me away from watching football, this is it, and I watch over 60 games a season. The Torquay initiative is an interesting step in the right direction, but I think if they did try to sack a player on this basis, they might suddenly find they had a problem, particularly from the PFA.