UpNorth That little s**** Piers Morgan has jumped on the bandwagon today inthe Mail on Sunday with a personal attack on Steve Coppell for accepting the phantom goal. He calls him a cheat.
A thoroughly nasty piece
Careful Saint Steve your halo is slipping
Steve Coppell is, so everyone assures me, 'the most decent man in British football'. The Reading manager's supposedly a bastion of radiant goodness amid the festering hellhole of corruption, sleaze, greed and evil that comprises the modern-day Premier League.
Well, forgive me for not joining in the universal cap-doffing to Mr Coppell. Because after that ridiculous phantom goal his side were awarded against Watford last week, I'd say Saint Steve's halo has just slid several yards off his head and into the gutter.
I didn't think I'd see anything more disgraceful in sport this year than the then-England one-day cricket captain, Paul Collingwood, allowing Kiwi Grant Elliott to be run out at The Oval after Ryan Sidebottom smashed him to the ground. But this was worse.
Not to put too fine a point on it, Saint Steve, old son, you're a cheat. Because you and your players all knew the ball hadn't gone in the goal. In fact, you all knew it hadn't gone anywhere near the bloody goal, which is why none of you displayed even a flicker of celebration. And the 'decent' thing to have done would have been to let Watford score immediately at the other end to atone for the biggest cock-up in refereeing history. But no, you did nothing.
You insist that at half-time, soon afterwards, the 'goal' was never discussed in the Reading dressing room. Really, Saint Steve? Not one person even mentioned the fact that your 'goal' had missed the post by four YARDS? What a load of old Coppells.
'We are not the conscience of the game,' you explained afterwards. 'Right from when you start playing football at school everyone says play to the whistle. We play to the whistle.' What a thoroughly 'decent' observation. Not.
Your players seem equally mystified by all the criticism being heaped on their dense little craniums. Stephen Hunt whined: 'We can't do anything about it. It's not our mistake, but what can you do? You can't say, "No, ref, that wasn't in".'
Er, actually you can, Stephen. That's exactly what you can say. It's called sportsmanship. Mystifyingly, even the opposition manager, Aidy Boothroyd, defended Reading's behaviour, saying: 'If someone stops you in a car park and gives you a present you don't say 'No', do you?'
'We are not the conscience of the game,' you explained afterwards. 'Right from when you start playing football at school everyone says play to the whistle. We play to the whistle.' What a thoroughly 'decent' observation. Not.
Your players seem equally mystified by all the criticism being heaped on their dense little craniums. Stephen Hunt whined: 'We can't do anything about it. It's not our mistake, but what can you do? You can't say, "No, ref, that wasn't in".'
Er, actually you can, Stephen. That's exactly what you can say. It's called sportsmanship. Mystifyingly, even the opposition manager, Aidy Boothroyd, defended Reading's behaviour, saying: 'If someone stops you in a car park and gives you a present you don't say 'No', do you?'
Where was he looking? Referee Stuart Attwell gave the goal
Yes, Aidy, sometimes you do. Let me try and help you: if someone stops you in a car park and gives you a bag of cash you know they just stole from 14,000 people, you'd probably say 'No', wouldn't you? It's what 'decent' people do.
Reading knew that goal was nicked, and they knew that the 14,000 people watching would suffer directly from the theft because it might mean they lose the game, which would, therefore, increase their chances of Watford's relegation this season, which in turn would cost their club millions. So, yes, sometimes you just say 'No' to presents.
But once Reading had passed on the immediate chance to do the 'decent' thing and let Watford score, then the next 'decent' thing to do would have been for Saint Steve to announce at the end of the game that he wanted a replay. But he didn't.
Only two days later did he finally issue this half-hearted response: 'If the authorities decide a replay is the correct thing to do then I've got no objections. I'm not sure there's a precedent, but if that's what people want then I'm happy to do it.'
Oh, but there is precedent, Saint Steve. I was at the Arsenal- Sheffield United FA Cup game in 1999 when Marc Overmars and Kanu conspired to chase down a throw-in back to the away side following play being stopped through injury, and scored.
Most Arsenal fans were as outraged as the Blades by this blatant piece of cheating by our own players. And to his immense credit, Arsene Wenger instantly demanded, and secured, a replay within minutes of the final whistle.
British football has seen many similar acts of sportsmanship - Leicester letting Nottingham Forest score an uncontested goal in the rematch following the game postponed by Clive Clarke's half-time heart attack; Paolo Di Canio passing up an open goal when he saw Everton's keeper on the ground injured; Robbie Fowler appealing to the referee not to give a penalty after he had been fouled by David Seaman. And so on. The list is long and honourable.
There's also another, longer, list of the divers, the 'Hand of God' merchants, the con artists and the managers and players who accept a goal they all know never happened. Saint Steve and his Reading team just joined the second list. And lost all rights to the word 'decent' for ever.
Before anyone tries to analyse this/write a lengthy response:
1. It appeared in the Daily Mail, the biggest-selling children's newspaper in the country.
2. It was written by Piers Morgan, who knows nothing about football, or indeed very much at all from what I can gather.
Of course the article is total crap, if Piers Morgan thinks we're cheats then I couldn't give a flying fcuk, in fact that's made me feel even more secure in the knowledge that we're not. Cheers then.
You really are in the wrong profession to start moralizing.
. Happily, I use Piers Morgan as a moral compass in that I tend to take exactly the opposite view of this sour little man in almost everything he says, so reading this little rant makes me feel even more comfortable in my view that Reading players should not be held responsible for the mistakes of officials at Watford last Saturday.
