while all seems to be on Hunt's side, here's something I read
that is different..
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/oliverholt/
HERE'S a little multiple choice quiz question for a professional
footballer on how he might be expected to behave in a given
situation.
A few seconds after the start of a match one Saturday evening, you
see the world's best goalkeeper run out of his goal and gather the
ball cleanly. You, an opposing midfielder, are still several yards
away. Do you:
A. Realise there is no chance of the world's best goalkeeper
spilling the ball, change the direction of your run and jog back
towards the half-way line.
B.Go for the Hollywood option, carry on with your run and hurdle
the keeper as he lies on the floor clutching the ball.
C. Continue to run straight at the goalkeeper as he lies on the
floor with the ball, watch your knee collide with his head and then
stand back as he is taken to hospital with a fractured skull.
Tough one, isn't it? A real head-scratcher. Or, in the vexed case
of Stephen Hunt and Petr Cech, a real headbreaker.
The best that can be said of Reading's enthusiastic midfielder, who
hurtled into Cech in the first minute of last Saturday's clash with
Chelsea, is that he has an exceedingly slow football brain.The
worst is that his aggression has put Cech out of football for a
year and may have changed the life of the goalkeeper forever.
Cech has two metal plates in his head now as he lies in the John
Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford and yet football's neanderthal
instinct seems to be to leap to Hunt's defence. One of the worst
things about the incident is the way the apologists for violence in
football have formulated such a preposterous defence for the
Reading player.
Because in their rush to defend the indefensible all they have done
is blurred the message that what Hunt did was unacceptable and by
doing that, they've cleared the way for it to happen again.
The grizzled old pros with no cartilage in either knee and not a
lot between the ears either have been trotted out to produce the
usual garbage about the good old days.
You know the type. The Monty Python merchants unwittingly
re-enacting the Four Yorkshiremen sketch. "You were lucky," they
say. "We used to dream about getting kneed in the head."
Bob Wilson wins the prize for getting closest to that but then I
suppose that's what you expect from a bloke who was mentor to a
muppet who called himself Safe Hands.
Let's get one thing straight right away. Hunt's challenge on Cech
wasn't for a 50-50 ball. It wasn't even 60-40 against Hunt. Not
70-30 either. Not 80-20. Not 90-10.
Cech had it. It was 100 per cent his. It was under his control. It
was in his possession.
"Our momentum meant a collision was unavoidable," Hunt said. Sorry,
pal, I know you're desperate but that's not true.
It was totally avoidable. I'll tell you how. Just don't slam your
knee into Cech's head. Simple. Fractured skull suddenly entirely
avoidable.
Whether Hunt meant to do it or not is another matter. Only he will
ever know that.
I imagine he is somewhat taken aback by quite how serious the
consequences of his action have been to a fellow professional.
Again, only he knows that. What is certain is that according to the
laws of the game, he should have been sent off for the injury he
inflicted on Cech.
He wasn't in control of the outcome of his challenge and it
endangered the safety of his opponent. That equals a red
card.
Luckily for Hunt, a wet lettuce called Mike Riley was in charge and
the best he could muster was one of his thin little smiles.
And don't listen to the people who say it couldn't have been
deliberate because it would be professional suicide for a
footballer to knee someone in the head.
Those people say Hunt would never have done that because he would
have been too worried about hurting himself.
Well, remind me then which player got carried off on a stretcher
and is still in hospital and which player played for 90 minutes
without a scratch?
Hunt may well have placed his knee in terrible danger when it
collided with Petr Cech's head but thankfully the knee seems to
have emerged unscathed.
Petr Cech might be in a bit of a state but Hunt and his knee are
doing just fine. Sighs of relief all round.
Sometimes nice to see it from a 20000ft view.
