FOOTBALL..

I'm such a snob. Given a choice of the two major newspapers available in my city I always choose the more upper to middle class vehicle. However, the little cafe where I often lunch tends to cater to the workmen coming in for their midday meal and the lower class organ is in plentiful supply.

Today their front page was dominated by the anguished cries of a footballers father. The footballer had been punished by a suspension from play of ten weeks for relentlessly bullying and torturing an opposition player with an injured hand. The father was outraged. Not filled with shame for the cowardly and constant attacks by his son but aggrieved that he had been punished. It was the father's cries and calls that the paper had made its headline.

The most disgusting short video snatch that I hope no-one outside my country ever sees is the footballer Barry Hall violently smashing an opponent in the face and then stepping back as if claiming an infant like innocence. Yours is not an infant like innocence Barry, yours is a nasty, animalistic and crude violence.

How much longer will the media, Television and Newspapers in this country go on giving credence to the outcries of these thugs when they are rightfully punished for their ongoing violence instead of rejecting the violent behaviour as unacceptable and disgusting in our society and century?