Play-acting or cheating? It’s the same

Sat on the sofa last Sunday evening, taking in the half-hour of the National League’s highlights courtesy of BT Sport, I witnessed a rare moment of footballing karma. It came in Maidstone’s away clash with Gateshead. The Stones could do with some help from above at the moment and heading into last week’s game they were winless in 12 league encounters. It wasn’t to get any better for Jay Saunders’ men…

So to the action: with the score poised at 1-1 and with 15 minutes left to play, Stones’ Jai Reason attempted to thwart an early clearance from Heed keeper Dan Hanford. There is nothing cynical about blocking a keeper’s path and while obstruction is clearly not within the bounds of what is legal, it gets swept under the carpet for what it is – particularly in cases like this.

But then came a bit of argy-bargy, as Reason stuck his backside into Hanford, with the keeper taking action and following up with the customary ‘footballer’s forward-press of the head’ which gets loosely translated into a head-butt – a term that, rightly, carries a far more sinister nature.

The ‘forward-press of the head’ is something you would see in clubs and pubs up and down the country from teenagers who have had one too many Bacardi Breezers. But as gutless and as trivial as it often is, and in Hanford’s case there really was nothing more than a brush, you know that if you put your head where it has no place on a football field, a red card and an early bath is the referee’s only option. I have no problem with that.

What I have a problem with, and I speak for so many here, was the pathetic response of Reason, who threw himself to the deck before rolling multiple times. Hanford would have inflicted more pain had he flicked the midfielder’s ears, or worse, delivered a nasty Chinese burn. It is remarkable the lengths footballers will go to – such as making themselves look a complete fool – in order to get a player sent off.

In Reason’s case, his actions and reaction didn’t just go some way to (rightly, it has to be said) reducing Gateshead to ten men, but it also earned his side a spot-kick that would see them take hold of the game heading into its dying embers. That he managed to get to his feet after his near-death experience offered the away support much relief, but the fact he wasn’t able to dust himself down and convert the penalty would have brought far more joy to the Heed support looking on at the International Stadium, and many others like myself watching the highlights some 30 hours later. I had no sympathy for him.

Simulation, play-acting, cheating… everyone is sick of it. It does nobody any favours and people will turn their backs on these players and their clubs in the end. There’s so much to love about Non-League football but we harp on too much about its pure nature. “A proper game for proper men,” I hear fans cry. Well I have no idea what the definition of a proper man is, but I do know the definition of cheating the game, and for me Reason was guilty of that last Saturday. There is simply no justification for it...