Going on strike may come back to haunt Sterling...

TWO months ago Pierre van Hooijdonk sat in a bar in a Turin hotel and reflected on the time when he effectively withdrew his labour from Nottingham Forest in 1998. Unhappy at the club’s transfer business and their refusal to sell him, the striker went home to Holland and stayed there. Now, 17 years on, Van Hooijdonk maintains that he was let down by Forest following a promotion to the Premier League that had been built largely on his goals. Crucially, however, he regrets his decision to go on strike. ‘It’s one of the main things that people remember about me,’ Van Hooijdink, 45, told me. ‘I achieved some memorable things in football but in England they always talk about that and that’s a shame. ‘Sometimes things happen in your life that you look back on and realise they could have been handled differently.’ One wonders what advice Van Hooijdonk would offer Raheem Sterling today. The young Liverpool player has not taken his dispute with his club to Van Hooijdonk’s lengths yet but the situation does appear to be heading in that direction. In suggesting he does not wish to travel on the club’s pre-season tour and calling in sick yesterday, Sterling has made his disinterest in life at Anfield very clear. The immediate consequences for him are certainly different from those that faced Van Hooijdonk at Forest in the late 1990s. Sterling will, in all likelihood, get his desired move to Manchester City this summer. Van Hooijdonk eventually had to return to Nottingham and face his team-mates, manager and supporters. What Van Hooijdonk spoke about, however, remains relevant. He was talking about enduring damage to his reputation in a sport he loves. An intelligent man who is still playing at amateur level in Holland, he knows his decision in the summer of 1998 has followed him through life. It is this that Sterling may wish to chew on today, as indeed may his agent Aidy Ward. Van Hooijdonk was well represented during his career but made his decision to walk out of the City Ground against the advice of people close to him. Sterling seems to make many of his decisions almost by committee, but it will be he who is left with questions to answer if he fails to impress at City or if he struggles for England. Remember, he already has a record that includes feeling tired on international duty. In football, performances on the field are ultimately what matter. If and when they start to waver, perceptions relating to personality come into play. Van Hooijdonk knows all about that. His actions almost two decades ago did not define his career but people remember them and from now on will remember Sterling’s, too. There are many ways of engineering a transfer. This, sadly, is not one of the best.