Saturday football is too intimidating

Reaction to my column on football turning ugly, locally and nationally...

Annoyingly there’s so little criticism of bad behaviour, probably as the pundits all did it too. Screaming in officials’ faces, waving imaginary cards and crowding the ref to get opponents sent off. And every year we still get ‘respect’ guff from the useless FA.

@K98765

Saturday football in the Peterborough area has always been about intimidating to win more than the actual playing of football.

@paddyskinhead

If people behaved on the streets like they do on a football pitch, the police would be called for a disturbance of the peace. Weak people at the top need to be replaced for anything to change.

@Stuartm32175775 Clubs, players and fans really struggle to see their own poor behaviour. @GingerElvis

Your report was unbalanced and unreflective of all the good that is happening in grassroots football. @rpbayley

Where are County FAs in this? Paid guardians of grassroots game don’t seem to be active in rooting out or preventing decline in standards. Good at glossy wesbites though!

@Fig428

Grounds are safer than ever and Wigan/Man City incident is isolated, we hope. Managers/players should have a professional responsibility to control behaviour. As for local football, it won’t get better until people take ownership of their actions and accept the consequences. @Alexbro70 The return of the GB Winter Olympics team from South Korea was treated as a celebratory homecoming by the increasingly ridiculous BBC.

Over £28 million of funding produced one gold and four bronze medals, and one of those third places was achieved by an American masquerading as British and another by Billy Morgan (above) in the ‘Big Air’, basically an event for circus acrobats. That’s around £5.5 million of funding per medal , a grotesque misuse of money for elite sports out of reach of the vast majority of British citizens. Meanwhile sports facilities which would be enjoyed by millions of youngsters fall into disrepair because councils can only find money for personal payrises and such like. Something’s very wrong.

ARROGANCE BEFORE A FALL

Scotland trimming England up at rugby union was something an arrogant English coach and an arrogant English team needed. If the loss of a Six Nations title is the price to pay for the management and squad re-focusing to concentrate on winning a second World Cup, it’s one worth paying. Owen Farrell (above) showed more fight pre-match in the tunnel than on the pitch.

LOCAL CLUBS STILL IN DENIAL

Thanks for the very positive response to my article on football generally becoming an ugly game. Worryingly though, the only negative comments I received came from clubs who have had serious disciplinary issues this season. That hopeless level of denial suggests lessons won’t be learnt very quickly.