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All work and no play

Players need to escape pressure too

Last updated: 10th March 2009

Obviously not all footballers are nice. Not all TV presenters are, nor are doctors or builders or chefs or whatever. I just think it's dangerous to tar all players with the same brush.

Max Rushden
Quotes of the week

On Sunday morning I woke up with a hangover. I picked up my shirt from the floor and a piece of lettuce and half a breadstick fell out. I'd been involved in a salad-based food fight on Saturday night, before ending up at a Karaoke bar - where I murdered a number of power ballads and then stumbled home.

I was definitely drunk. I was probably disorderly, although I think I was nice to everyone I saw. I spent Sunday sitting on a sofa watching football and reading the paper. I wasn't capable of anything else.

And then I started thinking about everything that's been written about Ashley Cole this week. I don't want to talk about the specific case; I don't know what happened. But I do want to stick up for footballers as I think we sometimes forget the sacrifices they have to make in order to be genuinely successful players.

I imagine most people reading this would give up whatever they do now to be a footballer, but I certainly don't often think about what that would actually entail.

Pursuing the dream

When I was doing the sponsored walk with the Cambridge United Youth Team managers the other week (and they've finished by the way - congratulations) I was talking about the scholars. They're 16-18 year olds who have left home, are away from family and friends, they don't drink a drop of alcohol, all pursuing a dream which could end with one tackle, or just because they're not quite up to it. I made my closest friends, and did pretty much all my growing up at that age. Now I'd genuinely have to think twice about trading in my late teenage experience for a professional football career.

And then you consider keeping fit for 20 years. 20 YEARS! I'm planning on going for a run after writing this, but I'll do well to go for more than half an hour.

Before doing Soccer AM I'd met maybe two or three professional footballers. I'd never been for a drink with one. I probably had the same popular misconceptions about them. Now I've met quite a few players, been out for a drink with a couple, and so far everyone I've met have been polite, humble, interested in what you're doing and most importantly, just thoroughly decent people.

Obviously not all footballers are nice. Not all TV presenters are, nor are doctors or builders or chefs or whatever. I just think it's dangerous to tar all players with the same brush. Yes, they get paid a lot of money, have a lot of time off, and have very different pressures to most people. But at the end of the day they are just people.