We should be spared contempt by these players

THOUSANDS of club-class sportsmen and women who, even in the depths of drunken delusion, are aware that their talents are too modest to entertain thoughts of ever representing their country, will be outraged by the conduct of Barry Ferguson and Allan McGregor.

Club-level competitors in a vast range of sports from athletics to yachting would never dream of a binge like that reported about the two Scotland footballers.

We are not talking here of Olympic contenders, or even of players on the verge of district or national squads, but simply those with the modest aspiration of representing their club in the whole range of sports. They know that alcohol is not the ideal aid to setting personal bests at any level, no matter how humble.

I don't believe I was obsessed, or particularly driven, but as a young man, I went for well over a year without touching a drop in pursuit of a very modest athletics goal. I did so for several months on other occasions. Nobody then had coined the phrase, "my body is a temple", which later was to become a philosophy for some sportsmen. I certainly did not think a pint would be terminally damaging, but I realised before I was 20 that abstinence represented a sacrifice which focused the mind. A bit like training on New Year's Day.
advertisement

I certainly didn't think staying on the wagon would win me a Scotland jersey, though I guess there were the first thoughts that if you respected your body it would not let you down.

Since then, during more than 40 years during which sportswriting and abstinence undoubtedly became mutually exclusive, I have never ceased to admire ordinary sports competitors and those who simply like to keep in shape and consequently don't make fools of themselves with drink. And they certainly don't qualify as boring old farts.

What astounds me is that when so many people respect drink simply for the sake of general well-being and fitness, sportsmen being paid more per week than many of us earn in a year can be so cavalier with gifts bestowed by the gods.

Drinking through the night in the aftermath of a 3-0 victory over Holland might just about have been forgivable. But after an inept defeat which marked a 10th match under manager George Burley with just one victory, it could hardly have been more inappropriate.

Ferguson is 31, McGregor 27. Surely they must realise that if they protect their most precious asset, injury permitting, their bodies could still be earning a living beyond the dreams of mere mortals well into their mid-thirties. Between them, Ferguson and McGregor reportedly pocket upward of £40,000 per week.

Neither has a particular reputation as a boozer. Folk legend around others in the Scottish game is more damaging, and there is nothing to suggest a darker compulsion which would evoke thoughts of a Best, Greaves, or Baxter.

Club rugby enjoys a social image marinaded in beer, but even that is much toned down over time. There was a legendary tale of my teenage years, before the era of the breathalyser. So long ago, indeed, that Edinburgh still had its first tramlines.

Stopped because his car was weaving, the legend lurched from his vehicle to walk the straight line demanded by police of the day. Our legend swore he could do better than that, and proceeded to demonstrate. Plucking two empty beer bottles from the litter behind his front seat, and grabbing each by the neck, he went into a handstand.

In a party piece perfected in bars and pavilions on rugby tours the breadth of Britain, our legend walked upside down with one bottle planted either side of a tramline.

"And when you stopped the accused, could he walk a straight line?" one could imagine the bench intoning. And so could the traffic constabulary. And they could imagine the judge's response after they described the bottle-walk. The legend was sent away with a warning.

The point is that sport displayed as different an attitude to drink then as society now does to driving under the influence and drunk sportsmen.

If the likes of Ferguson and McGregor get p****d in the privacy of their own homes, they let down nobody but themselves. In public they insult the game, their club, their country, and the fans that support them.

Burley, who must share some responsibility for having condoned the drinking, dropped the pair from the starting line-up. One can only surmise what Walter Smith feels. One can imagine the reaction of a disciplinarian like Jock Stein, who had his share of wayward but world-class spirits, or a Jock Wallace or Sir Alex Ferguson.

It would, of course, have been confined behind closed club doors, and the word "inappropriate" might not have featured, or would be replaced by earthier epithets.

A more iron hand on the Scotland team is overdue. It's bad enough being embarrassed on the park. We should be spared public contempt by those who do it.

Taken from the Herald