Bittersweet Sugar

Guido has news that Lord S’ralan Sugar, he of the “pissin’ my bladdy money up the wall” decorum, is sending threatening letters to political commentator Quentin Letts, who made some more than usually ascerbic observations on a radio programme.

Threatening libel against journos is really only a last resort – Guildford Tory councillor Cllr Tony Rooth once hinted strongly that he would sue me if I printed a story about him at the Surrey Advertiser. I knew the story was true (and he can’t sue for my saying that because I haven’t made the allegation on here) but I couldn’t prove it, so I had to drop it. I never liked him much after that.

And that’s the thing with libel – once you show that you don’t have a thick skin, whatever follows on from that point will always be viewed in a lesser light. Mr Letts’s assertion was that Sugar only got his job through being a TV celebrity and that he wasn’t of great intellectual capacity.

To my mind, that’s fair comment, even if it would be difficult to secure a justification defence here. But on the second point, I think there’s a tacit agreement defence too – Sugar has readily said on the Apprentice that he values street smarts over book smarts and that he’s survived and prospered on shrewdness rather than intellect.

I always quite liked Sugar because of his connection with Spurs and his entertaining persona on the TV. With all the success, profile and money he could want, his threatening to sue seems churlish, bullying and self-important. I’m not sure I like him much now, either.

Last of the gentlemen

When I was younger, I was crazy about football. I have supported Spurs all my life and remember watching the 1987 FA Cup Final and being totally gutted when we lost to Coventry City. I remember the 1991 Cup Final victory over Nottingham Forest and the great teams of Hoddle, Waddle, Gascoigne, Lineker and the legendary Clive Allen.

The old first division was a tough league of honest professionals – it lacked the spark of La Liga and Serie A but it produced good competitors and skilled players in the English style that all but the world’s best struggled to cope with.

Then money got involved and greed upon greed upon greed took over (if you don’t believe me, click on the Spurs link ) Footballers started getting paid a yearly wage every week and previously decent people turned into avaricious mercenaries overnight. The money attracted foreign players by the bucketload and now most young Englishmen are kept out of decent football by greed – the greed of the players coming here to play for silly money and the greed of the clubs in hoping that their presence will inspire more support, selling of merchandise and Champions’ League TV money.

As a result, good English players only know how to play as individuals. Their livelihoods depend less on their ability to work as a team and more on marketing and selling their own “brand” with the football a vehicle for doing this.

Things weren’t perfect in the 1980s. You had the bad boys of football like Vinnie Jones and there were plenty of hooligans about. Now the situation is reversed – the crowd seats are full of the middle-classes who can afford to shell out for starkly overpriced season tickets and the people who get involved in assaults in pubs reside on the field of play. It’s a race on the pitch not to win the game but who can become the most famous most quickly – therein lies the real reward.

Sir Bobby Robson epitomised the old football – the honest and hardworking professional approach that put the game first, the supporters second and themselves third. He was the last manager from the era where the reward was in excellence, peer respect and crowd adoration. He was the last manager who truly understood what it was to be responsible for his players and their actions. He was the last manager from the age where football was played not, perhaps, universally by gentlemen, but by men with a sense of perspective.

The circus that football has become is a unwholesome reflection of our society and its vehemently secular, tribal and amoral nature. Sir Bobby was the last torchbearer of football as a genuine sport. Now the money has it and the torch is extinguished, the last remaining saving grace of football has gone – a sad day.