Footballers' lives
Tuesday, August 12, 2008 How refreshing to read that England manager Fabio Capello has no problem with Wayne Rooney having the odd cigarette. Asked yesterday whether he would encourage Rooney not to smoke because of the health risks, Capello told reporters: "I know a lot of players who smoke, it is part of life. When I was a player, a lot of my friends and team-mates smoked. It depends if he smokes five cigarettes or 20 cigarettes."
Needless to say, in these politically correct times, these comments did not go down well with Capello's paymasters because The Times reports that "when he reappeared a short while later to make clear that he did not endorse smoking, it was plainly at the request of the FA, not because he had suddenly taken evangelically against the weed".
Full story HERE.
Reader Comments (26)
I used to play football at a semi and near professional level when I was a young man. I finally gave up playing three years ago at the age of 45 which was serious amateur. I still smoked 20 a day and was always expected to got outside the changing rooms. People, especially in America where I played were aghast when the first thing I did after a shower was to light up. My estimate is that I had to train 20% more than most to compensate but a semi final I played in New Jersey went into extra time with a temperature of 95 degrees and not a breath of air. I was the first to notice that all the body narcists were flagging, while I was covering most of the pitch.
After we came back in extra time to win 3-2, two red Malboro's were the order of the day before reaching for the soap. People gawped at me open mouthed.
My heart rate has risen from 55 BPM to 60 now and my GP was astonished and after a full medical I smoked. He thought I was as fit a 44 year old he had ever seen. He had to take my blood pressure 3 times as it is so low.
The difference between Wayne Rooney and me is talent and it is good to see a lack of finger wagging from the manager. He is obviously fit.
And Wayne Rooney is not just any footballer, but one of the very most talented in England.
It reminds me that Zinadine Zidane - perhaps the best player in the World Cup winning French team - was also snapped smoking a crafty cigarette.
I wonder what goes on behind the scenes to make a manager like Capello, who first comes out with eminent common sense, to reverse himself and toe the antismoking line? Did they threaten to fire him if he didn't? Who threatened him? And if they can force that sort of doctrine onto him, what else can they impose on him? Maybe next they'll start telling him how to run a football team.
Manchester Utd are prepared to almost break the bank to sign Berbatov who is well known as a smoker. Obviously Alex Ferguson who is the most successful manager of this era does not have a problem with his players 'Having a Players Please'
On a side note one of the reasons that Brian Clough had only a 44 day reign as Leeds manager was that he wanted to remove the free cigarette allowance enjoyed by his senior players. This really upset Billy Bremner who loved his smokes and was one of the all time greats. Clough therefore lost the dressing room and was dispatched forthwith.
As idlex mentioned, what caused Capello to make a further statement.
If the FA, what has it got to do with them and on what basis?
west
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Wasn't it Alex Ferguson who said he preferred a smoker to a drinker?
If I was a manager I would select my team on their form and not on life style.
An opposing fan can be thrown out of the ground for smoking anywhere in the stadium, but would a player or manager be ejected for doing the same?
I asked Comsumer Direct if it was fair for a supporter to be penalised upto £1,000 (loss of season ticket) for being caught smoking at a stadium and this is their reply:
'my initial advice would be to check the terms and conditions of the season ticket. If this states that season tickets will be cancelled if the holder is found to be smoking in the grounds, it would be likely this is lawful.
It might be possible to argue that this is an unfair contract term under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, however, only a judge can decide whether or not this is the case'
Remember all the fuss about Shane Warne? The most successful bowler of all time was a dedicated puffer, much to the outrage of the fit-obsessed. What they were never able to explain was how an “unfit” man was able, well into the professional sportsman’s equivalent of middle-age, to play cricket at the highest level for six hours a day, five days in a row, in the heat of India or the suffocating humidity of Sri Lanka. Especially as, being a spinner, he would often find himself bowling for much of the day.
And who can forget Socrates, the Brazilian football player? I remember reading he smoked 60-a-day whilst maintaining an international career. He was no simple man from the favelas either; he was a doctor of medicine and had a doctorate in philosophy too.
I imagine smoking is related in people's minds with lack of fitness solely because many smokers don't exercise. The main contributory factor to lack of fitness is lack of exercise and training!
I am sure there are many couch potatoes who are also non smokers.
Wonder if they think that because they do not smoke, that makes them fitter?
And for your continuing amusement at the existence of, shock horror, smoking sportspersons (how ASH must choke into their cornflakes), check out this little article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/jul/27/athletics.golf?gusrc=rss&feed=football
Indoctrination and Brainwashing, especially in your early years, become ingrained, and however much you learn through reading and experience which contradicts it, it is like a little monster, a little ROM file in your brain which is permanent. Are you still with me? then I will continue.
I remember as a teenager in the 1960's, I was shocked when I saw a PTI (Physical Training Instructor) smoking. I was even more shocked when I saw Bobby Charlton having a cigarette in the social gathering after a charity match.
I remember when I made my debut as a semi professional singer in the 1970's, someone said I had a good pair of lungs, and I thought, "how can I? I smoke".
Jumping forward to 2008. Only last week when I was visiting my dad, I did a lot of walking. I was not out of breath or getting chest pains. Every time I walk or do some strenuous DIY or play my trombone or sing, I keep telling myself there is something wrong. I am 57, I smoke, I must be on borrowed time. AND THIS IS WHAT THE BRAINWASHING DOES TO YOU. Sorry for shouting, it is just that being fit and healthy is to do with a good balanced diet (and don't anyone dare start the vegetarian thread!!!) and being active, using your body as it was intended. I shouted because I am so very very angry that the enjoying tobacco thing has been taken WAY out of proportion. OK, smoking may not be the BEST thing in the world, (although there are times when it comes pretty close), but it is certainly not the worst thing by any stretch of the imagination.
If you have got this far, here is a little thought for you all. If you have a smoke after sex, which of the two did you enjoy most.....
"If you have a smoke after sex, which of the two did you enjoy most....."-Timbone.
We-ell, since the cigarette lasts a good three minutes longer, there's no contest really.
Why is it that the offspring of the recent and most long lived generation in centuries are such a bunch of hypochondriac health fetishists? One would have thought that the longevity of these hard-drinking, hard-smoking seniors might have been cause for celebration. Not a bit of it. Instead their children obsess over physical fitness, diet, pollution, smoking, alcohol, and so on.
Perhaps it's that the surprising longevity of their elders set them wondering whether death was quite as inevitable as they had been led to believe. The dream of immortality is, after all, one of humanity's deepest dreams, and perhaps it has been enjoying a resurgence in recent decades. If Jean Calment, who died aged 122 a few years ago, had been a smoker, how much longer might she have lived if she had been a teetotal non-smoker, and worked out in a gym? 10 years? 50 years? Maybe all those people religiously pumping iron, or jogging and cycling along on our roads, are furiously pursuing immortality.
It's taken as an indisputable fact of life that exercise, in any amount, is unconditionally beneficial to health. The more the better. On that basis one would expect that athletes and sports players should be the healthiest of all people, nimbly springing past wheezing, shuffling couch potatoes in supermarket queues. But I still remember hearing Malcolm McDonald - Supermac - telling Radio 5 a few years ago that half - half! - of all professional footballers retired from the game with premature arthritis. He suffered from it himself. If what he said was true, what is the real cost of all this running and cycling (currently reaching an orgiastic climax in Beijing) in medical treatment?
A few months before the smoking ban came into force last year, I got talking to a young lad in a pub. He was smoking, but looked forward to the ban as a way to help him stop. He saw it as a progressive piece of legislation which would improve people's health. Yet he was standing with the aid of crutches as he spoke. I asked what his injury was. It was a multiple fracture of his leg. He showed me where it had been pinned back together in several places along its length, and described how he'd been in and out of hospital for multiple operations, several of which were still pending. How had he sustained an injury which had used up such considerable NHS resources? He'd been surfing, and a large wave had hurled him down onto a beach. Which, I wondered, was the greater health threat - smoking or surfing?
"We-ell, since the cigarette lasts a good three minutes longer, there's no contest really."
Thanks for that Colin. Of course, if you roll your own, you get foreplay as well!
idlex
I've just heard Catherine Merry say she is full of aches and pains after years of training and running, which is common for athletes and that Steve Backley has recently has a complete hip replacement.
This proves that exercise is bad for your health.
It is said by ASH that smoking makes men impotent.
Would smoking on the job, be a good form of birth control?
This proves that exercise is bad for your health. - Chas
I'm sure that some exercise is a good thing. But too much looks like it isn't such a good thing. It's the same with everything. Exercise. Smoking. Drinking.
What seems to have been lost these days is any sense of proportion. Either something is regarded as Good - like exercise -, and you can't have too much of it. Or it's Bad - like smoking -, and you can't have too little of it.
idlex. I was exaggerating. Old sayings can be so true. Everything in moderation and a little of what you fancy does you good.
Excess in anything can be bad for you, like constantly complaining on platforms. We were always known as a country of moaners and we are even more so now.
The point is that the likes of Wayne Rooney are role models for the younger generation. If they or their managers are seen to condone cigarette smoking then naturally the young fans of these players become aware of it and it waters down the health message and increases the amount of underage smoking. If you want to smoke then by all means smoke, you are aware of the risks, but please do not try to convince people that smoking is in any way healthy. Would you encourage a ten year old football fan to light up? Of course you wouldn’t – the big question is why – because you know it’s unhealthy, that’s why – or am I mistaken?
Being a role model, does that mean that Wayne Rooney should not smoke, drink, eat beef burgers or do anything that may not be healthy.
As a kid I was told if somebody put their head in an oven, would I do the same.
The point of the story was about endorsing smoking – Wayne and anyone else can smoke if they wish but as role models they should avoid the mistake of condoning it – especially to the underage. Hope that clears up my point.
Would you encourage a ten year old football fan to light up? Of course you wouldn’t
A year ago I wouldn't have. But I would now. I detest what is happening in this country so much that I would actively encourage anyone to subvert this bullying nannyism in every way possible. What better way than to encourage kids to smoke?
Idlex, that is not quite one of my opinions.
I am quite happy for tobacco to be restricted to children below 16 years, but my point is that as adults we should be left alone. Rooney should be neither condemned or lauded for smoking.
As someone who has played football to a very high level the stress of training and playing, especially in a physical contact sport is phenomenal and I can see why surgery is required in middle age.
And a fag after 90 minutes of play or a 5 mile run is one the best.
Dave, it is my impulse, when these meddlers set out to impose their values on me, to do exactly the opposite of what they demand.
Idlex
I started smoking when I was 10 and I'm 58 now.
What annoys me is that the health & fitness brigade can't seem to accept that some people just do sport for the enjoyment factor. They love preaching to you and automatically assume that if you take part in any kind of sport you are doing it to benefit your health. They should accept that not everybody wants to compete to Olympic or World Cup level and some people just take part for the fun, pleasure and enjoyment they get out of it (i.e. the pub football team) and if it happens to make them a tad fitter, without giving up any of their other pleasures, then that is a bonus. My sport was ice skating which I loved and still engage in from time to time. I used to have a ice dancing coach but that was to improve my technique not my health! I also used to be a heavy drinker. The rink had a bar where I used to indulge in a few Pernods and our group of friends were all smokers. One night I got on and did the Rhumba with about 6 Pernods and a pink gin inside me and I will add I did not fall over on the ice! Life was so enjoyable in those days. (The 80s).
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