The Ball that bounced away
by
Mickey Blue Eyes.

There's no question most of us were drunk at the Blue Kipper Presentation Night. But we weren't so far gone we were unable to understand what people said or were trying to imply. So when Michael Ball, winner of the first Blue Kipper Player of the Year Award, said, "I want to stay even though Franny wants to leave," we all know what we heard and what was meant. Once again, Bally was telling all and sundry What A Great Evertonian He Is, that he wasn't leaving despite all the transfer talk. There was no mistaking his words or self-proclaimed intent. What a pity, then, it was a load of lying bollocks, a fact emphasised by subsequent events and his transfer to Rangers. So it is time to get matters in perspective in both the specific and the general.

Michael Ball with Blue Kipper

Specifically, I am sorry Bally left because he was a local lad with ability and an Evertonian too, just the type we used to expect as normal. How times have changed. But we ought to be clear that, for all his promise, he didn't deliver for most of the time and had only maybe twenty good games for us. He had this unfortunate knack of disappearing from the game at important moments. Sometimes it looked as though he just couldn't be bothered, or he was too arrogant to care, in which case he was a poor professional with a lot to learn about concentration. It might well be that it is a permanent feature of his play and will never be eradicated in which case we haven't really lost anything in a playing sense.

All of that said, we need to be clear about the roots of the matter: After maybe twenty good games it was he and his agent, Trevor Steven, who approached the club about a new contract with two years still to go on his current agreement.

The club entered into discussion and made an offer which more than doubled his money and held out the possibility of even more cash depending on his playing progress. Sounds fair to me, especially since we're as poor as a church mouse right now. We can't go spending money we don't have, not after the collapse of the media deal. A sense of reality is required. So Bally was made a good offer based on what we could afford, not on his agent's percentages or the other siren voices in his ear.

The situation was quite straightforward, quite simple: Here's the offer, make your mind up. And there's the rub, for we don't know who actually made up his mind, himself, his agent or the siren voices. If it was either of the latter two, then he's a weak character. If it was the first then he's even more of a liar than events have shown.

Whatever, it was all for the money and his proclamations of Evertonia For Ever were just so much hogwash. And that is why overall I am glad he has gone. Two can play at this sort of repulsive game.

As for his self-proclaimed tears upon departure from Bellfield, why should we believe they are anything other than crocodile after his self-proclamation at the Presentation Night? Answer: I certainly don't believe him. I can only speak for myself when I say I will never again believe another word any modern player utters, not even if he says it straight to my face and his eyes full of sincerity. People can lie with their eyes too.

The fact remains that Bally could have stayed had he wanted to and he could have earned much more money too. He chose to go. It was his own choice, not ours or the club's. So much for his self-proclaimed loyalty.

Which brings me neatly to the generality of the matter. For I believe the pendulum has swung way too much towards the players and especially their grubby, spivvy agents. Previously, it was too much in favour of the clubs; but at least it had the merit of a sort of equilibrium with the roots of the game, with the fans. For them it has always been necessary to identify with their clubs and their players for that is the main point of supporting a club. Without it, everything just becomes a financial exercise. If the main point is compromised or pushed aside the game becomes worthless in any true sense of the word. You might as well hand over its dried out husk to the financial institutions, a lousy corrupt media, the PR parasite shite which clings to the game and the Suits who walk around the corridors carrying bits of paper as though they were hand grenades.

None of this is to idealise what we had before or to excuse the way players were treated previously, or to suggest we return to it. I only show you the times, past and present. We have to get the balance right or the game will totter beyond recovery. That is not an exaggeration. The signs are already there and they are alarming.

Nor do I "blame" the players for getting as much as they can from the game. After all, they are probably the main reason we pay so much to see the professional spectacle. They are entitled to pursue it with vigour. For them it is a relatively short earning life. But enough is enough. Time to put away the toys of manipulation and talk like grown-up people.

It is time to properly consider the balance of interests and exclude the irrelevant. It is also time for the players to understand that much more of this will see a steady decline of fans interested enough to pay to see them. In short, they will be cutting off their nose to spite their face. They and their successors will be the long term losers and the game will die as a worthwhile, healthy spectacle. Nobody claims immortality for any human form of activity. Footy is no different, no matter how much we love The Beautiful Game.

If the fans come to see that players are greedy, disloyal and prone to move on after a year or two however good their earnings, then they will turn on them and require performance-on-demand, a theatre spectacle, not sports performance. The remainder of tolerance will disappear. The signs are already there. The whole centre of the game will crumble, as it already has in Italy. We ignore the example at our peril. The game will become a sort of mindless semi-fascist display of chauvinism of the worst type, all of it controlled by distant advertising sponsors, corporate media clones and the tiny minds of racists. Everything, absolutely everything, will be up for sale. The game will know the price of everything and the value of nothing. It is a horrible thought.

Sadly, Michael Ball is just another small example of what happens when people lose touch with reality and even a semblance of responsibility in the face of false glory and the sound of bad advice. There are many much worse than he.

This is a bad and dangerous era for The Beautiful Game. Only the fans and the players can do something about it. I only wish Michael Ball had had the courage not to lie to the assembled fans that night. He could have earned true glory in the eyes of the fans. Instead, he's just another player who left. What a pity. Now he really is on his own.

In the meantime, we turn to the players we have left. And we wonder which of them has a trace of loyalty in their blood stream. (August 2001)

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