Firstly let me correct you on a couple of things - I am NOT a journalist - "the rag" I write for has a section called Terrace Talk on a Wednesday. This is a section written by four supporters - they are myself (obviously representing Chelsea) and three others who are Manchester United, Liverpool, and Arsenal. None of us are professional writers - I am a surveyor!
Our remit is to write a fans view of their team every week. We are told to be partisan, biased etc etc - so if you wanted a balanced view of the game, you certainly ame to the wrong place!
Secondly I was at the game (have not missed a game home or away or abroad for 23 years) and they were singing Carfree - something I confirmed with a Reading supporter friend of mine after the game.
Lastly, I have studied the slow mo dozens of times and I stand by MY OPINION. As I said no-one but Hunt will know what was deliberate and what wasn't but we are all entitled to our opinion.
Again - many thanks for writing nd good luck for the rest of the season
Regards
Trizia
PS - this is an article from Oliver Holt who writes for the Daily Mirror and I belive is a Manchester Utd fan
LOOK AGAIN..THIS TIME MOURINHO HAS GOT ONE RIGHT
18 October 2006
HERE'S a little multiple choice quiz question for a professional footballer on how he might be expected to behave in a given situation.
A few seconds after the start of a match one Saturday evening, you see the world's best goalkeeper run out of his goal and gather the ball cleanly. You, an opposing midfielder, are still several yards away. Do you:
A. Realise there is no chance of the world's best goalkeeper spilling the ball, change the direction of your run and jog back towards the half-way line.
B.Go for the Hollywood option, carry on with your run and hurdle the keeper as he lies on the floor clutching the ball.
C. Continue to run straight at the goalkeeper as he lies on the floor with the ball, watch your knee collide with his head and then stand back as he is taken to hospital with a fractured skull.
Tough one, isn't it? A real head-scratcher. Or, in the vexed case of Stephen Hunt and Petr Cech, a real headbreaker.
The best that can be said of Reading's enthusiastic midfielder, who hurtled into Cech in the first minute of last Saturday's clash with Chelsea, is that he has an exceedingly slow football brain.
The worst is that his aggression has put Cech out of football for a year and may have changed the life of the goalkeeper forever.
Cech has two metal plates in his head now as he lies in the John Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford and yet football's neanderthal instinct seems to be to leap to Hunt's defence.
One of the worst things about the incident is the way the apologists for violence in football have formulated such a preposterous defence for the Reading player.
Because in their rush to defend the indefensible all they have done is blurred the message that what Hunt did was unacceptable and by doing that, they've cleared the way for it to happen again.
The grizzled old pros with no cartilage in either knee and not a lot between the ears either have been trotted out to produce the usual garbage about the good old days.
You know the type. The Monty Python merchants unwittingly re-enacting the Four Yorkshiremen sketch. "You were lucky," they say. "We used to dream about getting kneed in the head."
Bob Wilson wins the prize for getting closest to that but then I suppose that's what you expect from a bloke who was mentor to a muppet who called himself Safe Hands.
Let's get one thing straight right away. Hunt's challenge on Cech wasn't for a 50-50 ball. It wasn't even 60-40 against Hunt. Not 70-30 either. Not 80-20. Not 90-10.
Cech had it. It was 100 per cent his. It was under his control. It was in his possession.
"Our momentum meant a collision was unavoidable," Hunt said. Sorry, pal, I know you're desperate but that's not true.
It was totally avoidable. I'll tell you how. Just don't slam your knee into Cech's head. Simple. Fractured skull suddenly entirely avoidable.
Whether Hunt meant to do it or not is another matter. Only he will ever know that.
I imagine he is somewhat taken aback by quite how serious the consequences of his action have been to a fellow professional. Again, only he knows that. What is certain is that according to the laws of the game, he should have been sent off for the injury he inflicted on Cech.
He wasn't in control of the outcome of his challenge and it endangered the safety of his opponent. That equals a red card.
Luckily for Hunt, a wet lettuce called Mike Riley was in charge and the best he could muster was one of his thin little smiles.
And don't listen to the people who say it couldn't have been deliberate because it would be professional suicide for a footballer to knee someone in the head.
Those people say Hunt would never have done that because he would have been too worried about hurting himself.
Well, remind me then which player got carried off on a stretcher and is still in hospital and which player played for 90 minutes without a scratch?
Hunt may well have placed his knee in terrible danger when it collided with Petr Cech's head but thankfully the knee seems to have emerged unscathed.
Petr Cech might be in a bit of a state but Hunt and his knee are doing just fine. Sighs of relief all round.
So in synopsys, our least favourite bint had the 'Carfree' song confirmed to her by a Reading supporting friend - even more laughable is the acticle she seeks to rely on in her defence posted by a so called United fan - and I thought it was only our Trizia that was deluded!!
