well... well...
Fallen Hero: James Lawton on how we're all being cheated
If a player with Thierry Henry's solid reputation for fairness and integrity can cheat to save the match for his team and country, then is there any point left to sport at all? James Lawton laments the spectacle of shameless play-acting on the World Cup stage, while our medical and theatrical experts offer their judgements on the histrionics that are now just another part of the game
Published: 29 June 2006
The nation is shocked. Our favourite adopted footballer, Thierry Henry, is caught out in a grotesque piece of cheating. An unmanly, unutterably cheap act of gamesmanship. He clutches his head and the national stomach churns.
But why? Is it any more surprising than finding a scantily clad temptress in a bordello? Sadly, not - and if anyone in England feels a hint of betrayal that Henry, the luminous star of Arsenal, an imported national treasure, a man of sophistication and style in his off-field musings, has let them down, they should run their mind back to two earlier World Cups. He or she should remember Naples, 1990, and St Etienne, in 1998.
I guess that evens the the next game, then....
