Players Only Loyalty is to the Game

Loyalty does not exist in football.

And nor should it.

Yet the topic of players and disloyalty rears it’s ugly head in the transfer window as frequently as players move club.

The problem with loyalty is simple.

The subject matter is always broached from a supporters point of view.

But supporters aren’t in football.

They are always only the support that allows football to live.

Football supporters can be the embodiment of loyalty.

Some will tell you they haven’t missed a games in 30 years.

Others have tattoos of crests twice the size of their heart.

But it is because of this almost blind loyalty that supporters believe their players will feel the same way about their club.

After all, these players are getting to live the dream of so many of these supporters.

They must love the club to do so.

They must therefore be loyal.

After all, every supporter would be - if given the chance to play for their club.

Or so some supporters would believe.

Wayne Rooney grew up joining his boyhood heros Everton.

They gave him Premier League football.

Yet Wayne wanted more.

As loyal as he was to the blue half of Merseyside, he wanted to win major honours.

He joined Manchester United.

He won major honours.

Jamie Carragher has now spent his entire career at Liverpool.

The biggest rival to Everton, whom like Wayne, he also supported.

Jamie would never have won the Champions League with the Toffees.

‘Loyal’ to the reds.

Yet I use the word loyal loosely.

True, Jamie and also Steven Gerard have stayed at the one club their entire careers.

Through thick an thin, supporters might argue.

But the reality is, they both stayed because they were getting something in return.

Their careers were benefitting from playing for a club who regularly qualified for the Champions League.

Who won the Champions league.

Along with numerous other cups.

But even after capturing the biggest club prize of all, Steven’s head was being turned by another team.

Liverpool supporters will say he was loyal in the end when he opted against the switch.

But if winning the Champions League was almost not enough to keep the player who joined them at the age of 10 - imagine what finishing mid-table would have done?

Or getting relegated?

Like the Leeds United team of 2003.

A great team that had taken a gamble on Champions League glory and when success on the pitch wasn’t achieved - the wheels came off rapidly.

A player exodus commenced.

Amongst them was a young Alan Smith.

A Leeds man through and through.

Made up of equal measures of love for his club and hatred for his rivals.

No bigger rival to his team of course was Manchester United.

The team he joined 3 weeks after Leeds left the Premier League.

No championship for Alan.

No, straight to the Champions League for this loyal supporters favourite.

Even those who stayed with the sunken ship cannot claim loyalty.

Gary Kelly hung around for 3 more seasons in the Championship.

Unlikely he could have found another big club at his age.

And he was the third highest paid full back in England after all.

Manchester United have their loyal bunch too.

Gary Neville, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs to name a few.

All loyal one club men.

All achieving every ambition imaginable in the game at one of the biggest clubs in the world.

No sign of the championship for them.

There are of course players who remain ‘loyal’ to their smaller clubs.

Matt Le Tissier perhaps the most overt.

Regularly coveted by larger, more successful clubs.

It would have been easy for him to move on.

But he was the star man at Southampton.

The center of everything.

And he was guaranteed Premier league football.

Finishing his career at Southampton was great to see.

Loyal to the team that gave him his break.

Yet Matt grew up in Guernsey - hardly a haven for Southampton supporters.

Supporters adorn some of the aforementioned players.

They see them as ‘loyal’ servants to the cause as they have remained at their beloved club.

The truth is, the ‘loyal’ ones always made sure it suited them to stay.

This was their career after all.

They don’t support their clubs.

Their clubs support them.

‘There’s no loyalty in the game anymore’ is heard up and down every terrace come transfer window season.

Could it just be that is heard during the period since the Bosman ruling came to fruition?

No longer could the clubs decide where and when the player would go.

Instead the player inherited the power.

The power to remain loyal.

Loyal to the club.

Or loyal to their career...

The grass is always greener on the football pitch.

Exactly two months have passed since Gary Speed took his own life.

It’s amazing how quickly the only story being talked about in the footballing world can dissipate from the mainstream.

Football ‘is’ more important than life or death.

Not in the sense of it being more important to an individual than his or her’s own life.

But in that even when we do lose one life, football will continue on - long after they are gone.

The Gary Speed story has made me realise just how important football can be to society.

It has a power that no one man can match.

No one team.

No one country.

It has the power to move people.

All types of people.

From all walks of life.

It has given a lot to many people.

It gave a lot to Gary too.

And from the outside looking in, Gary had it all.

But maybe having it all is not what it’s made out to be.

Maybe the profession that is football, is not the holy grail after all.

The grass never looks more green than when cast upon the pitches of football.

And Gary was a master of these pitches.

Great talent as a footballer coupled with great longevity in his career.

Outside looking in, suggestions he had it all.

And then he took his own life.

Presumptions were wrong.

Most of us dreamt of being a professional footballer, unbeknownst that life’s problems were part and parcel of that dream.

Just ask Ryan Giggs.

If any ‘normal’ person was dealing with the problems associated with having an affair, the whole country wouldn’t be reading about it on the front pages of the newspapers.

Paul Merson, Tony Adams, Paul Gascoigne to name a few, all had their private lives dissected by the punters on the terrace.

Each of them had it all.

We build footballers up to be these demigods yet are so quick to bring them back down once they’re finished.

Packed stadiums screaming their names the world over every weekend.

Yet pick up an injury for a long period of time and even the tabloids aren’t interested in where you buy your milk anymore.

Week 36 of your cruciate ligament recovery may be important to you.

But it won’t sell newspapers.

That’s not the arena that fans demand.

The arena that Gary didn’t experience much of his life outside of.

Broke into the Leeds team at an young age and when he bowed out 20 years later, Gary had virtually spent his entire life adorned by thousands of fans week in week out.

How tough it must be to lose that in an instant.

He can now go a week round Cheshire and not get ‘hassled’ once for an autograph.

What Gary made me realise through this was that we all have problems, no matter what we do.

Even inside the bubble we all look upon so enviously.

Footballers seem to have it all.

But having it all includes problems.

With the transition out of the game seeming a bigger problem than most.

Paul Scholes another who is testament to this.

Retiring at 36 years of age after 17 seasons at the top and winning almost everything there was to win in the game.

Yet he still found, just five months into the season, that he missed it too much.

Dean Windass came out last week and admitted to feeling depressed since he left the sport.

He carried on until he was 40.

Much longer than the average player at his level.

There are options to stay in the game of course.

But 80,000 people don’t greet Gary Neville when he arrives at Sky for work.

The coaches at Everton don’t get asked for their autograph.

And managing your own country doesn’t appear to be a big enough fix either.

It may have looked liked Gary had it all.

Quite clearly he didn’t.

No doubt the grass he walked on seemed greener to most.

It’s just a shame, that like a bad pun intended to sell just another newspaper in our arena - it all faded too fast for Gary Speed.

Thank you Gary for everything.

The grass just seems a little less green since you’re gone...