Post by QPR Report on Jul 25, 2009 7:41:23 GMT
Guardian/Owen Gibson
A glimpse into the excess of modern footballersSteven Gerrard is better connected to his community than many, but star players are used to everything being done for them
The Liverpool captain's confused and angry response to being told he could not have control of the music system in a Merseyside nightclub will, for many, confirm their prejudices about the excesses of modern footballers.
The ever-widening gulf between players earning up to £140,000 a week and the fans who pay their wages through match tickets, TV subscriptions and replica shirts is nothing new. The irony here is that Steven Gerrard is better connected to his community than most of his peers, and has sought to maintain an image as a down-to-earth Scouser.
Having twice rejected the lure of Chelsea's riches, "Stevie G" as he is universally known to the red half of Liverpool, epitomises the one-club player, the local boy made good who has tried to maintain his links to the Bluebell estate in Huyton, where he grew up.
During the trial he appeared to well up as a statement from Kenny Dalglish was read out in court. "He is a very humble man," the former Liverpool star said, who was "not the archetypal footballer" and had "never forgotten his roots".
Indeed, it was partly his determination to celebrate a crushing victory over Newcastle with a group of old friends in the less than glamorous environs of Southport in December that contributed to the late night confrontation.
But the England midfielder's evident puzzlement, then anger, at the man who, in the words of the prosecution, dared to "say no" to Steven Gerrard betrayed the fact he could never be just one of the lads.
Jon Holmes, the veteran football agent whose clients have included Gary Lineker, David Beckham and Michael Owen, said: "Their relationship with their community and the world they're from has changed enormously. The irony is that Gerrard is probably better connected to his community than others.
"Clubs sign them up much younger. If you're 12 years old and you're told you're going to sign for Manchester United, that's going to affect you. And a lot of parents see it as a meal ticket."
Holmes detected a major shift in the role of football agents over the past 15 years as, fuelled by the billions that Sky pours into the game, the bank accounts of its major stars and their advisers have swelled. "I saw my role as one of an adviser and a manager, rather than a highly paid concierge. Now, if you don't do as they say, you're out."
Publicist Max Clifford said that Premier League stars now had a profile on a par with major entertainment stars, with predictable consequences for their egos.
"They are used to everything being done for them. If Steven Gerrard wants a song played, he gets it. If he wants a bar opened, they do it. That kind of treatment has an effect on you over time, no matter how well-adjusted you are," he said. "You can be arrogant without knowing it. The more people treat you like God, the more it rubs off on you."
Gerrard explained in court how he suffered "a lot of mither" while going about his daily life from opposing fans and members of the public. The targeting of footballers has taken on a more sinister reality on Merseyside and in Manchester in recent years as players, including Gerrard, have seen their homes and families targeted by criminal gangs when they are away with their team.
"You need to keep them more and more isolated because there are an awful lot of people out there who see them as a target," said Clifford.
The public's confused relationship with footballers – worshipping them one minute and criticising them the next – is reflected in the media's coverage. The front half of tabloid papers will be full of footballers behaving badly, while the back half venerates them.
On the one hand they're worshipped more than ever before. On the other, the "baby Bentley" image of pampered young men who believe their own hype has also been filed in the public imagination alongside sex scandals, gaudily glossy OK! magazine wedding spreads and Ashley Cole's outraged reaction to an offer of a pay packet of £55,000 a week.
Many who work on a daily basis with Premier League footballers say the public perception is unfair, and that the vast majority take their responsibilities as role models seriously, behaving better than a sample of 20-something men in any other industry. They also point to the community work that players are increasingly engaged in, both through their clubs and Premier League schemes like Creating Chances. Dalglish, among others, has argued that Gerrard's actions were out of character.
Others, including former Chelsea player Pat Nevin, argue that there have always been punch-ups and drunken incidents involving players down the years, but they were less likely to make the papers.
"It's hard to argue against the fact that players have become more detached. But I'm not convinced it hasn't always been the case to a large extent. It existed when I was playing and probably before that. You had those whose heads were turned by the fame and the money, even when the money was just twice the average wage," he said.
"You also have to think about the way society treats these players. They are treated like gods and they're ordinary people. If you treat them like gods you will be disappointed. It's exacerbated by the money and the fame and they also become a target because of that. That is the territory now. They are rewarded for it so they have to deal with it."
Some believe the clubs have a greater role to play in protecting and educating their young stars off the pitch as well as on it. But it is also perhaps inevitable that the self-belief instilled in the best players from a very early age will sometimes tip over into a sense of entitlement.
"You need to give them that confidence and self-belief, but over time that tends to isolate you from the real world," said Clifford. "They need more and more protection: from themselves, from the sycophants, and sometimes from people looking to target them for other reasons."
Such is the currency of the football and celebrity machine that Clifford predicted that it wouldn't be long before "the man who said no" was picking up the phone. "Today or tomorrow, I will probably get a call from the lad who took him to court asking me to represent him," he said. "That's how it works."
www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/jul/24/steven-gerrard-football-celebrity
The Guardian Barney Ronay
What Steven Gerrard's night out tells us about footballers' livesThis little glimpse into the world of our super-rich premiership stars reveals they are not so unlike the rest of us
So that's what they get up to, then. Dancing around in a circle, necking Jammy Donut cocktails and becoming disproportionately irate about the music – so the whispers have it – of Phil Collins. When it comes to the Steven Gerrard assault trial, it's the incidental details that have proved strangely gripping.
The nuts and bolts of life as a Premier League footballer have long been an object of popular fascination: the high-spec girlfriends, the trophy cars, the house with its two-tonne stone bath and plasma-screened broom cupboards. Set against this, the Gerrard affair has offered a reminder that footballers are generally a bunch of fairly average young men, with a fairly average idea of fun.
For a start The Lounge Inn, scene of Gerrard's misadventures, sounds reassuringly terrible. Is it a lounge? Or an inn? One Southport website describes it as a hangout for "wannabe gangsters and Sunday-football hardmen" and photographs show a gloomy joint with beech-veneer cladding and UPVC double glazing. Gerrard entered the Lounge last December in search of some fairly standard all-male group revelry, which he found in the company of two Accrington Stanley footballers (one 18 years old), four other youngish men and – oddly, but entirely innocent in all this – the 58-year-old former Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish.
CCTV footage shows the group drinking bottles of beer on the dancefloor, singing football songs and downing those Jammy Donut shots, a grisly thing made with Baileys, raspberry liqueur and sugar syrup. Gerrard's actions at this time have been described as "waving his arms in the air", rather than the more charitable "dancing", and throughout he remains crammed into a skin-tight powder-blue V-neck, despite the fact that it's the wee hours and he's in a crowded basement.
So far, so normal. In fact, even the climactic dust-up with the bar's temporary DJ has an appealing mundanity. In Gerrard's evidence, the exchange runs like a whiny late-night teenage altercation: "He basically said to me 'I am not putting your music on'. It was quite aggressive, and I said 'What's the F***ing problem, why can't I put my music on?'" The identity of the exact song Gerrard was so infuriatingly refused has already been widely debated. Here's what we know: his favourite artist is Phil Collins. He also likes "dance music". The person he'd most like to meet is Britney Spears. The fact remains, we may never know the exact truth.
There are, of course, no winners here. A part-time DJ has been rough-housed. The poor old Lounge Inn briefly had its alcohol licence suspended. And an image of the knitwear-clad Gerrard punching the air and fretting about when Sussudio is going to come on has been burned into the public consciousness. But perhaps, at least, in the middle of it all one of our most distant Premier League millionaires has been made to look, if not exactly very nice, then at least recognisably everyday.
www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/jul/24/steven-gerrard-incident-reveals-footballers-lives
A glimpse into the excess of modern footballersSteven Gerrard is better connected to his community than many, but star players are used to everything being done for them
The Liverpool captain's confused and angry response to being told he could not have control of the music system in a Merseyside nightclub will, for many, confirm their prejudices about the excesses of modern footballers.
The ever-widening gulf between players earning up to £140,000 a week and the fans who pay their wages through match tickets, TV subscriptions and replica shirts is nothing new. The irony here is that Steven Gerrard is better connected to his community than most of his peers, and has sought to maintain an image as a down-to-earth Scouser.
Having twice rejected the lure of Chelsea's riches, "Stevie G" as he is universally known to the red half of Liverpool, epitomises the one-club player, the local boy made good who has tried to maintain his links to the Bluebell estate in Huyton, where he grew up.
During the trial he appeared to well up as a statement from Kenny Dalglish was read out in court. "He is a very humble man," the former Liverpool star said, who was "not the archetypal footballer" and had "never forgotten his roots".
Indeed, it was partly his determination to celebrate a crushing victory over Newcastle with a group of old friends in the less than glamorous environs of Southport in December that contributed to the late night confrontation.
But the England midfielder's evident puzzlement, then anger, at the man who, in the words of the prosecution, dared to "say no" to Steven Gerrard betrayed the fact he could never be just one of the lads.
Jon Holmes, the veteran football agent whose clients have included Gary Lineker, David Beckham and Michael Owen, said: "Their relationship with their community and the world they're from has changed enormously. The irony is that Gerrard is probably better connected to his community than others.
"Clubs sign them up much younger. If you're 12 years old and you're told you're going to sign for Manchester United, that's going to affect you. And a lot of parents see it as a meal ticket."
Holmes detected a major shift in the role of football agents over the past 15 years as, fuelled by the billions that Sky pours into the game, the bank accounts of its major stars and their advisers have swelled. "I saw my role as one of an adviser and a manager, rather than a highly paid concierge. Now, if you don't do as they say, you're out."
Publicist Max Clifford said that Premier League stars now had a profile on a par with major entertainment stars, with predictable consequences for their egos.
"They are used to everything being done for them. If Steven Gerrard wants a song played, he gets it. If he wants a bar opened, they do it. That kind of treatment has an effect on you over time, no matter how well-adjusted you are," he said. "You can be arrogant without knowing it. The more people treat you like God, the more it rubs off on you."
Gerrard explained in court how he suffered "a lot of mither" while going about his daily life from opposing fans and members of the public. The targeting of footballers has taken on a more sinister reality on Merseyside and in Manchester in recent years as players, including Gerrard, have seen their homes and families targeted by criminal gangs when they are away with their team.
"You need to keep them more and more isolated because there are an awful lot of people out there who see them as a target," said Clifford.
The public's confused relationship with footballers – worshipping them one minute and criticising them the next – is reflected in the media's coverage. The front half of tabloid papers will be full of footballers behaving badly, while the back half venerates them.
On the one hand they're worshipped more than ever before. On the other, the "baby Bentley" image of pampered young men who believe their own hype has also been filed in the public imagination alongside sex scandals, gaudily glossy OK! magazine wedding spreads and Ashley Cole's outraged reaction to an offer of a pay packet of £55,000 a week.
Many who work on a daily basis with Premier League footballers say the public perception is unfair, and that the vast majority take their responsibilities as role models seriously, behaving better than a sample of 20-something men in any other industry. They also point to the community work that players are increasingly engaged in, both through their clubs and Premier League schemes like Creating Chances. Dalglish, among others, has argued that Gerrard's actions were out of character.
Others, including former Chelsea player Pat Nevin, argue that there have always been punch-ups and drunken incidents involving players down the years, but they were less likely to make the papers.
"It's hard to argue against the fact that players have become more detached. But I'm not convinced it hasn't always been the case to a large extent. It existed when I was playing and probably before that. You had those whose heads were turned by the fame and the money, even when the money was just twice the average wage," he said.
"You also have to think about the way society treats these players. They are treated like gods and they're ordinary people. If you treat them like gods you will be disappointed. It's exacerbated by the money and the fame and they also become a target because of that. That is the territory now. They are rewarded for it so they have to deal with it."
Some believe the clubs have a greater role to play in protecting and educating their young stars off the pitch as well as on it. But it is also perhaps inevitable that the self-belief instilled in the best players from a very early age will sometimes tip over into a sense of entitlement.
"You need to give them that confidence and self-belief, but over time that tends to isolate you from the real world," said Clifford. "They need more and more protection: from themselves, from the sycophants, and sometimes from people looking to target them for other reasons."
Such is the currency of the football and celebrity machine that Clifford predicted that it wouldn't be long before "the man who said no" was picking up the phone. "Today or tomorrow, I will probably get a call from the lad who took him to court asking me to represent him," he said. "That's how it works."
www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/jul/24/steven-gerrard-football-celebrity
The Guardian Barney Ronay
What Steven Gerrard's night out tells us about footballers' livesThis little glimpse into the world of our super-rich premiership stars reveals they are not so unlike the rest of us
So that's what they get up to, then. Dancing around in a circle, necking Jammy Donut cocktails and becoming disproportionately irate about the music – so the whispers have it – of Phil Collins. When it comes to the Steven Gerrard assault trial, it's the incidental details that have proved strangely gripping.
The nuts and bolts of life as a Premier League footballer have long been an object of popular fascination: the high-spec girlfriends, the trophy cars, the house with its two-tonne stone bath and plasma-screened broom cupboards. Set against this, the Gerrard affair has offered a reminder that footballers are generally a bunch of fairly average young men, with a fairly average idea of fun.
For a start The Lounge Inn, scene of Gerrard's misadventures, sounds reassuringly terrible. Is it a lounge? Or an inn? One Southport website describes it as a hangout for "wannabe gangsters and Sunday-football hardmen" and photographs show a gloomy joint with beech-veneer cladding and UPVC double glazing. Gerrard entered the Lounge last December in search of some fairly standard all-male group revelry, which he found in the company of two Accrington Stanley footballers (one 18 years old), four other youngish men and – oddly, but entirely innocent in all this – the 58-year-old former Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish.
CCTV footage shows the group drinking bottles of beer on the dancefloor, singing football songs and downing those Jammy Donut shots, a grisly thing made with Baileys, raspberry liqueur and sugar syrup. Gerrard's actions at this time have been described as "waving his arms in the air", rather than the more charitable "dancing", and throughout he remains crammed into a skin-tight powder-blue V-neck, despite the fact that it's the wee hours and he's in a crowded basement.
So far, so normal. In fact, even the climactic dust-up with the bar's temporary DJ has an appealing mundanity. In Gerrard's evidence, the exchange runs like a whiny late-night teenage altercation: "He basically said to me 'I am not putting your music on'. It was quite aggressive, and I said 'What's the F***ing problem, why can't I put my music on?'" The identity of the exact song Gerrard was so infuriatingly refused has already been widely debated. Here's what we know: his favourite artist is Phil Collins. He also likes "dance music". The person he'd most like to meet is Britney Spears. The fact remains, we may never know the exact truth.
There are, of course, no winners here. A part-time DJ has been rough-housed. The poor old Lounge Inn briefly had its alcohol licence suspended. And an image of the knitwear-clad Gerrard punching the air and fretting about when Sussudio is going to come on has been burned into the public consciousness. But perhaps, at least, in the middle of it all one of our most distant Premier League millionaires has been made to look, if not exactly very nice, then at least recognisably everyday.
www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/jul/24/steven-gerrard-incident-reveals-footballers-lives