I suppose it had to happen and it didn’t involve a girl from Clapham, in case you were wondering, but last night I left a football match long before the end. Bristol Rovers, the mighty gods of world soccer, were drawing 2-2 at full time against Crawley in a First Round FA Cup reply. It wasn’t that late, but I had taken the bus to the match and if I had stayed for extra time and even penalties, the possibility existed, in a worse case scenario, that I might not have been home much before midnight. I didn’t take that chance and so missed Rovers going on to win. Hallowed be thy Gas. But man, we have some real cretins in the crowd.
Not far from us were a group of men in late middle age. They were highly critical of Gas midfielder Chris Lines, in my humble opinion, tonight’s best player by some distance. A head-up midfield player with real pace, power and an eye for a pass, along with a cultured right foot to pass it with. He tries things lesser players don’t. His passing is excellent, long range and short, and he is the sort of player who takes a chance. Next to him, the industrious hod-carrier Stuart Sinclair, rarely wastes a pass, but his role, with one gorgeous exception tonight, is to do the simple stuff well. Lines’ critics are the parents of children who, on a Sunday morning, roar at the young lad who tries something a bit different and when it doesn’t come off berate him for the rest of the game. Can they not see a player at the peak of his powers?
Chris Lines is a local lad, who plays with huge pride for the club he just happens to support. He is no youngster now and he will never be better than he is now. Can’t people just enjoy that? This is a strikingly mature footballer who would grace any League One club and not a few in the Championship. My God, some fools cried. He made a mistake. Lucky I never made one of those in my life.
We noted at one point after Lines mishit a cross from the left, his weaker side, which went tamely behind the goal. An idiot from the terraces berated Lines and, we observed approvingly, that Filton’s finest had told said moaner to “go away” (I think these were the words he used). That heavy drizzle was sweeping across the stadium, that the pitch itself had standing water in places – none of that mattered. Lines made a mistake and “as I have paid my money, I can say what I want, no matter how stupid I am” one of the men near us might have said, but didn’t.
Lines’ reaction to abuse confirms that players do react to what the crowd says and does. There is no avoiding it. It doesn’t matter that they are professionals: they are human too. The crowd can lift players but it can destroy them too.
The idiots will not destroy Chris Lines, who is one of our own. He is no younger the young lad on the way up, weighed down by the usual over-expectation from those who want it all and they want it now and he has endured real tragedy along the way, losing his father at an unfeasibly young age.
Can we simply not admire and support the young man for working hard to reach the pinnacle of his game, to become the best he can and the manager, Darrell Clarke, who helped make it happen? Or can you simply not educate pork?
