I remember watching a Wildlife on One programme a few years back, and I’ve been remembering what happened a bit this weekend, and more so when I braved the morning papers.
There was a vast herd of proud, magnificent grazing beasts wandering and grazing across the sultry plains of the African Savannah. The herd, although massive, was concentrated, for it knew all too well what threats and horrors lurked all around. To leave the herd, or to attract attention was tantamount to suicide. It was easy to pick out the single animal upon which the beady eyes of the myriad predators were fixed. You knew that they would eventually get him. They singled this one animal out, stalked him, waited for him to become isolated, and then tore him to pieces, without mercy or grace. Once the mangy Lions had had their fill, the stinking Hyenas had theirs, then the baleful Vultures ripped and tore the last remnants of flesh from the carcass. Once the lowly maggots and flies had had their meal, there was nothing left but meagre bones, bleaching slowly in the punishing sun. Only bare and broken bones, stark in contrast to the once-mighty beast. The thing you realise is that once the predators decide you are for dinner, then that?s it. They always get you, by fair means or foul. Once they single you out, once you are targeted, they will pursue and hound remorselessly, and eventually bring you down.
I cant help but see Didier Drogba in serious peril right now.
Note the press hysteria over the ghastly spectre of cheating and diving that Chelsea have callously brought to the game since Mr Abramovich took over, spoiling the hitherto utopian, clean, and moralistic ‘beautiful game’. The Chelsea herd has grazed roughshod across their Savannah, and they are not happy. They have singled out a solitary member of the herd, who has dived and simulated a lot of late, and they are looking to bring him down. It is clear to me that the press hysteria will not die down, until Mr Drogba has been shipped out of this country, in all likelihood with his reputation and career in ruins. The moralistic trumpeting of the hacks, with their Bush-esque ‘War on Cheats’; their unified front against the Axis of Evil Divers, is blindingly myopic. Funny how players who have dived just as blatently as Drogba, such as Jeffers, Dickov, Viera, Van Nistelrooy, Pires, Lua-Lua, Reyes, Cisse, Kewell, Viduka etc dont seem to get quite the same treatment as our own Mr Drogba… or ‘Drog’, as they seem to prefer to call him, presumably so that their barely literate readership can subconsciously connect ‘Drog’ and ‘Drug’, i.e.: Cheat.
To quote someone very close to this piece, ‘let me be totally clear about this’… I don?t condone diving. I’ve spoken out about it in the past, and in particular my displeasure at seeing my beloved blues do it. It?s not Chelsea and its not on. I don?t care what other people think, but my opinion is that if you can?t do it fair and square, don?t do it at all. Drogba dives, and I don?t like it, and as a player, I don?t particularly rate him because of it. Yes, he has awesome physical presence and the ability to terrorise defences, but he dives, and I don?t like seeing it. He does need to sort it out, and I hope he does. The problem is, is that he is going to be destroyed as a football player, and as a person by having his integrity and honesty called into question and publicly vilified. Much has been made of the Chelsea fans apparently turning against one of their own herd, and I feel that this is 50% truth and 50% disengenuity. Many Chelsea fans will see these reports of a few boos, and turn against Drogba as that?s what the papers say you have to do etc. Although it has not happened yet, it seems clear to be at least that Drogba is being pushed towards marginalisation, into the fringes; the long grass where you can meet a grisly end without warning…
Many will say he deserves it, but it worries me that one player, who’s main crime is merely being the perfect example of modern non-British football, and is no worse a diver than any of the other players I mentioned above, is going to be hounded out and brought down. He has done himself no favours of late, and drawn attention to himself, but it seems that Drogba is going to be a media-appointed sacrifice to the bloodlust borne out of a couple of seasons of seething anti-Chelsea sentiment. Because of his club, Drogba is going to be torn to pieces over this diving issue. Why should Drogba get special treatment?
Once all this has died down, as it inevitably will, the ruins of Drogba’s career could be lying in the sun, having been brought down, torn limb from limb and eaten alive by the single-minded and predatory Press, just for doing what is common, usual, and completely accepted if not sanctioned everywhere but here, in our Premiership. A once proud footballer of considerable skill and prowess will be destroyed because of anti-Chelsea sentiment. Many have tried to go up against the press, to outrun the predators and live free and unharassed on the Savannah. Sven Goran Eriksson, John Leslie, James Hewitt, Glenn Hoddle, etc have all tried to do it, and none have succeeded.
Drogba would be well advised to get back to the herd as quickly as possible, stop the diving completely, and hope, pray that they leave him alone. I wouldn?t bet on it. The Hyenas always get their man.
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