LIAM MACKEY: Chelsea: The gift that really just keeps on giving

Favourite line on Ballboygate?

Has to be the English football writer who suggested that Eden Hazard’s encounter with Charlie Morgan had shone a light on the — I hope you’re sitting down for this — “hitherto innocuous world of elite-level ball retrieval.”

They certainly didn’t write ‘em like that before. And after the GUBU events at the Liberty Stadium this week, they probably won’t be writing ’em like that ever again, either.

It seems to me that where you stand on the issue essentially boils down to how you choose to answer the question: did Eden Hazard play the ball or the boy?

On the face of it, things looked pretty bad for the Belgian, the close-up television footage seeming to show the Chelsea man kicking the kid sharply in the ribs after Morgan had Fosbury flopped all over the ball in a deliberate and — as he later confessed — premeditated attempt to run down the clock.

Certainly, to judge by Morgan’s immediate reaction, it seemed an open and shut case, m’lud. Yes, it was wrong but faintly comical to do what he had done. By contrast, it was not only wrong but downright ugly to do what Hazard did. Hence, the deluge of unforgiving headlines the morning after, in which the nicer epithets ranged from thug to toxic.

A couple of days on, things are not so clear-cut. The fact that Morgan turns out to be the son of a Swansea director is neither here nor there. But if, as has been suggested, there’s a camera angle which shows definitively that Hazard made contact with the ball, not the boy, then this proper Charlie stands doubly accused — first of time-wasting, sabotage and then of an act of simulation of such epic Hollywood proportions that it relegates even Rivaldo’s infamous mime in the World Cup against Turkey to a best-supporting role.

Not that such carry-on makes Charlie Morgan Public Enemy Number One, let alone guilty of what dear old ‘Arry considered “disgusting” behaviour. But, if the 17-year-old did make a three-course meal of Hazard’s efforts at rooting out the ball, it also absolves the player of the more serious assault charges which have been levelled against him in some quarters.

Frustrated, it would obviously have been much wiser for Hazard to have left it to the referee to retrieve the ball on his behalf. And by failing to do so, and instead allowing the red mist to take over, he was at least guilty of creating a perception which left Chris Foy with no alternative but to show red.

For all that, there’s still a substantial difference between a rib-tickler and a rib-kicker, an important distinction upon which it’s fair to presume the powers-that-be never thought they’d have to adjudicate. Any more than us hacks ever thought we’d find ourselves writing the words “elite-level ball retrieval”.

Perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of the whole affair is that it was used not just as a stick with which to beat Chelsea again — my, they really are the gift that just keeps on giving — but also as further evidence, supposedly, of the precipitous decline in moral standards in what we might call the elite-level ball game as a whole.

Which is a pity since the incident not only overshadowed superb Swansea’s deserved success in reaching the League Cup final but rudely shifted the focus of the week from Bradford’s truly wonderful and historic achievement in seeing off Aston Villa to also reach Wembley.

Look, I’m no innocent and I understand that Ballboygate made for the juicier pictures, puns and headlines but if there’s one image by which this football week ought to be remembered, it’s that unforgettable shot of Bradford’s Carl McHugh hugging referee Phil Dowd at the final whistle in Villa Park.

To make it even more memorable, Dowd looks distinctly unimpressed at the Donegal teenager’s spontaneous celebration but, happily in this instance, the referee had enough of that sense which is anything but common to desist from handing out a card for bringing the game into disrepute or some such similar catch-all charge.

And it wasn’t the only moment of the football week to bring a smile to the face. Step forward Neil Lennon for the infectious good humour with which he fielded two calls from a journalist’s wife whilst attempting to conduct a press conference at Celtic.

Admittedly, he might not have been quite so forgiving had his side just been on the receiving end of a hiding but, still, it was a nice human touch which showed that the manager-media relationship doesn’t necessarily have to be made up of suspicion, evasion, envy, contempt and outright hostility.

Speaking of which, I shudder to think of the day when a ball boy decides it would be quite the hoot to employ his own version of Fergie time for a visit from Manchester United. Now that really would be hazardous behaviour.