Footballers slow to get in the Christmas spirit

Our man inside the game hasn’t too many positive memories of the festive season

If you were a footballer, what are the questions you would always expect to answer? Who is the best player that you’ve ever played against? Yawn — Paul Scholes, if you’re interested. Who is the best player that you’ve ever played with? Yawn. Who is the biggest wanker you’ve played against? Ah, now we’re getting somewhere… Cesc Fabregas, Robbie Savage and John Terry are tied in the biggest wanker stakes, I’m afraid. I wish I could give you more. It’s that time of year, after all.

But there’s another question. A better question.

What is the worst thing about being a professional footballer?

Well, that’s thinking outside the box. That’s a half decent question and to find the answer we must dissect the evidence. Obviously. We only need to look at what has happened in football circles this year to get a snapshot of tho things that annoy and disgust us in equal measure.

For a start, there is nothing overly satisfying about being tied to a union that don’t seem to care about us. For another thing there is nothing reassuring about being bound to an association that answers to nobody, not even a parliamentary select committee, and who put to bed accusations pertaining to racism and sexism as quick as they are tabled. Where is the justice in working for an organisation that answers to no-one and only gives a shit about women in football if women kick up enough of a noise about their own plight in professional football? The FA has had a disastrous year.

I have also come to realise, as a retired player, that BT Sports and Sky only seem to employ former players if they have played for Liverpool or Manchester United and maybe the former FA Cup- winning captain of Chelsea, but only if he’s recently appeared on I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here.

But worse things happen in Switzerland. We know that at this time of giving, Fifa could care less about us players. As much as they could care about each other. Juan Ángel Napout, the former president of South American football’s governing body (Conmebol) and José Maria Marin, the former president of Brazil’s football federation, were both found guilty this week of racketeering and wire fraud conspiracies following a five-week trial in New York City.

But there is something even worse about being a footballer. Christmas. When I played football, I hated everything about it.

It starts with the Christmas party around mid-December. It’s awful. It’s like social media for people with tourettes. In other words, no good can ever come of it.

The first time I attended one of these Christmas parties, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Fortunately, I wasn’t quite the youngest player there, because that would have meant holding the whip which, as I recall, was £7,000 in cash from accumulated fines for things like leaving a water bottle on the training pitch (£50), leaving an item of kit on the training ground (£50), arriving late for training (£200) or, God forbid, arriving late for a game, which has been anything from £500 to £2,000 (doubled if not paid by the next match).

At those figures, £7,000 may not sound like a lot in fine money, but a five-figure sum would have been used to hire the venue, staff, and security, which equates to a lot of foreigners leaving their gloves on the training pitch (that’s a fact rather than a xenophobic attack). It is certainly a lot of money for an 18-year-old kid to look after and it’s a thankless task. It is essentially an evening lurching from one bollocking to another while being ruthlessly abused for either not being quick enough or messing up an order. When the whip runs out, it is best to feign a life-threatening illness. Today that kid doesn’t exist, which is a shame because it isn’t easy watching young players having everything handed to them on a plate.

These Christmas parties can be impressive though. Highlights have included a stranded Italian flight crew that ended up skinny-dipping with us in the hotel swimming pool while playing the game Marco Polo. There were more than a few fish out of water towards the end.

Then there are the horrendous fancy dress parties where a player picks a letter out of an envelope and dresses as anything beginning with that letter. The last person to spot “Where’s Wally” in the bar after he’d gone missing had to finish their drink. I enjoyed that one.

But Christmas parties will soon be a thing of the past because like so much else in football, we are struggling to control ourselves and the certain privileges we are afforded. Today, one player’s night out has the potential to be another player’s prison sentence.

There have been rape allegations, brawls and countless arrests and, of course, a cigar extinguished in a reserve team player’s eye.

Much less of a headache is the youth team’s Christmas play, a low-budget but highly entertaining production based on several of the first team’s chief protagonists, the manager, and his coaching staff. Everybody shifts in their seat in readiness for the ridiculing but by the end the whole room is in fits of laughter. Sounds shit doesn’t it, and it is, but that’s part of its charm as well as being pretty much all we have at this time of year.

Christmas Day itself hasn’t been what you might call “conventional” for a very long time and the solutions employed by players to compensate for the lack of time spent at home, or having a few drinks while the Queen rabbits on, can sometimes wear a bit thin. But it’s our Christmas and, while we may not necessarily like it this way, it’s what we’re used to.

The main downside at this time of year is that there are so many games to play. Much is made of having a winter break but the fixtures have to be played some time, and I don’t see how players would be any fresher come the end of the season for two weeks off around Christmas, when, invariably, some would seize it as a chance to go on the lash.

Preparation is all-important at this time, with fitness a key component of any team’s ambitions going into the Christmas run. For that reason some clubs keep the players in hotel rooms for as long as possible, even travelling from one away game straight to another and training on site. Not that this always works. I once stayed in Manchester with an office Christmas party in full swing in the hotel we were staying at. I don’t think I got any sleep that night, not least because a team-mate and his leggy accomplice evicted me from my room at about 2am.

We still manage to have our own variation of Christmas, including playing some board games from yesteryear. Thanks to the iPad there is Monopoly on the bus journey, the electronic version was a huge hit with the teams that I played with towards the end of my career — always buy the orange streets, by the way, if you want to win.

To get further into the spirit, one team that I played for even managed to decorate the team bus. We set off on Christmas morning to our hotel 300 miles away with tinsel and even a small Christmas tree on board. It was going well until the noise of the baubles knocking against the windows at every bump became too much for one of the more miserable players.

Nothing, of course, can make up for the time spent away from the family and in particular the kids.

So what is the worst thing about being a footballer? Waking up on Christmas morning in a hotel on the other side of the country is definitely the lowest moment of my career.

I watched my kids open their presents on my iPad via Skype and it was absolutely horrendous. Merry Christmas and please spare a thought for those of us less fortunate than yourselves at this time of year.