Men behaving badly

IF FOOTBALL is, as we are often told, a metaphor for life then God help us when it comes to the players’ Christmas parties.

Not a festive season goes by, it seems, without at least one club's celebrations coming to the attention of the media, not to mention the local constabulary.

This year has seen a bumper crop of off-the-field shenanigans that have made the plot lines of soccer soap operas Dream Team and Footballers' Wives look understated and have sent their scriptwriters back to the filing cabinet in search of those episodes marked 'Rejected: too ludicrous to contemplate'.