It’s good for sportsmen to follow the road less travelled

THOSE pictures of the Rafael Benitez press conference in the buffet car of a train whizzing through the bocage (no doubt at 175kph) somewhere in France were a welcome throwback to days when sporting heroes couldn’t be cocooned from the rest of us in their personal transport systems.

Granted it was a Gallic buffet car. Pain au chocolat instead of bacon and tomato bap. Coq au vin rather than microwave curry. And no cancellation of the trolley service because the replacement crew didn’t turn up at Limoges Junction. No weekend engineering works to double the timescale of the journey. No ticketing system so complicated that you need a Master’s degree in quantum mechanics to decide the precise degree to which you are prepared to be ripped off.

For once, the players had to go through something of the travails of supporters who follow them around Europe. Admittedly they didn’t face the usual reception committee of pumped up paramilitary police with their designer riot gear, Kevlar body armour, pepper spray, Tasers, Heckler and Koch MP-5s (water cannon an optional extra).