MUCK AND BULLETS

Last updated : 14 October 2002 By editor

‘BRATISLAVA IS THE ONE and only city where I have been woken by the sound of gunshots [cue Moss Side Merseyside jokes]. Like the rest of my England team-mates, I was trying to get a good night’s sleep ahead of our match against Slovakia when a few almighty bangs got me jumping out of bed. I was one of the players whose room directly overlooked the square and I saw all sorts of fighting and commotion before I decided the most prudent policy was to close the windows and try to get back to sleep.

When two fans are shot, although they were, fortunately, not seriously injured, it is bound to make the headlines. Of course we cannot ignore the trouble on the terraces and I, like the rest of the England team, was disgusted at the racist chants aimed at Emile Heskey and Ashley Cole.

But it also annoys me that another England game — an important victory as well — seems to have been obscured by more negatives. Sometimes I think the only way football gets on to the back pages is when we have lost. When we win, attention switches to controversies away from the pitch.

The manager does a very good job of making sure the dressing room is insulated from outside influences but it does get wearisome when there is some sort of scandal, injury crisis or outbreak of hooliganism overshadowing every international week. No one is pretending that this was a trouble-free trip and the racism we so often encounter in these eastern European countries is appalling. I remember sitting injured behind the goal when we went to Poland under Kevin Keegan and being amazed at how bad it was. I had not really taken it in while I had been concentrating on the game.

We cannot be complacent but going to some of these countries makes you realise how far we have come in England in the past ten years. It has been a long time since I have heard racism at a Premiership ground and it is up to the governing bodies in other countries and Uefa to take similar measures.

Slovakia might not be one of Europe’s most feared sides but they played to their full capabilities on Saturday and it took a lot of guts and no little ability to come from behind on that mess of a pitch. We can afford to joke about it now but you have to wonder if Uefa can allow important games to go ahead on that kind of surface. None of us had ever played a professional match on anything like it. Someone said it was like a Sunday League surface, although at least we didn’t have to change in the toilets.’