In praise of ethics in sport

The football season seems to start earlier each year. I'm sure, when I was a boy, that games didn't start in early August, as they have for all of England’s professional and semi-professional leagues bar the Premier League. My memory might be playing tricks on me but one thing is certain: this weekend sees the beginning of another season of Premier League football.

Hot on the heels of an excellent, thoroughly enjoyable England v Scotland game on Wednesday, I'm hoping that this season's Premier League fixtures will be played in a similar spirit. On Wednesday night, the ancient football foes contested a hard-fought game with skill and passion in equal measure. There were one or two feisty moments, as is only to be expected in competitive fixtures, but what especially struck me about the game was the absence of any malice or cheating. I don't recall seeing any players diving to the turf as if felled by an axe; nor do I remember clusters of aggrieved individuals surrounding the referee and trying to intimidate him into giving a decision their way.

England v Scotland was a tough, dynamic game; it was football as it should be. On Sunday, I'll be watching my club, Chelsea, when they host newly promoted Hull City. Or rather, as they are now known, Hull City Tigers. Quite why the new name was required is beyond me; likewise, I don't understand why one of the other promoted teams, Cardiff City, elected to stop playing in their traditional all-blue strip and play in red.

Doubtless there is some marketing rationale for both changes. And lately, reading Rob Steen's excellent 1995 book The Mavericks: English Football When Flair Wore Flairs, I'm reminded of the era of greats like Peter Osgood, Alan Hudson, Charlie George, Stan Bowles and Rodney Marsh. The book brilliantly evokes their time as players, and is all the more intriguing with its accounts of how flair players dealt with the likes of Ron 'Chopper' Harris and Norman 'Bites Yer Legs' Hunter. Often enough, they gave as good as they got.

Football today is faster and more tactically complex than it was when the mavericks graced the pitches with their fancy footwork. But while the game has evolved, it has, in a sense, lost something. Rob Steen's book is a portrait of a more honest game than we see today. Players would try to gain an advantage by bending the rules, but somehow what they did strikes me as more ethical than the players of the modern game who feign injury and harangue officials. This sort of behaviour is doubtless a consequence of the vastly greater sums of money at stake in football now but there is no excuse for it. It demeans the game and those who play it.

Needless to say, I'll be hoping for a Chelsea win on Sunday. I also wish Hull City Tigers well in their new Premier League incarnation. But as much as I hope for Chelsea success, I hope that maybe, just maybe, this season we will have the privilege of watching games like England v Scotland: hard-fought, competitive and with no quarter given, but with a fundamental honesty. Ethics, in sport, are just as important as they are in other walks of life.

Postcard from Berlin

Towards the end of last week I found myself rushing to catch a plane to Berlin. I duly checked in to The Westin Grand Hotel on Thursday evening, the reason for my visit being the 15th anniversary annual conference of PEOPIL.

PEOPIL is the Pan-European Organisation of Personal Injury Lawyers. The conference began at the Westin Grand on Thursday morning, which meant that I missed its first day, but there remained two days in which a number of topics dear to those who work in the PI sector were covered. They ranged from talks about the recovery of punitive damages in European courts and the use of medical experts to an excellent presentation on establishing jurisdiction by Philip Mead of Old Square Chambers.

However, rather than remark on the technical matters discussed at the conference, I hope regular readers will allow me to make a few general observations.

First, the power of Twitter was harnessed to great effect at the conference by no less a figure than Gerard McDermott QC. In between tweets wishing the Cambridges luck in their privacy action and commending the Times’ coverage of the UBS trial McDermott QC – a leading barrister at Nine St John Street and Outer  chambers – urged more PI barristers to attend conferences like PEOPIL (he observed that only himself and Philip Mead had made the trip) and noted a number of interesting points, for example concerning “conflicts between Hague Convention and Rome II regulation and opportunity for forum shopping”.

As well as updating followers on what was happening at PEOPIL, McDermott, who specialises in medical malpractice, product defects as well as catastrophic road traffic accident litigation, added a few snapshots of Berlin. We saw the Brandenburg Gate and also learnt that “The Westin Grand in Germany is a truly Grand hotel. Built by East Germans before unification. I think to show what they could achieve.”

Twitter-speak doesn’t allow for fulsome descriptions, but I can endorse what Gerard McDermott said about the Westin Grand. It’s a truly remarkable place, located in Berlin’s historic centre. It oozes atmosphere and has possibly the most efficient and friendly staff I’ve ever met. The Brandenburg Gate is nearby, so too many other historic locations – the Reichstag building, the Potsdamer Platz, the Gendarmenmarkt and Museum Island. Berlin’s transformation following reunification in 1990 means that the area is also full of elegant boutiques and designer shops.

I visited another nearby famous place – Checkpoint Charlie, the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War. While once a symbol of repression, Checkpoint Charlie is now a major tourist attraction, surrounded by souvenir stands selling all manner of tat (especially fake military items). I have to say that I wasn’t hugely impressed by this aspect – it reminded me a little of the anti-climax of visiting Land’s End – but it is nevertheless impossible not to be moved by even a fleeting visit to Berlin, replete as it is with so many landmarks of European history.

Towards the end of Saturday my visit came to an end. At Tegel Airport I experienced something unusual – German inefficiency. I managed to board my plane, which departed at 5pm, but I had cause to wish that the staff of the Westin Grand were working at the airport. The atmosphere verged on mayhem and I seriously doubted I’d get through security and make my flight, but back in Britain I was hardly consoled  by Chelsea’s 0-0 draw at QPR. By all accounts it was an even game, with my team playing effectively to secure a point. Here’s hoping that effectiveness makes for three points in the next game – and here’s to widening Gerard McDermott’s plea: it’s not just more barristers who should attend conferences like PEOPIL, it’s solicitors and everyone who cares about the future of PI law.

A serious case of nerves ahead of Chelsea’s biggest game of the season so far

I confess to trepidation as I write this blog. However, please forgive me for a further confession: my nerves aren’t to do with the law.

Instead, they’re tied up in the fate of Chelsea FC, the club I’ve supported since I was a boy. I wrote a few weeks ago about Fernando Torres and his loss of confidence, a strange condition because while he continued to play well in other areas of the pitch when it came to a chance in front of goal he seemed to be suffering some kind of curse. Today I’m writing about a bigger subject than even the enigmatic Torres: the remainder of Chelsea’s season.

To lapse into football cliché, it’s all to play for. The sacking of Andre Villas-Boas in early March may have seemed harsh but it has resulted in a significant upswing in Chelsea’s fortunes. Roberto Di Matteo – who played for Chelsea 119 times between 1996 and 2002, netting 15 goals – has come in and done an excellent job, taking what the press had taken to describing as a misfiring team of ageing pros to an FA Cup final against Liverpool and a Champions League semi-final against Barcelona. Currently lying sixth in the Premier League, Chelsea also have a chance of a top four finish by the end of the domestic season.

But tonight’s semi-final second leg against Barcelona is what’s got me on edge. Chelsea go into the game in the ascendancy, after last week’s 1-0 home win. It would be amazing if we could return from the daunting Nou Camp with an overall victory against a team which contains the likes of Messi, Iniesta and Xavi, but aside from the mountain of a task ahead I can’t help but be worried by two things.

One, Di Matteo says that Chelsea will go into the game with the intention of scoring. This sounds admirable, but I hope the team doesn’t abandon its solid defensive principles in the process. I would have thought that a counter-attacking game was the best option at the Nou Camp.

Two, Torres has raised his head above the parapet and boldly stated that Chelsea can win. Granted, he cites Chelsea’s battling qualities as essential in this mission, but is the public confidence of a player who has generally been so cursed with hesitancy this season a good thing? Or is it tempting fate?

Time will tell. Happily, shortly after my last piece on footballing matters Torres ended his goal drought by scoring two goals in the 5-2 FA Cup quarter-final win over Leicester City. In truth, he wasn’t hugely impressive on Saturday’s in the 0-0 draw with Arsenal. Perhaps, then, the very act of writing will have an influence on tonight’s game?

I doubt it. Football fans the world over are prone to superstition, but cometh the hour, cometh solely Di Matteo, his team, the Nou Camp and the not inconsiderable task of prevailing over the best side in world football by far. I’ll be watching – nervously.