Men holding hands, while no longer entirely taboo, is clearly still very funny. Images of Liverpool players hand-in-hand during a team bonding exercise this week drew a predictably jeering response from the Sun, which decorated some damning shots of male glove-on-glove action with sniggering references to ”Kopping off” and ”a training camp”.
They might just be a little out of step. A more sensitive, tactile approach to man management is very much the vogue in British football.
Earlier this week, Newcastle manager Big Sam Allardyce lined his players up and asked them point blank whether they liked him or not, in an attempt to get to the root of a poor run of form. Allardyce was met with ”a wall of silence”, which probably told him all he needed to know.
Arsenal players have been taking turns hugging each other on the pitch before kick-off for at least a season and a half. It’s not just effete Londoners either. Before Scotland’s crucial Euro 2008 qualifier against Italy, manager Alex McLeish talked up his team’s new pre-match secret weapon.
”They all psych themselves up and get a little bit loud in the dressing room about being together and trusting each other,” he said, conjuring up nonchalantly the image of 11 Scottish footballers in a small room shouting, ”Ah bloody love ye, pal!” in each other’s ears.
So are we on the verge of a footballer-led revival of the Victorian custom of the male embrace, a symbol of affection, high spirits and good fellowship? It seems more likely that one of football management’s many official diplomas and courses has included a module setting out the morale-boosting effects of a little physical contact between players.
There will always be resistance to this kind of thing, and not just from tabloid newspaper editors. The present Duke of Westminster, a triallist with Fulham in his youth, was forbidden by his father to pursue a career in football: attending a match, the elder duke had been appalled by the sight of ”men kissing each other”. – Â