A debate has begun on the number of injuries suffered in the modern Premiership against those incurred in the 70s. One argument is that nothing has changed, the other that the speed of the modern game has greatly increased the number of injuries.
I do not have the statistics to hand but logic suggests that there should be less injuries now than in the seventies. To begin, free rein is no longer given to the likes of Chopper Harris, Norman Hunter, Joe Jordan, Tommy Smith and all the other hit them first and hit them hard merchants who made a career out of intimidation. I once watched Harris take Johnny Ayris out with a boot to his chin within two minutes of kick off. The message was clear to our young winger, "Try to take the ball past me and you are a dead man". Ayris avoided the ball like the plague for the rest of the game! Some tackles back then used to make the stadium tremble, never mind the leg of the victim. We see reruns of Neill's challenge on Cattermole in the Wigan game but that was a meat and drink tackle as far as the hard men of the 70s were concerned.
Then there were the pitches. Today they play on crown bowling greens, but back then the pitches by February resembled the Somme. Now the pitch is blamed if a player's foot gives way under him and an injury is incurred, back then boots literally disappeared beneath the mud at places like the Baseball Ground. Surely the joints were at greater risk on rutted and muddy pitches than they are now?
And fitness regimes have also supposedly improved. We are now talking Sports Science not running up and down the pitch carrying a medicine ball in between fags. If these fitness gurus are worth their salt, surely they should be able to tune the players to the right level to maximise performance whilst minimising stress on the body?
So why then are modern players struck down so often with injury? Why is the 100% present man such a rarity these days? Why has logic been stood on its head?
Some point to the pace of the game but I don't buy that. So what that the game is quicker, if the training is right, the muscles and joints should cope. I don't see top tennis pros going down with so many injuries (Andy Murray apart!) and they put their bodies under much greater physical stress than footballers, with many more muscles called upon in short stressful bursts over a longer period of play. An epic tennis game can last two hours, and the very next day the player can be out on court again. If Nadal can do it, and do it all season, why can't a footballer?
Either the training isn't right, or the players are molly coddled. Brian Clough famously told Eddie Gray that if he was a racehorse he would have been shot because of his injuries. As far as Cloughie was concerned Gray was a malingerer, somebody who played up the niggles and turned a twinge into a reason not to play. Using the yardstick of Gray, Beano should be in a tin of Pedigree Chum by now and Dyer should have been wiped from the bottom of a shoe years back!
I suspect that agents, supported by the medical boffins, now over protect the players. What now constitute injuries would have been seen as niggles back then. The "pain killing" injection would have been given in the 70s and the player would be out on the pitch, earning his salary, rather than lying flat on his back in the treatment room. When he arrived at Tottenham, George Graham stripped out the home comforts from the treatment room and told Lazarus Anderton and his injured acolytes to roll up their sick beds and walk. Overnight, the number of Sick Notes reduced dramatically. Is it a coincidence that the arrival of a new manager saw our injury list reduce as players battled to impress the new guy; has familiarity brought security and resulted in players feeling the twinge that four months ago they put to the backs of their mind?
Zola thought our squad was too big but perhaps that's because Zola was thinking like a player who would do anything to get out on the pitch and play. Sadly, some now seem to have a very different agenda. But I must stop writing now, the flesh on the end of my index finger is feeling terribly tender!
