Today, we were reminded – in all too gleeful fashion by the British media – that Jack Grealish, the young, stylish 19-year-old whom two months ago no one outside Birmingham had really heard of, had allegedly been caught yet again doing something young, stylish 19-year-olds should never do.
Jack Grealish Must Watch His Back
Grealish lit up Wembley in April in an FA Cup semi final. His swashbuckling performance in the heart of Aston Villa’s midfield earned him rave reviews. It was a game which saw his precocious talents unleashed to the wider, world wide television audience as his team steam-rollered a hapless Liverpool side, winning 2-1.
The home grown talent played a large part in both goals, and the insatiable media do what they do best – building up a footballer with raw potential, only to sharpen their knives ready for his inevitable fall from grace – succumbing to the perils of youth.
Grealish’s ‘crime’ was that he had apparently been pictured in Tenerife, flat on his back and seemingly blacked out from an intoxicating amount of alcohol. And this comes just weeks after he was also ‘exposed’ for inhaling nitrous oxide for ‘recreational purposes’.
The plight of Grealish is now, sadly, all too recognizable in both its exposure and its causes. Young, gifted footballers with the world at their feet (along with the empty Jack Daniels bottle) have long been troubled over just how close they get to the precipice of their own talents.
George Best was probably the first – and most famous – example of how a footballer turned into a celebrity – and with it the hedonistic choices that were to become the norm.
Ryan Giggs’ longevity on a football field was littered with the spectre of indiscretion – a pitfall so skilfully circumnavigated by the genius of his then manager, Sir Alex Ferguson.
Yet in Britain at least, our crop of raw youngsters are torn between the temptations that come their way and the very sacrifices that must be made to preserve the careers that have got them to this point in the first place. I, for one, feel that the media intrusion these young men must endure is ridiculous. Yes, of course they are role models, and to that end have an undeniable responsibility to themselves and their employers.
Raheem Sterling was treated like royalty little under a year ago – the nation’s great hope and someone to get excited about. Yet twelve months later and he is already becoming a media pantomime villain – and is now considered nothing more than a greedy outcast – hopelessly cut adrift by seemingly all and sundry over his (agents) hard ball demands to Liverpool Football Club.
Jack Wilshere’s path has been no less precarious. Hammered in the media in 2014 after being pictured smoking a pool party cigarette, I saw not one mention of this hideous crime following his two goals for England against Slovenia yesterday.
Back to Grealish – of whom I am a big fan. His obvious potential has not reached anything like the heights of Sterling or Wilshere just yet – indeed, he has played a mere 16 times for Aston Villa, therefore has potentially far less of a fall in store. But he needs to be guided by those closest to him, including his manager Tim Sherwood, who will have doubtless been troubled by the recent images – authentic or not.
This much observed teenager has yet to encounter the reaction to his international career and the direction it may take, and this has to be worrisome. As things stand, he now has the choice of playing football at the highest level for either the Republic of Ireland or England. And how banal it is that we are discussing this level of competition for a man who has not even proven his durability yet – certainly in the FA Cup final last month both he and his Villa colleagues were woefully exposed by the slick talents of Arsenal who taught them a football lesson.
We already know how this will play out – choose Ireland, and the ‘English’ public will turn on him like a pack of wolves – stirring up a cauldron of hatred around various football grounds in the country and of course the inevitable social media backlash.
How will this fresh faced youth deal with that kind of intensity should it ever occur? He has wisely side stepped the issue so far, but there will come a time where he could be subjected to the kind of vitriol that lesser folk would stave off by going off the rails for some respite. It is sadly all too familiar that despite so much going on in the world, some organizations feel it newsworthy to publish a picture of a gifted youngster in a pose that you will find being acted out for real in any town or city in the country on a Saturday night.
There are far, far more pressing matters around the globe that really do deserve our attention. What next? Isolating the next young starlet after pictures emerge of him not washing his hands after using the lavatory? Or leaving his shoes on the floor instead of putting them away? Our young need guidance and advice – especially those in the gold fish bowl of modern day sport – but please let’s stop hammering them for failing to live up to the absurd expectations placed on them when they don’t turn out to be Super Heroes and – rather more disappointingly – actually demonstrate they are just human instead.
