Laura Woods and Darren Bent defend Everton keeper Jordan Pickford after Tyneside ‘pub brawl’
Laura Woods and Darren Bent have launched a passionate defence of Everton keeper Jordan Pickford after he was taunted in a pub and a brawl erupted.
It was widely reported that the England number one had quickly left a South Tyneside pub on Sunday night to avoid a which fight broke out following mocking abuse of the 27-year-old for supposedly having short arms.
And talkSPORT hosts Woods and Bent have defended the Toffees star by suggesting players cannot win whether they act flash or normal, and praised Pickford’s restraint for not getting involved in any confrontations.
Speaking on talkSPORT on Tuesday morning (February 15), via an article published on their website, Woods referred to an issue sparked by her station colleague Alan Brazil when she said: “We’ve just had everyone piling in on Dele Alli for turning up to training in a Rolls Royce.
“When we want footballers to be humans, and they are humans, they go into normal pubs and act like normal people – they get taunted by fans and fights erupt. What do we want them to do?
“Do we want them to be normal or do we want them to be able to separate themselves and drive their nice cars and go to nice places?
“I get frustrated with this, especially with Pickford, because I feel like he’s someone who needs that normal environment more than others, but when he gets it, he gets abused.”
She then went on to recall her experience of being groped by England supporters in fan parks during EURO 2020 celebrations and said: “It took a lot of restraint not to react aggressively, because the minute I do something wrong, it’s me that will get in trouble.”
Ex-England striker Bent then backed up the point with a story of how he was goaded into getting out of his car to confront a fan at Fulham: “And the second I [got out of the car], one of his friends got his camera phone out, waiting for something to happen.
“I got back in the car and drove off.”
Not fair game
Players ultimately can’t win because they are in the spotlight in front of millions of people, and unfortunately there is always a proportion who don’t understand a reasonable way to react to them.
Pickford was mocked by a Newcastle fan who dressed up as a dinosaur in the crowd at St James Park for the midweek game.
And Magpies fans specifically deride the Goodison keeper because of his history at Sunderland.
That can essentially be accepted as part of a footballing rivalry, and he would likely have expected nothing less from a visit to the ground as the away side.
But, as with so many situations, people seem to forget that players are people with lives outside of football as well where the ‘banter’ will not come across as reasonable.
On top of that, actually abusing people who haven’t done anything wrong cannot be excused anyway.
It is a societal problem that so many feel empowered to take advantage of others in this way, and the focus on players and those in the media draws more of that their way.
As Woods and Bent suggested, when subjected to situations like this there is very little they can do because to show the same sort of behaviour in turn will get them in trouble.
If people cannot stop themselves crossing the line it is little wonder if sportspeople seek to avoid public interaction all together.
In other Everton news, Rio Ferdinand shares what he’s heard about Donny van de Beek at Goodison, what it says about Manchester United.