AN ancient bye law decrees that if an Englishman encounters a Welshman within Chester's city walls after 11 o'clock, he is legally entitled to shoot him with a crossbow.

Times have moved on since that judgment was passed. But just 30 miles up the M6 in Manchester it seems Anglo-Welsh conflicts are still as primeval.

It's difficult to know what was the most surprising thing about David Beckham's revelations yesterday.

Was it that he deliberately set out to foul Ben Thatcher knowing that he would miss tomorrow's game in Azerbaijan anyway? Or was it that he possessed the wherewithal to come up with such a half-baked plan in the first place?

The days of the footballer as a role model are long gone. A succession of sordid sex scandals have tainted the beautiful game to the point where nobody in his right mind would hold it up as a bastion of society.

But, rightly or wrongly, youngsters up and down the land continue to look to their footballing heroes for guidance.

What happens off the field might not always be palatable. But at least on the pitch you can still look to the current generation for inspiration.

And if you can't look to the England captain for a good example then who can you look to?

A lot of people will be asking that question this morning after Beckham confirmed what most people suspected anyway - he didn't see red when he clattered into Thatcher on Saturday, but he knew pretty damn well that he would see yellow.

Deliberate fouling is nothing new. Pele was kicked out of the 1966 World Cup by Bulgarian and Portuguese defenders, while Roy Keane recently admitted to a premeditated attack on Manchester City midfielder Alf-Inge Haaland.

Beckham's misdemeanour was not in the same league as Keane's, but at best it was ill-conceived and at worst downright dangerous.

The England skipper was already nursing a broken rib when he lunged at the Welsh left-back - he cannot have been certain that he was not going to cause either himself or his opponent further damage.

After standing by him through his indifferent form last season, it will certainly be interesting to see how his employers, Real Madrid, react to yesterday's confession.

The foul was also dangerous in terms of the state of the game. Harsher referees would have sent Beckham off, leaving England with a numerical disadvantage against a newly-resurgent Wales and potentially robbing Sven Goran Eriksson of his captain's services for up to three games.

But, most importantly of all, Beckham's questionable choice of tactics sends out all the wrong messages.

Its Machiavellian tone says 'The rules are there to be broken if the end justifies the means'.

It might sound trite, but they shouldn't be. Football has moved on from the days when anything above stocking height was fair game and the best players could always be brought down to the level of the worst.

Beckham will no doubt enjoy his afternoon of relaxation as England take on Azerbaijan tomorrow.

He would have been on the sidelines anyway but, as Michael Owen takes over the captain's armband, perhaps he should reflect on what leadership should really mean.