PERHAPS I've missed something, but try as I might, I can't pin down when we made a fundamental change to one of the principal pillars of the legal system.

The presumption of an individual's innocence until proved guilty.

Now innocence may be a rather odd term to use in the context of professional footballers, but it is relevant nonetheless.

In recent weeks, a day has rarely gone by without there being lurid accounts of excess among Premiership footballers. Then, to cap it all, the fiasco of Rio Ferdinand's missed drugs test. A bad time all round for the beautiful game.

Nothing is more annoying than someone's else's good example, Mark Twain once wrote. The other side of the coin is that there's nothing we love more than to think the worst of young men who are generally seen - admittedly with some justification - to have too much money and too little sense.

It is true that young men in that position may well go off the rails. It is equally true that whatever they get up to is likely to be magnified ten times over by those who know the public's insatiable demand for details of their private and professional lives.

Perhaps we should wait until the facts are fully investigated by the police and, where appropriate, by the FA. That would be a more rational and grown-up response rather than the fine old moral frenzy being whipped up at present.

One footballer whom everyone would agree is guilty as charged, however, is the Turkish international Alpay.

After indulging in what a gentler age referred to as "ungentlemanly conduct" after a missed penalty, he seems to have been instrumental in starting a full-scale half-time brawl as the players trooped off for their oranges and pep talk.

Following other match-time dust-ups between footballers, it was further proof, if nothing else, that the stands are now a much safer place than the pitch at football matches. Quite a change from the position a few years back.

Alpay has apparently been seeking extra protection - I certainly hope that he is paying for it and not the public. He doesn't deserve a helping hand, but who knows, maybe it could come from an unlikely quarter.

They're going through a sticky patch at the moment, so perhaps he could help rescue Darlington FC's fortunes. Given George Reynolds' other feats, and they are pretty amazing, keeping this fellow in line would not be too difficult.

I am sure too the big-hearted chairman would be only too glad to put the lad up while he settled in.

Published: 17/10/2003