Marlon King - He’s a thug, not a god

CAN we please come to our senses about footballers? An ability to kick a ball about, however brilliantly, does not override common sense or common decency or normal standards of behaviour.

Footballer Marlon King smashed his fist into the face of a 20-year-old student who refused his advances – ie he groped her bum – in a nightclub. That he was out “celebrating” news of his wife’s third pregnancy might be neither here nor there. He has been jailed for 18 months and promptly sacked by Wigan football club. Talk about stable door...

Wigan were, of course, absolutely right to sack him and are to be commended. But not too highly – for why on earth did they take him on in the first place?

In the previous nine years King had been fined for two cases of theft, two of fraud, for drink driving, threatening behaviour and two cases of assault on a woman – which included punching one woman and bashing another with a belt wrapped round his fist – and done nine months in jail for accepting stolen goods.

Wigan knew all this – and still paid £3m for him, football being so much more important than anything else.

Out in the real world with a record like that, he’d have been lucky to have got a job on the minimum wage.

Meanwhile, he was getting £35,000 a week. No wonder he thought he was God and entitled to anything and anyone he wanted. It’s hard not to when you are showered with money and praise, even when it’s not even your turn for the brain cell.

The chances are when King comes out of jail he will go straight back to another football club willing to pay him silly money. We’ve seen it before.

If football clubs are going to throw money at their stars, they also owe them a duty of care and should instil and expect decent standards of behaviour. They also have a responsibility to the fans who ultimately pay the ridiculous wages.

Footballers – like all daft young men – will occasionally do stupid, even criminal acts and yes, should always be given support, encouragement and a second chance. But Marlon King had a second, third, fourth and however many more chances and still behaved like a thug.

Interestingly, before he went to Wigan, he was apparently going to play for Fulham, but the club’s owner, Mohamed al Fayed, refused to have him, because of his criminal record. The owner of Harrods had some moral standards at least. But it doesn’t say much for the rest of football, does it?

RESEARCHING in the Echo archives for 1915 I found an interesting little paragraph about MP John Starkey. Obviously a man of principle, he had given the Chancellor £400 in war bonds – the equivalent of his parliamentary salary during the duration of the war, which he wanted to pay back.

He returned the money, he said, because he felt uncomfortable accepting such a salary in such conditions for the country. Can you ever imagine any of our current MPs doing something so wonderfully honourable?

MORE people are listening to Radio 4 – home of The Archers, lots of news programmes, documentaries and odd little gems of programmes. What’s more, the listeners are getting younger.

Not surprising really. When television so often shrieks at you and treats you as though you had the mental age of an 11-year-old, the capacity of a cabbage and the attention span of a gnat, Radio 4 is a relaxed, witty and intelligent companion.

Often it’s full of the most delightful surprises.

Mostly it is just excellent company for driving or pottering around the house. It is also, unlike TV, at its most intelligent and interesting in the daytime.

Anyway, I could quite easily live without television but never without Radio 4. In fact, I have already given my sons instructions for my dotage – single room, own bathroom, view of a garden and constant Radio 4 – if only for The Archers, the news and the shipping forecast which is, in my view, pure poetry.

WE’VE heard regularly on this page over the years from Christine Beadle of South Otterington near Northallerton, a splendidly sensible and down to earth mother of 14 children, now aged from nine to 34.

Sadly, we hear that Christine now has breast cancer but – typically – although she admits to being “absolutely devastated”, she is full of praise for everyone at the Friarage Hospital in Northallerton and for all the support from her family.

On November 20, they have organised a Bald is Beautiful night at Bedale High School – music, buffet, raffle etc, in aid of the Scott Suite at the Friarage.

And in a great act of solidarity with her mum, 14-year-old Hannah is shaving off all her hair too. “Most mums would be shocked but not me, I think Hannah is so very brave.”

In which case, she clearly takes after her mum.

We hope all goes well with Christine and wish her and all the family the very best – and hope the Bald is Beautiful night is a great success.

Is she mad marrying a teenager?

WHEN older women date much younger men, I am, I admit, jealous. Not of the relationship itself, not at all – but of their energy... Wow. The thought of trying to keep up with someone 20 years younger is exciting but exhausting. So on balance no thank you. But to every 50-year-old woman in a relationship with a 30- something man, I say congratulations.

SET TO WED: Artist Sam Taylor Wood with her boyfriend, 19-yearold actor Aaron Johnson.

On the other hand I am completely baffled by Sam Taylor Wood, 42, who is said to be marrying – yes, marrying – teenage Aaron Johnson, the star of her film Nowhere Boy about the young John Lennon.

Marrying a 19-year-old? Is she mad? At that age he’s probably still into nothing more sophisticated than pizza, as much lager as he can drink and competitions with his mates over excessive bodily functions. His trainers will stink and there will be so much he doesn’t know. Whatever the many compensations of a young mind in a young body and a delightful personality, they are still likely to be outweighed by everything else.

And also it’s not fair on him. At 19 he is still so young, too young to be tied into marriage, which is meant to be a lifetime commitment. Affair, yes. Marriage, no.

Anyway, with that age difference, it would probably count as child cruelty.

Coleen looks like a real woman

CONGRATULATIONS to Wayne and Coleen Rooney on the birth of baby Kai. Not only on the birth but on the decision to turn down £1m for pictures of the baby because, says Coleen, they want him to have a normal childhood.

True, they can easily afford to turn down a million.

IN THE PUBLIC EYE: The Rooneys leaving the hospital with their son, Kai.

But so could many others who would have snatched it with both hands. A great start for Kai.

Meanwhile, Coleen could do worse than listen to Location, Location, Location presenter Kirstie Allsopp, mother to a three-year-old and a baby.

“I resent women in the public eye who look glamorous, do glamorous jobs and try to pretend they have it all when they don’t. There is now a huge expectation that you’ll have a natural birth, get your figure back immediately and continue a successful career. It’s rubbish.”

Well said – and she has a full-time housekeeper and nanny too.

Forget the glamorous mother and baby portraits – a few cheering pics of Coleen looking rounded, scruffy and shattered would do wonders to boost the nation’s morale.