talking sport 620

Ronaldo revives art of non-heading

Manchester United's Portuguese star needs a stunt double for dangerous activities like heading the ball
Cristian Ronaldo handles the ball
Cristiano Ronaldo handles the ball before being shown a second yellow card during the Manchester derby. Photograph: John Peters/Man Utd via Getty Images

As mankind hurtles onward through the tunnel of time there are just two things you can be certain of: that our society is spiralling ever downwards towards chaos and darkness, and footballs are getting lighter. It therefore goes without saying that back in my own playing days not only were people better mannered but the ball was a real beast of a thing, a globular Grendel fashioned from bloody hides stitched together with gristle and pumped full of pain and rage.

Back then, getting under a goalkeeper's punt was like having an Orc dropped on your head. As it struck your skull the dull, concussive thud was accompanied by a sound like bursting lightbulbs that was either the noise of brain cells exploding or vertebrae compressing, or probably both. If you headed the ball like that more than twice in a game you'd leave the field cross-eyed, blood trickling out of your ears, your chin jammed down into the divot of your clavicle and nameless slime bubbling forth from your navel.

Or that at least was what I imagined. So I avoided heading the ball at all costs. This was not as simple as it sounds. Because when you are, as I am, six feet five the hopeful high boot up the field seems magnetically drawn towards you, and no matter how fast and far you run, or how loud you scream at it to let you alone for God's sake, you just can't shake the damn thing off.

To protect myself from harm I therefore perfected the art of jumping just to the right or left of the descending ball, so that while it looked to my team-mates as if I was manfully challenging to flick on the dreadful orb, I was actually in no physical danger whatsoever.

Over the years I honed this technique through constant practice. If a comet had struck the earth when I was 18 you can bet I'd have been standing two feet to one side of it, scowling with mock frustration. For a long while I regarded myself as the finest almost-header of the ball on the planet. Then Middlesbrough signed Mikkel Beck. The Dane took header-avoidance to a whole new level. I could have watched him not heading the ball for hours. And quite often I did.

The upshot of all this is that I had more sympathy than most on Sunday for Cristiano Ronaldo when he picked up a second yellow card for a frankly rather unsubtle bit of header evasion at the City of Manchester Stadium. Sir Alex Ferguson defended the flagrant Portuguese by saying: "He was trying to protect himself from the ball hitting him in the face."

Quite right. Though if Cristiano wants my advice, next time he'd be better advised to fake a slip just before he jumps and then slap his thighs in annoyance as the corner whizzes over his bonce. After all, there's no point in the winger protecting his award-winning teeth from a good smack if doing so means putting his delicate and beautifully manicured fingers at risk.

Manchester City's manager Mark Hughes was altogether less sensitive to Ronaldo's behaviour. This was not really surprising. Hughes was a centre- forward of the old school - all bustle and elbows and muscle in his spit. During his own days at Old Trafford you suspect that if Ryan Giggs had crossed the Tay Bridge, Sparky would have met it firmly and powerfully with his mighty forehead.

Hughes is a craggy broodingly handsome fellow who stalks the touchline with dark intensity. In fact he is quite a lot like another Hughes, Ted. The resemblance is more than just physical too. For it is clear the Welshman and the Yorkshireman share similarly robust and unsentimental views on the cruelty of nature. It will be recalled that the late poet laureate wrote one of the greatest of all football verses: "Killer from the egg, the malevolent fanged grin/ But he could play a bit as well, Terry Yorath".

You could hear echoes of his work from City's manager at the weekend as he reacted to Sir Alex's explanation of Ronaldo's actions: "If the ball was going to/ Hit him/ In the face why didn't he/ Just head it?" Sparky intoned flintily. His words made sense, of course, but it was the sense of a past era. Today a footballer's looks and glamour are a large part of what makes him marketable. Yes, things used to be different. You could have hit Nat Lofthouse in the kisser with a wrecking ball without damaging his box-office appeal in the slightest. But the Lion of Vienna didn't advertise Italian underpants.

These days, as the pundits constantly assure us, the top players are "like film stars". True enough, and no Hollywood mogul would expect George Clooney or Brad Pitt to do his own stunts. In my view it is high time somebody at Old Trafford started to think along similar lines. The sooner Cristiano Ronaldo gets a body double who can step in for the dangerous bits, the sooner we'll see an end to incidents like the one on Sunday. It's either that or they bring me in to teach him how really not to head the ball.

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