Not All of Bath's Sportsmen Can Afford Cocaine

Exposing Bath's drug shame - Times Online

While Bath City's new campaign has started off with a delightful six points out of a possible nine, the bigger sports club in town is facing up to a real catastrophe. Bath Rugby is in the midst of a drug taking scandal of the likes of which have never been seen before in British rugby. And the really scandalous thing about this scandal is that it is happening to a rugby club. Footballers are the ones the media expects to struggle with the pitfalls of modern life. In England, despite being more popular, football is looked down on as the sport of the masses (the working class). The elite play sports that depend on good character. This explains why it was so extraordinary when Tony Blair pledged his love for Newcastle United. The fact that it appeared to be a very shallow love was not important. No prime minister within living memory had admitted to being a football fan before.

Rugby and cricket claim to have much loftier standards. Both sports are still imbibed with a Victorian morality that has lived long after the Victorians have fled the scene. You do not just play cricket or rugby. You are, supposedly, transformed by it into a better person. Likewise, players of these sports are expected to be a cut above the poor unfortunates who are cursed to play less noble sports. It seems like a nice tradition when first encountered, but in both sports these antiquated notions descend into hypocrisy and naivety very quickly. English cricket, for example, opened Lords, the spiritual home of global cricket, to the now disgraced financier Alan Stanford. He landed a helicopter on the pitch and wheeled out a perspex case containing $1 million in banknotes. The ennobled guardians of cricket said 'thank you very much,' shook his hand, and didn't realise that something was amiss. Needless to say, they were understandably shocked when he was later arrested by the FBI.

The Bath Rugby scandal is also shaping up to be a masterpiece of voluntary myopia. In the early months of this year, star player Matt Stevens was banned for two years after testing positive for cocaine in a mandatory drug test. Although Stevens' drug use had gone undetected by the coach Steve Meehan. At the time Meehan 'wondered whether other Bath players might have been using the drug but was reassured by high-level performance on the training ground and in matches.' Well, then, that makes it okay. Right?

It turns out it was not. Ten weeks later Meehan was tipped off by another player that (shock!) Stevens had not been the only cocaine user on the squad. So far four more have been suspended by the club (although technically their suspensions are only for refusing to take tests, not positive results). This mess appears to be headed for the courts because Bath Rugby may not have handled the testing procedure properly. Doubtlessly, everyone involve in this will end up looking even worse in the end.

As an American observer of all of this several points stand out. First of all, if rampant cocaine use was occurring inside a football club I doubt there would be nearly as much media attention. The unacknowledged spice to this story is that it is happening in rugby. This is very odd. True, rugby was played only by amateurs until as late as 1995. Previous to this it was played, in theory, for the love of the game. Without the supposed corruption of money, rugby could pretend to be a sport with a higher calling played by morally superior sportsmen. Fifteen years later, though, it seems absurd to think that professional sportsmen in one sport would behave differently from any other sport, or from the population as a whole.

The other question is why is this not happening in football? Here the answer is much more interesting. There is no way of actually proving that there is no cocaine in the higher levels of professional football, but I think it is unlikely to be common. The reason, ironically, is money. Football does not try to hide the fact that money is its engine. The players play for money. The clubs succeed because of money. It can seem distasteful, but there is a strangely appealing honesty to football's culture. Football players are assets. Cristiano Ronaldo was just sold by Manchester United to Real Madrid for £80 million. I think the likelihood that Ronaldo could have been taking cocaine without Alex Ferguson knowing about it is unlikely in the extreme. I doubt he could even eat junk food without someone being tipped off. He is too valuable to just guess about it. And, despite childish antics at the touchline from the managers, football clubs are much more slickly run than their counterparts in other sports. If a Premiership footballer is ever caught with a 'class A' drug it is inconceivable that a thorough investigation would not be launched across the entire organisation. Drawing a conclusion after looking at the team's performance in a few matches would not cut it.

So, what about the other sports team in Bath, Bath City FC? Six divisions down from Manchster United there isn't the money to spend analysing every chemical in a player's body they way Premiership clubs do. Cocaine is not likely to be part of City's locker room culture, though. This is not because City breed a higher class of sportsman. It is just unlikely they could afford it on part-time football wages. City players also appear to be perfectly normal people (perhaps even more normal than their supporters). Whatever they are doing in the privacy of their homes it is probably the same as what everyone else in town is doing in the privacy of their homes. We should not expect any differently.

Now that the club's reputation has been tarnished, will the hordes of Bath Rugby supporters defect to Twerton Park on Saturdays in disgust? I don't wish Bath Rugby any harm, but I do hope more people do start coming to City matches. At least a few will. I hope, though, that they do not come because Bath's footballers are thought to be more morally upright. I hope they come just to see some good football played by people not so different from themselves.