Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Brittain saga should teach us fans a lesson

Diane Brittain's blog should, I hope, open a few eyes.

To recap: her husband, Ross County captain and stalwart Richard Brittain, signed a pre-contract with St. Johnstone in January.  Within weeks, he had made public his wish to tear that agreement up and to remain in the Highlands.

Many - including myself, I'm ashamed to say - were sceptical as to the reason for the change of heart.  After all, Ross County's chairman, Roy McGregor, is the closest thing the Highlands has to Rich Uncle Pennybags.  Had the skipper's head been turned by a better offer?  (Of course, the rest of us are entitled to change jobs for more money, but when footballers do it?  Outrage!) Brittain's own coyness, telling the press only that there were 'personal reasons' behind it, and St. Johnstone's resistance to the request - without more information, it's only fair to give them the benefit of the doubt over how much or little they knew - only added to the intrigue.

Therefore, for most of this year, Brittain has been the target of a lot of what might generously be called 'stick'; in many cases, it was vitriolic abuse.  It's not hard to find plenty of examples of this on message boards and on twitter.  Of course, the truth is a bit sobering; Brittain's wife, who is from the North, suffered badly from postnatal depression.  Given they had just had a baby, it made rather more sense to stay in an environment where she could be surrounded by supportive family members.  There will be plenty of folk out there, some of whom are from a different generation, some of whom are just ignorant morons, who will scoff at this; hopefully, most fans are more enlightened and appreciate how unpleasant suffering from depression can be.

Of course, the Brittains were entitled to keep this private; on the one hand it is courageous that Diane has waived that right in order to draw a line under the matter, but on the other hand it is terribly distressing that she felt she had to.  Depression is hard enough to deal with; imagine trying to cope with it whilst your family are getting targeted by internet trolls.  I bet most of them aren't as quick to apologize as they are to criticize.

What is particularly galling is the hypocrisy of the Scottish media regarding the issue; plenty of journalists have come out today lauding Diane Brittain and making reference to the abuse the couple received, when frankly this story and the resultant ire was well and truly stoked by hacks who made a big deal out of publicizing the story and kept it in the spotlight for weeks.  Hopefully they feel a bit of shame.  I doubt it though.

As a little aside, anyone who recently watched the BBC documentary on depression in football, or who has read The Secret Footballer's book, will be increasingly aware of the fact that mental health is an issue amongst footballers.  It's hardly surprising - imagine how well you would deal with random people shouting unpleasant things at you in your workplace, either about your competence, or your body shape, or your family?  Maybe you think it's all part and parcel of the game.  In that case, please justify for me the chants I witnessed first-hand by several thousand Sunderland fans of "We wish you were dead" at Newcastle's Steven Taylor last season.

For the love of Pete, it's only a game.

Sadly, even if the supporter in the stands was to show a little more enlightenment, the age of social media has resulted in an invisible army of keyboard warriors, who feel they can say anything and everything they want without fear of retribution.

Thankfully, the Brittains are a thick skinned bunch.  More power to them, I say.

L.

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