The Fireman Hath Honor...

The firefighter hath honor, but only when the fire is raging. Few, very few people remember him the moment the inferno dies down. It is such a dispiriting job.
Mr Sam Allardyce, erstwhile coach of Everton Football Club, England should be the last person to be surprised by his recent sack by the club. He has said he is disappointed by the decision of the club but that is a feeling he should have inured himself against. In his storied managerial career, and few coaches, football or not, have lived through more interesting times, sacking has always been his lot. From Newcastle to Everton.
He knows he is a fireman, to be called in only in times of disaster raging or about to break out. He is the guy directing the water hose or wielding the axe to break down doors and hurl himself into a raging inferno. He is the muscular rescuer, savior, football's superman. He smashes into car doors to pull out the trapped and injured or dives into water to hold aloft the drowning, the sinking, give him something, even a straw, to cling on to. Even the drowned is not beyond his attention. He has led Bolton and West Ham from the lower rungs of British football back into the Premier League.
He knows he is not the elegant, sophisticated conductor directing an orchestra. Leave that to the Wengers and Guardiolas. Such sophistication, refinements are for Arsenal and Manchester City, clubs least likely to be entangled in the dangers of sinking or drowning. Therein the lines are already written and arranged, the only problem is for performance to be made perfect, flawless. Allardyce is the wild savage, body stripped bare save for a cluster of leaves covering essentials and streaked into a frightening motif, veins coursing wildly with blood, all too eager to plunge into battles torrid and enervating. The beats of calling are from the drums of the primeval tribe and elegance is so far away. He cannot be too chic and classy in the type of hero he wants to be. He was called in when Everton was sinking, sinking badly and he has done the job he was appointed for. It did not really matter how he went about it, if it involved pumping balls into the opponents' box and giving the devil free rein to less loose some of its most feral hounds, so be it. In a drowning, any straw will do. It is safety first and methods later. If anyone still cared about methods.
It is his lot. The job has been done, thanks and goodbye.. He should hardly harbor ill-feelings about his dismissal. It is a very ungrateful world in football. Fans are so demanding and besotted with ingratitude that after safety their next inclination is to bask in the luxury of questioning the methods that brought the result. The heroic fireman soon becomes the distressing, boring villain. And who can really blame them? They own the club, pay to high heavens to be entertained and in the new world, getting value for money is a quest folks don't hesitate to push to extreme limits. It is such an unfair world. He is the strange fireman. People eagerly accept his exertions, his drive and after safety, immediately turn around to question his methods. From their dissenting cacophony in the safety of dry land, you would think they would have preferred to drown in the first place.
But he should not be too dismayed. Drowning, sinking, is a very common accident in football, especially in the Premier League. Infernos break out at will. It won't be long before his services are required again. After all Everton did think they had enough life-jackets when they appointed Koeman as coach. It may be yet that the same club will come begging, cap in hand. Returning, as we say in Africa, to lap up their own vomit. 

Fury of the Fans: West Ham is just the Beginning.

According to his own testimony, Mr Slaven Bilic, former manager of West Ham Football Club, sometimes after he was sacked as manager of the club, perhaps compelled by hurtful soul-searching, decided to place calls to some of his former players, inquiring about what he could have done to avoid the fate that befell him. It isn't a pleasant fate, being sacked from a workplace, and few places are as alluring and glamorous as a sports club, especially a football club. Especially a Premier League club. Nobody cares about the manager that produces his Coca-Cola, or his Mercedes or his Louis Vuitton handbag but all eyes are on Cristiano Ronaldo who manufactures the football the fans gush over on the football field: and Zinedin Zidane, the manager that designs the manufacture. And nowhere is sports scrutiny more intense than the Premier League, an arena filled with money, noise and hype. And emotions and passions so combustible they explode at the slightest ignition. Therein success could be so sweet and rewarding and, moving to the other end of the spectrum, failure that inevitably leads to a sack could be very bitter, painful. Especially for a coach who was certain he had put in a load of credible shift.
The unanimous reply Bilic got from his own former players is as shocking as it is telling: simply, he was not hard enough on them.
In other words, the modern-day football player no longer derive joy and elan from a sport that pays him obscene sums of money, that gives him instant world-wide fame, that helps secure his future. After collecting a fat pay packet every week, he still expects to be whipped in line to do his job. Like an expensive Bugatti that has stalled all of a sudden, he expects to be pushed before he starts.
Take a look at Paul Pogba, sometimes a world record holder not in terms of performance but in terms of the fees paid for his services. Ever since his arrival at Manchester United his services and performances have taken back seat to a whole tranche of issues dominated by speculations and counter denials, searing rumors and conjectures. Now his not being on the field seems more valuable than being on it.
Or Mesut Ozil, a gifted footballer who switches on and off at will. Plays sumptuous football when there is a fat contract to be signed and then slumps to the lowest depths of abysmal football immediately after putting pen to paper. But, be as it may, the Premier League is filled with fantastic performers who take enormous pride in the jersey that they wear and work their socks off to defend the honor of their club. Take the Brazilian Kennedy for example, a role model who decided to jettison the glamor and riches of Chelsea to jump at the chance to play regular football and whose heart-warming performances is one of the major reasons Newcastle is inching gradually towards safety. He is a fantastic example, quite in contrast to the off and on pitch body language we've been seeing at Arsenal, West Ham, West Brom of late.
Happily, West Ham players have gotten their wishes, the push they wish for provided by their own fans yesterday. The manager, David Moyes, was of the opinion the fans crossed literary and figurative lines by invading the pitch to protest their players' dreary performance. Sir Trevor Brooking, an ex-striker of the club echoed similar lines when he said the six home games due to the club before the Burnley game presented an opportunity that is now is in serious jeopardy. Both gentlemen are seriously out of tune with the realities of the modern game. Soccer is a game of passion and emotion, a combustible mix likely to boil over at any time, a game meant for the horde and not gentlemen for whom its rules are obviously drawn for. Everywhere, not England alone. It is telling that a little after the West Ham brouhaha, a similar scenario erupted in France where fans of Lille also invaded the pitch and aimed kicks at their own players after a below par league game. Brooking should have kept his opinions to himself. If you have six home games and you are losing the first of such like that, what assurance have you got that the rest will not go the same way? The rest can as well be moved to the doldrums. Burnley is a decent club and Sean Dyche has done a fantastic job on the players, but West Ham is a massive club, one of the biggest in the world and the fans were not going to take it lightly that the players were not losing to Burnley but have put themselves in a position where losing to Burnley would jar to no end. The defeat was therefore not the iceberg, but the tip of the iceberg that tore huge gashes in the hull of the fierce West Ham pride.
Another pitch invasion will happen, probably at West Brom. Another owner is going to have a coin thrown at him soon, a symbolic gesture towards the Shylocks in football. By fans who are the real owners of such enterprises.