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ISSUE 19 | NOV 2014 |
13
Australia did not enjoy a vintage
Commonwealth Games, and you
have to wonder how much of the
one-field mediocrity is down to off-
field disharmony. There was plenty of
negative press after former coach Eric
Hollingsworth was sent home from
Edinburgh after launching an attack on
runner Sally Pearson.
Pearson didn’t back down after he made the claim that
she had set a poor example to the younger athletes after
she failed to join the team for a team camp. Since his
suspension, others have spoken out about his treatment
of other athletes.
Gold medalist Tamsyn Manou made an official complaint
about Hollingsworth in 2012 when he dropped the C
bomb on her. She went on to say that “Our sport is in
the hands of dictators, not communicators. For the
benefit of the athletes, there needs to be an external
investigation,”
Sport is tribal. We are trained from the moment we
pull on Size 5 boots that we are on the field to beat the
other guys. But inner-team rivalries and spats are more
common than we think. Today, with sport so tightly
controlled by the merchandisers and image consultants,
it is hard to see the ugly face behind the mask of
rehearsed sound bites. But when the Eric Hollingsworth
story went public so quickly, it took the PR people by
surprise and showed us just another group of people
who don’t get along.
Despite culture telling us that your team is like your
family, there are often deep divisions within these
groups. Logically, a group of people playing a sport will
do better if they are brothers or sisters, fighting side by
side against a common enemy. But there are plenty of
reasons why being on a team is like any other job: there
will be people you like, some you dislike, and some you
want to throw into a pit of wild dogs.
EGO
One reason why a team is going to have divisions is
down to ego. We have reached a point in sport where
the players are so rich that they become their own
community. Players have posses and employees, all of
which are alternately sucking at the teat or foraging for
yet another soft drink deal. People who get in the path
of that steaming money train are either going to get run
over or there is going to be a nasty, messy collision. The
Shaquille O’Neal – Kobe Bryant spat has transcended
their days as stars for the LA Lakers. Bryant has been
accused of being a ball hog and poor teammate before,
but these two took the hatred to epic proportions.
Bryant was apparently appalled by Shaq’s showboating
and apparently reported him to the authorities for
his womanising. The two have managed to keep their
hatred fresh by rapping insulting messages about each
other throughout their music careers.
Probably the most famous clash of egos came in
the world of figure skating when an appalled – and
fascinated – world watched the tragi-comic saga unfold
between Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. Movie
of the week executives must have been rubbing their
hands with glee as the news broke that Harding had
planned and coordinated an attack on Kerrigan’s knee,
designed to put her out of the 1994 Olympic Games.
Harding’s desire to win at all costs by putting her
teammate and rival into hospital received the ending it
deserved when Kerrigan skated her way to silver while
Harding went home placed 8th.
SLIGHTS
Sometimes it doesn’t take a very big spark to light a fire.
One of the most famous examples of a little act leading
to an epic hatred comes to us from English football.
Andy Cole and Teddy Sheringham played for Manchester
United for years while secretly hating each other. The
genesis of the feud came before they were clubmates.
Making his debut for England, Cole was replacing
Sheringham. “I expect a brief handshake, a ‘Good luck,
Coley’, something,” he says. “I am ready to shake. He