Boooooo!
The issue of fans booing their own players has reared its ugly head again recently - ugly being the operative word in the case of Emmanuel Eboue, a perpetrator of many heinous fouls and a generally arrogant so-and-so. The last high-profile case of booing was directed at Ashley Cole after his error against Kazakhstan at Wembley, a similarly unpopular individual (to say the least). One of the Sky pundits yesterday, possibly Phil Thompson, was asked about the Eboue situation and launched into the usual pundit diatribe, angrily asserting that booing your own player was never justified, only harms their confidence, is detrimental to the team as a whole, and so forth. Ironically enough this had me booing very loudly at the screen (booing in this case being a euphemism for swearing like a Tourette's patient who just hit his thumb with a hammer). This is not a black-and-white issue. Categorically saying that you should never boo your own team is stupid. The fact is, Eboue and Cole are not ...