Why Wayne Bridge Needs To Grow Up After John Terry Episode

Not many think Capello has made the wrong decision to strip Terry of the England captaincy. But I think its an awful decison. I’m not concerned with Terry in the slightest, nor Bridge. But as soon as you start making decisions because there’s a media howl so to do, you are in trouble. You start to follow the media’s agenda and not your own. As we know the football media this week has been in a frothing frenzy of moralistic self-righteousness over the whole Terry/ Bridge/Capello situation. Like Terry, it just wouldn’t quit.

So lets get this straight it seems this decison was made because of something as nebulous and fleeting as ‘respect.’ Poor old Wayne can’t respect his –ex best mate any more. Aw diddums. Well you should choose your friends more carefully then, son.

I found all of it a mixture of hypocrisy and hype. The bleating sympathy for Wayne Bridge though was especially sickening and typical of the infantile culture of football. At times it was as though someone had died. His girlfriend leaves him – presumably because she’s fed up of him – and we’re supposed to feel sorry for him because his feral best mate has gone and humped her afterwards? This is pretty ordinary stuff.

And this is supposed to be so upsetting to him that he’s ‘in bits’? Is he 15 years old? She’s gone man. Let it go. She can do what she wants. Is it really impossible for you to play in the same squad as Terry because a woman who didn’t want to be with you had sex with another man? If so, you’ve got a lot of growing up to do, lad. This is all so childish. It’s a like a teenage story. Quotes from him in the press read like a ‘true life story’ in a trashy magazine.

Bridge was unable to keep the French underwear model on board. She ends the relationship and keeps the kid. She wasn’t kidnapped by Terry and held against her will. She wanted to do this. Whatever you think of Terry’s behavior, Bridge was already out of the picture. So why are people saying his fellow England team-mates are feeling sorry for him? Why? Because he wasn’t able to keep a tasty bird in his bed? Christ, we should all deserve sympathy then. Grow up you whiners.

Yes we’ve all felt a bit sick when someone we know – even a mate – gets off with an old girlfriend but hey, that’s life. You’ve got no claim on her. It’s all over. She can open her legs for the Royal Navy if she wants; its nowt to do with you anymore. So why is everyone supposed to be broken hearted for poor old Wayne? Why is he being painted as a broken man? This actually smacks more of the schoolyard than of grown-up adult life.

Bridge should be feeling lucky that he’s got a career as a peripheral England player at all. He’s not that good and is only there because there’s sod all else at left back. He should also count his blessings that a man such as he has had access to the bedroom of a French underwear model for a couple of years. If he wasn’t a millionaire football player he’d have to make do, like the rest of us, with bar maids.

I’m not feeling sorry for him nor should anyone else. Almost everyone else who walks this planet has a harder life than Wayne Bridge. He’d do well to remember that before he disappears up his own arse of self-pity.

Surely the correct response to all this, would be to laugh it off. After all, this French knicker woman has been gone since last summer. Plenty of time to get over it. Laughing it off is what most of us would do in real life. When the Hull fans chanted ‘you must be s**t, she’s shagging away’ if he had laughed and applauded them, it would have gained him more empathy than any amount of sob story accounts of his distress and how he’s lost respect for Terry. Oh boo f**king hoo. I bet he knew exactly the sort of man Terry was. He’s known him for long enough. Did he think he was some sort of monk? I bet he knew of Terry’s other alleged affairs. I bet he wasn’t bothered in the slightest. I bet he thought it was all just lads being lads. Until it affected him.

Yes, he might not want to think of Terry riding her like a stallion, but you can’t live your life like a love-sick 15 year old. Grow up, man! If she cared about you, she’d not have legged it. If you had been what she wanted she wouldn’t have gone. Second choice for England and second choice in bed it would seem. So be it. This is your role in life Wayne. Grow a pair of bollocks, serve your country to the best of your ability if picked and deal with it.

The real tragedy is that Capello fell for this purile rubbish pushed by the media and gave in to the pressure. So what next? If a player is caught cheating on his wife will he get the sack? Does it have to be a full blown affair or a one night stand? Full penetration or a hand job? What moral code to keep their place are the players supposed to stick to now? Those of the Catholic church? Buddhism maybe? Zorocrastian perhaps? Who knows any more? It’s a total mess.

Photo credit: Billy Banter.