You have to feel sorry for the Aston Villa goalkeeper Mark Bosnich. How can anyone be considered a bad boy at a club whose striker Stan Collymore earlier this year mistook his girlfriend Ulrika Jonsson for a football.
Bosnich, in contrast, accused of giving a few verbals to Everton fans after a 0-0 draw at Goodison Park on the opening day of the season, is up on an FA charge, on which he has asked for a personal hearing.
One can feel sympathy because fans target players they feel might be easy to wind up, and Bosnich has previous form. He was fined £1,000 by the FA in 1996 after giving a Nazi salute to Spurs fans who had been taunting him with chants of "Jurgen Klinsmann".
Hours afterwards Bosnich phoned David Mellor's Six-O- Six show to apologise publicly and insist that, as a bit of fun, he was merely imitating John Cleese in the Fawlty Towers German episode. If Spurs did not have a large number of Jewish supporters he might, like Fawlty, have mentioned the war once and got away with it.
Of the latest episode he says: "A fan behind the goal held out the ball to me as I was waiting to take a goal-kick but, when I went towards him, he threw it straight at me. The ball had chewing gum on it and by the time I'd wiped it off I just had time to take the kick before the referee blew for time. Then I raised my arm to celebrate a hard-earned point."
Bosnich is also mildly amused that, at a time when players and managers are making confetti of their contracts, he is being pilloried for deciding to see his through until it expires next year. The Villa manager John Gregory had threatened to put Bosnich on the list if he refused to sign a long extension but player and club have agreed to let the matter rest.
Bosnich (26), while shrewd enough to realise that he will corner a lot more of any transfer money if he is a free agent, nonetheless insists there is a good chance the club he chooses next summer will be his present one. He says: "I don't see what's wrong with honouring a contract. I'm not going to fly off anywhere, I'm not making any threats or holding anyone to ransom.
"I'm on the last year of a five-year contract and in all that time I have not once gone in to ask for more money." One would have thought now might be a good time, seeing that Bosnich has conceded only one goal in seven Premiership matches this season and goes into today's match at Coventry having kept his net spotless for 478 minutes.
His refusal to commit himself to Villa has fuelled rumours that he may return to Manchester United, for whom he played three games in 199091 before he was forced to return to Australia when his work permit was denied. The fact that the form graph of United's Peter Schmeichel, in contrast to Bosnich's, is beginning to resemble that of a Korean investment trust, has done nothing to quell the rumours.
Bosnich insists he is thinking only of helping Villa to put more daylight between themselves and the Premiership's more fancied runners and his form has helped Gregory to a remarkable 14 wins from his first 18 Premiership matches at Villa.
Bosnich says: "Our form since John came makes us feel a little bit guilty that we weren't doing it for Brian Little. But Brian was coming up to three years as manager and that's often a sticky time. So I can only say we owe a debt of gratitude to Brian."
Little will feel a whole lot better for that, though Bosnich would not change things. He says: "Players tend to end up echoing the manager's character and John Gregory has such a fresh approach. He seems to me a bit of an Arsene Wenger type; we know he is the boss but he doesn't have to raise his voice to keep command. He treats people individually and differently."
Bosnich has a nice line in self-deprecatory humour. When asked whether his penalty save from John Collins at Everton could begin another run like 1993-94, when he stopped eight, he says: "I was trying to explain it to a TV crew at one point during that season when Ron Atkinson, the manager, went by and told me to cut the bullshit.
"I have to be honest and say that everywhere I dived the ball seemed to find me. My saves caused great amusement to Andy Townsend, who had just joined the club. He'd watched me in a penalty shootout against Wimbledon in the FA Cup the previous season, when I didn't save one out of six."
Bosnich used to spend hours practising and discussing penalties with Dwight Yorke. The latter claims to have perfected a foolproof technique whereby he can keep his eye on the goalkeeper until the last stride and then decide where to place the ball. Most players attempting this would trip over their bootlaces.
Even so, Yorke is adamant that, should he take a penalty against Villa, he will score while Bosnich is adamant he will save it. Perhaps Bosnich should warm up with Paul Merson, who needed a rebound to score against Wimbledon on his debut.
Merson, a £6.75 million buy, scored the winner again last week to put Villa five points clear. Bosnich says he has made an enormous difference, though his signing might be expected to mean having to hide their copies of The Racing Post. "We're not that bad," he says. "We do play cards on the coach but apart from that we're a pretty okay bunch. Really."
