Compiled by PHILIP REID

No ifs or butts, this trend is unlikely to go away

ANYONE WHO has watched the light comedy Paul Blart: Mall Copeither has a teenage son or, more probably, the mindset of one. But somewhere in the celluloid mayhem the main character, the titular over-sized security guard, blurts out the line: "No one wins with a headbutt".

And, unless you’re a super-middleweight world champion boxer called Andre Ward who has built something of a reputation among fight fans for such actions, that sentiment is invariably true.

Yet, unforgivable as Rino Gattuso’s coming-of-heads – a so-called “Glasgow Kiss”, not a meeting of Mensa – with Joe Jordan was the other night at the end of the AC Milan-Tottenham Hotspur Champions League match, there is no reason why the hot-headed Italian should be singled out as a lone perpetrator and sole villain when it comes to what is now amounting to a pandemic, not just in soccer but in the sporting world.

Jordan, a tough centre forward, was known as “Jaws” in his playing days – more for the absence of teeth from putting his head where his boot should go rather than possessing too many pearly whites – and I liked the post-match observation from Spurs manager Harry Redknapp that his money would have been on the Scot had the coming together progressed any further.

Gattuso’s coming together with Jordan – more a peck than what you’d call a French kiss, à la Zinedine Zidane – again highlights the unsporting behaviour amongst overpaid sportsmen and it is yet another incident at the end of a long line of such indiscipline. Uefa will deal with the matter next week and the apologetic and fiery Italian can expect some kind of fine and match suspension but probably nothing like many angelic observers preaching from their pulpits these past few days would like.

In fact, the evidence base from similar head-butting incidents in recent times would have you believe the authorities might utter their disgust at such actions only for the penalties to rarely meet the supposed outrage of such crimes. Last year, for instance, Inter Milan’s Samuel Eto’o got a three-match ban and a €30,000 fine for headbutting Chievo’s Bostjan Cesar in a Serie A match.

Of course, the most spectacular of all head butts occurred in the 2006 World Cup final when Zidane took exception to words coming from the mouth of Italy’s Marco Materazzi (which, incidentally, also resulted in a three-match ban). It was the defining closing act of Zidane’s career, as he retired after the final.

The proliferation of headbutting incidents in soccer makes for grim reading, it must be said: back in the 1998 World Cup, Argentina’s Ariel Ortega headbutted Dutch goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar; in the 2006 World Cup, before the Zidane incident, Portugal’s Luis Figo head-butted the Netherlands’ Mark van Bommel (for which he only received a yellow card) and, in the 2010 African Cup, referee Coffi Codjia was suspended indefinitely for failing to award a red card to Algerian goalkeeper Faouzi Chaouchi, who had headbutted him during an argument.

Lest those involved in soccer believe that head-butting is a preserve of the beautiful game, it should be pointed out American basketball player Dennis Rodman once received a $20,000 €15,000) fine for head-butting a referee (but no ban), whilst rugby has also had its fair share of sinners. South African lock Bakkies Botha got a nine-week suspension last year for headbutting All Blacks scrumhalf Jimmy Cowan. And, of course, New Zealand’s Keven Mealamu got an initial four-week ban, later reduced to two weeks, for headbutting England’s Lewis Moody last November.

Even cricket has been blighted. Last year, Australia’s Mitchell Johnson was fined 60 per cent of his match fee for head-butting New Zealand’s Scott Styris during a heated exchange in a one-day international. But the most bizarre incident of all probably came in last year’s Tour de France, when Aussie Mark Renshaw was thrown out of the tour for head-butting another cyclist – Nez Zealand’s Julian Dean – in the finishing sprint to the 11th stage.

The ugly trend of headbutting is unlikely to go away, especially with the relatively minor sanctions imposed on the guilty parties. But at least the Austrian television authorities know where to draw a line. Prior to last year’s World Cup finals in South Africa, Austrian television was forced to ban three ads which showed everyday people taking out various petty frustrations by headbutting their adversaries in the style of Zidane.

Outside the world of sport, that ad by an online gambling company was deemed a step too far.

Oosthuizen goes from Shrek to Springboks

IT SEEMS British Open champion Louis Oosthuizen has willingly paid one price for his breakthrough major win at St Andrews . . . ditching the head cover for his driver, which was of the animated movie character Shrek.

Oosthuizen was given the nickname “Shrek” by some of his fellow players in the ISM stable because of the gap in his teeth, which supposedly gave him a resemblance to the animated ogre. But the holder of the claret jug has now swapped the image of Shrek for a new head cover which honours the Springboks rugby team in a World Cup year.

Waffle, wedge and swoosh

NOT MANY people will be aware of it, but, on this very day 100 years ago, a man who would impact greatly on the world of sport was born. He didn’t become a heavyweight boxing champion, nor did he win an Olympic gold medal of his own. In fact, his name – William Jay Bowerman – would most likely leave you scratching your head . . . unless, of course, you knew he was one of the co-founders of Nike, the world’s leading sports shoe and equipment manufacturer.

The headquarters for Nike is located on Bowerman Drive in Oregon in homage to a man who started out pursuing a career in journalism only to become one of America’s top athletic coaches – spending 24 years as coach at the University of Oregon and coaching 31 Olympic athletics – and who only made the move into designing and manufacturing running shoes because he felt those on offer to his athletes in the late 1950s were substandard.

Bowerman entered into a handshake agreement in 1964 with Phil Knight – a miler who had trained under him at Oregan in the 1950s – to start an athletic footwear distribution company called Blue Ribbon Sports which would later be known as Nike, Inc.

Knight managed the business, while Bowerman experimented with designs which led to the creation of a running shoe in 1966 that would ultimately be named “Cortez” and which became one of the company’s most iconic designs. It was Bowerman who came up with the now famous Nike “waffle” sole, in which he originally used his wife’s waffle iron to burn the imprint onto rubber. This sole provided greater traction to runners on any surface, particularly on wet roads.

Bowerman also contributed to the development of the wedge heel used in running shoes to create greater cushioning and stability and in the design of the first cushioned insoles. He was responsible for incorporating the now standard lightweight nylon upper in runners, prior to which most uppers were manufactured from canvas, other heavy synthetic materials or leather.

Nowadays, Nike has an annual turnover in excess of €14 billion and employs over 30,000 people around the globe. And its famous – or infamous? – swoosh logo is endorsed by many of the world’s top sportsmen and women, among them Tiger Woods, Wayne Rooney, LeBron James, Roger Federer, Maria Sharapova and Manny Pacquiao.

Fennell must now fashion some form

AT LONG last Eamon Fennell has got his wish – a move from one northside club, O’Tooles, to another, St Vincent’s – but all the comparisons between the Dublin footballer and Kerry’s Paul Galvin are way off the mark.

Okay, both are intercounty footballers with, it seems, a penchant for fashion. There, however, any comparison stops: Fennell, far from an automatic choice in Dublin’s midfield even when fit, hasn’t a national senior medal to his name, while Galvin is a four-time All-Ireland winner with the Kingdom and with Gaelic football player-of-the -year accolades to endorse his on-field performances.

Fennell – who apparently has been signed up by a modelling agency – hasn’t played club football for 28 months as he pursued his transfer to the Marino powerhouse. He has now been given the all-clear to finally make the move by the Dublin county committee. Now, it is time for him to walk the walk rather than talk the talk . . . on the football pitch that is, not the fashion catwalks.

Proper strategic plan needed for Irish soccer

THE MORE things change, the more they stay the same – or get even worse! The clock is ticking down towards the start of the League of Ireland campaign and, in a week when Arsenal and Barcelona showed all that is good in terms of football’s ability to surprise, off-field happenings in the domestic game seem to be as shambolic as ever.

Just a few years after Galway were elevated to the Premier League at the expense of Dundalk FC who had won the play-off to apparently win promotion, the westerners failed to receive a club licence from the FAI and were shoved down to the A Championship. That they were then reinstated after an appeal at the expense of Monaghan United paints the league in an even more chaotic light. Coming on the back of Sporting Fingal’s recent demise, Galway’s near-death experience shows what a sorry state the game here is in. As of now, only two clubs – Shamrock Rovers and Sligo Rovers – seem to have the financial wherewithal to put together the type of squads capable of challenging for the title. And those dreams entertained not so long ago by the likes of Shelbourne and Bohemians (to their costs, it must be admitted) of competing beyond the initial knock-out stages of European competitions seem like clouded memories from hallucinatory times.

Barely two months ago, the FAI issued the fixture list for the season which included Sporting Fingal v UCD. One assumes the list was issued with fingers crossed rather than with confidence – and, yet again, the need for a proper strategic plan is highlighted. The old model isn’t working.