Oh baby, there may be trouble ahead

These are difficult times for football supporters of the non-boy variety. Longheld principles are being tested like they've never before. We're talking serious moral dilemmas here.

For much of the last century our non-boy ancestors chained themselves to railings, got run over by race horses and smuggled condoms from Belfast on the Dublin train so that, amongst other things, non-boys would have the right to love Ashley Grimes a whole lot more than they loved Barbie. Mission accomplished. Anyway, Ashley had much better hair than Barbie and didn't need a Ken in his life to give it some meaning. And he never wore luminous pink knee-high rubber boots, with a matching mini-skirt (we think). He had style, Ashley. And a damn good left foot.

Of course, while non-boys were busy burning their Barbies it took the footballing boys time to catch up, particularly when it came to dealing with the non-boys in their lives, or the non-boys in their players' lives. Like Trevor Francis, for example.

Now, when Trevor was a player, pregnant football wives walked 24 miles to the nearest hospital in the dead of night, through blizzards and sub-zero temperatures, not daring to ask their husbands to take one of their sports cars out of the garage and drive them there because they had a 20-minute training session at 12 noon the next day and needed their sleep.

For the next few days the player would just assume his wife had left him but then, a week later, would call the police on returning home from training to report an intruder in his house, only to be told by his wife, who had walked home that morning, that the intruder was in fact his new baby boy.

Ashley Grimes had much better hair than Barbie and didn't need a Ken in his life to give it some meaning. And he never wore luminous pink knee-high rubber boots.

He had style, Ashley.

So, that's how things were in Trev's day and it's not, therefore, surprising that he famously fined Martin Allen, one of his players at Queen's Park Rangers when he managed them in the 1980s, for making himself unavailable for a match so that he could attend the birth of his first baby. Trev was unrepentant about his stance and was more than a little peeved when Allen ripped up the flowers he sent to the hospital and chucked them in a bin. Nick Faldo offered Trev support for his actions (as surprising a revelation as, say, announcing that water is wet) and pilots on long-haul flights were also right behind him, Trev claimed. "With my wife, we've always put football first," he told the Telegraph. "She flew home from Italy for the birth of James. I flew home as well and made sure with a gynaecologist that the baby was born on a Monday morning."

"The day after Italian league matches? So James was induced," asked the reporter. "Yes," said Trev.

Now, fast forward to the 1990s. What did Trev do? He allowed one of his Birmingham City players, Martin O'Connor, to be at his pregnant wife's bedside on the eve of an important fixture. Nick Faldo and long-haul pilots ripped up their Birmingham City season tickets in outrage.

What Nick and the pilots would make of Leicester City captain Matt Elliott one dreads to think. Tomorrow Matt is due to lead his team out at Wembley for the League Cup final against Tranmere Rovers. But Cathy Elliott is due to give birth to their fourth baby around kick-off time. "And," we can hear Nick and the long-haul pilots asking. Well, Matt would like to be at the birth and he hasn't ruled out the possibility of missing the final if, indeed, the two kick-offs clash.

"I don't know what will happen if I get a late call, that's an awkward one," he told the London Independent yesterday. "There's a no-man's land from 8 p.m. on Saturday to 10 a.m. on Sunday when I would be in a quandary about what to do. I've not really spoken to the gaffer but he knows the situation. Ideally she would have had it already and at one stage she was talking about being induced but she decided against that, so now it's a case of playing it by ear and seeing what happens." "You cannot be serious," say Nick and the long-haul pilots.

Oh yes, he is, and so, according to the Daily Mirror's transcript of the row, was David Beckham when he squared up to Alex Ferguson last weekend and told him that young Brooklyn mattered more to him than Manchester United. "Where have you been," inquired Ferguson. "The baby wasn't well and I had to look after him," said Beckham, nonchalantly. "Get your priorities right," the manager gently advised his player. "I did. My family comes first," said the player, seemingly not heeding this fatherly advice. "No, it should be United," Fergie timidly proposed. "F*** off," suggested Beckham. "No - you f*** off, get out of here," Fergie quipped, waving as he left the scene. "Big deal," said Beckham, blowing kisses as he headed for the car park. Fair play to Beckham. But, this takes us back to that moral dilemma. Many non-boy football supporters would probably agree that it's a very good thing that players are putting their families before their clubs . . . except when it's their club.

Is an induced birth really such a bad thing? And can't you get to know your kids after you hang up your boots? Nick and the long-haul pilots would argue that you can always have another baby, but you can never again play in a cup final at the soon to be demolished Wembley Stadium. Not that we're agreeing with them, of course. (Fingers crossed behind back).