Pros and cons of having a good name

SOCCER ANGLES:After the week just gone, the only thing we can say for sure is that having a decent reputation at some time helps

A REPUTATION comes in various forms, and some say a good one can be as great a burden as one of the other sort.

You have to live up to it.

On the other hand, a good reputation can act like a shield when you fail to do so.

Sometimes.

Over the past six days in football we have seen four men in different stages of their reputations, and the only thing we can say for sure is that having some sort of good name at some time helps.

Lionel Messi, Petr Cech, Ryan Giggs and Michael Owen have had a contrasting week. Messi entered it as the greatest player on the planet and left it with a question mark hanging over that claim that must be answered next week at Stamford Bridge.

Cech began last week as someone who was once the greatest goalkeeper in the world, the key words being “was once”. The big Czech is broadly viewed as having changed since the day Stephen Hunt did or didn’t leave his knee in Cech’s skull two-and-a-half years ago. Whether you believe Hunt was capable of numbing Cech this way depends a bit on what you think of Hunt.

In helping repel Messi and Barcelona on Wednesday night, Cech retrieved some of the credit lost in the time since Reading. Although his saves were competent rather than glorious, Cech was deemed to have displayed a level of confidence that has sometimes looked to have flapped away like a missed punch at a corner.

But it was Giggs for whom reputation told most. Last Sunday Giggs was voted by his fellow professionals as the Footballer of the Year, an award that had eluded him due to the presence of others. Given that Giggs’s quality is established, many argued this should not have been the subject of even a smattering of dissent, but as soon as it was announced there were folk pointing out that Giggs had until that moment started only 12 Premier League games this season.

The accusation was that Giggs was being voted for an annual award that was based not on his contribution in that period, but over the years that preceded this season – his reputation won him the trophy.

Bearing in mind this dissent is based on logic, it is worth supporting. Annual awards should be about what occurs in a 12-month period, or over the course of the season concerned. The determination of the Professional Footballers’ Association to vote early – in January – is an added complication for obvious reasons, but it would not be a long search to find Manchester United fans who would say that Nemanja Vidic or Wayne Rooney have been more important to the team than Giggs this season.

A true reflection of a season would entail a vote in May, and surely that cannot be too difficult to organise – it would probably mean forgoing a dinner dance in London, but, you know, some things are worth the cost.

Because if the players’ votes were taken in May, would Giggs be the Footballer of the Year? He might be a contender, but would he really have won it? And if not, if Giggs had passed through his career without the award, would that be a tragic oversight? Giggs has enough silverware to fill a cabinet and has been the recipient of as much praise as minor saints. We know he is one of the British footballers of all time, and if a list were compiled today of the great players of the past five decades Giggs would be on it.

But would Norman Hunter’s name appear? Probably not. And yet when the players decided to follow football writers and provide an award, 35 years ago, Hunter was the first winner.

Considering that Leeds United team had world-class players such as Johnny Giles, Eddie Gray and Billy Bremner, amid a host of others, Hunter would appear to us today to be a surprise selection. But it is about the here and now, and, as 1973 turned into 1974, Hunter must have been a persuasive presence to opponents, as well as sometimes a terrifying one.

“Norman Bites Yer Legs” – that was part of Hunter’s reputation and you can bet more people remember that than him being the first PFA Footballer of the Year.

Similarly, when Liverpool greats of the 1970s and 1980s are listed, how far down does Terry McDermott appear? You can be assured McDermott would not be in the top five, and yet when Liverpool won the league title and European Cup in 1979-80, McDermott was the winner of the PFA award. He also won the writers’ award. McDermott must have been exceptional that season, and it should make us curious. It says something specific about the next season that Frans Thijssen won the writers’ award.

That sort of achievement should ensure McDermott has the scale of reputation of Michael Owen. Maybe as time passes that will prove the case, but it is difficult from the vista of 2009 to see McDermott triumphing over the memory of Owen – who, after all, was European Footballer of the Year in 2001.

But Owen has won neither players’ nor writers’ award domestically. Seeing him watch too much of Monday’s match against Portsmouth pass by, one cannot imagine he will win it from here. Owen’s is a reputation on the wane and it may not protect him from the bench at Anfield tomorrow. We could argue it has kept him off it more than form.

Yet will he be remembered as a player who mattered, who shaped the mood of a nation more than once? Of course he will, Owen’s reputation is as enduring as Giggs’s was before last Sunday.