Rent-a-quote Bill Shankly famously noted, “Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I can assure them it’s much more serious than that.”
By Robert Carry
Sadly, there are nut-jobs out there who take him literally and, spurred on by an overblown sense of sporting rivalry, spend their time working on elaborate schemes aimed at making the lives of professional footballers a misery. Here are JOE’s five favourite cases of football gone too far.
1. Neil Lennon
The former Northern Ireland international received little by way of trouble whilst playing for Leicester City but doing something as overtly Catholic as switching to play for Celtic sealed his fate. He has been no stranger to sectarian abuse from Rangers fans in the years since. Death threats rolled in and there have been numerous reports of people accosting him in the streets of Glasgow.
As well as suffering abuse at the hands of Rangers fans, Lennon attracted the ire of fans of his own country after allegedly stating that he would like to play for a team representing a United Ireland. Death threats issued to Lennon on that occasion forced him to prematurely pull the plug on his international career in 2002 after only 40 appearances.
Things took a turn for the somehow even worse recently when the manager became the target of letter bombers. Police intercepted a number of what have been described as viable devices that were dispatched to several prominent individuals associated with the Celts. Someone would seriously want to get a grip.
2. David Beckham
Sadly, spending a decade-plus as the world’s most high-profile footballer comes with baggage and for David Beckham, burning effigies and salacious kiss-and-tell news stories became par for the course.
However, things kicked up a gear when he and his family became the target of kidnappers. Five men were charged with conspiring to kidnap his missus back in 2002 in what tabloids claimed was a bid to secure a £5m ransom. The family had to beef up security again in 2009 whilst in Milan amid fears of a second kidnap attempt. There were even worries that he might have been a terror target at one point. Fair enough, he’s a bit of a one-dimensional player, but Jesus Christ blowing him up would be a tad harsh.
3. Andrés Escobar
Undoubtedly the most shocking case of a football fan losing any sense of perspective came in the case of this Columbian international. Escobar’s national side was expected to put in a good showing at the 1994 World Cup and host nation USA were not believed to be a threat to the South Americans in their Group A clash.
However, Columbia went down 2-1 after Escobar deflected a cross into his own net and the side failed to get out of the group stages.
Escobar returned home to Columbia after the tournament and, while sitting in a car outside a nightclub, he was approached by a group of four people. An argument broke out and members of the group produced handguns. One fired 12 shots into the footballer, shouting “goal!” after discharging each round. Sicko.
4. Rio Ferdinand
Rio made the fatal mistake of stepping out of the relative anonymity defenders tend to occupy for some reason by opening up a Twitter account that quickly amassed 865,000 followers.
What Rio didn’t take into account is that when this many people follow you online, a few of them will probably take it into real life.
Step forward Susanne Ibru (pictured above).
The 32-year-old was found guilty at Macclesfield Magistrates’ Court of harassing Ferdinand by repeatedly turning up at his home in Alderley Edge, Cheshire. However, she somehow managed to give police the slip and fled from court.
Luckily for Rio, she was promptly apprehended before she could go rummaging through his bins, or whatever it is stalkers get up to.
5. Darron Gibson
Although not quite in the same stratosphere as the Neil Lennons or Andrés Escobars of this world, Gibson has been forced to deal with the idiot contingent of football fans of late. The Man Utd and Ireland player was probably hoping for a bit of harmless banter with fans and well-wishers when he opened up his Twitter account. Instead, what he got was unbridled abuse that forced him to pull out of the micro-blogosphere two hours later.
He was hit with the likes of:
‘@dgibbo28 your performance on saturday was one of the worst I’ve ever seen of any utd player. scared of the ball much?’
‘@dgibbo28 hasn’t tweeted yet. Seems somewhat fitting after the countless anonymous performances we’ve seen the ‘footballer’
‘@dgibbo28 your shite and trader to your country off birth !!! Green and White army !!’
‘@dgibbo28 oi you are one rubbish player go to a diffrent club for man utd sake kk and tell carrick that aswell’
There was even a bit of anti-Irish racism thrown in for good measure:
‘@rioferdy5 Iv heard that @dgibbo28 can “hit em”. :-/ that’s not what Iv seen #stupidirishcunt’
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