Ben Cousins and an inconvenient truth

Drug taking is a problem. But it is vital that we are clear about what kind of problem it is. And telling aspiring athletes, and even young people who look up to athletes, that sports and drugs don’t mix does not work because it is a lie and young people know it is a lie.

There will be those who say that the demands of the modern athlete are greater than the past and so the example of Paul Hornung and others doesn’t count.

Actually, I think it’s the other way round. Hornung, like most pre-1980 footballers, worked a second job in the off season and, unlike the Ben Cousinses of the world, didn’t have dozens of support staff telling him what to eat, when to go to bed and generally organising his life for him.

Perhaps Ben Cousins was able to combine his off-field and on-field lives because of the “professionalism” of the modern athlete, not despite it.

Drug taking is a problem in modern sports because it tarnishes the image that sponsors want to project. Why don’t we just say this and leave it at that?

It seems that many of the people hoping for a clear anti-drugs message from the Cousins documentary were disappointed.

But there is a simple reason for their disappointment; Ben Cousins is still a footballing hero. He was cheered in his final match. He will no doubt end up running around with water bottles on the field or smashing the glass in the coach’s box one day. No, actually he’ll probably end up as a commentator.

Those who want to trumpet some simple and high-minded “just say no” message through football and footballers must understand this. Football players are human, not gods and certainly not role-models.

I doubt that Ben Cousins’ experience caused any young person to start taking drugs and doubt very much whether telling his story has discouraged any. Drug-taking is a much more complicated social problem. The idea that children copy the behaviour of footballers was always silly, invented by footballers with a rather over-developed sense of their own importance.

Football is a world full of simple problems and uncomplicated ideas. It doesn’t teach us how to live because living is more complicated than football. In fact, if the Cousins saga teaches us anything, it should be a clear reminder that professional football is, today more than ever, a place to hide from the real world, not a training ground for it.