Aidan Smith: The game’s changed and tackling must too

The BBC doesn’t have a monopoly on nostalgia – not when it wipes so many classic programmes from the archives, it doesn’t – but ITV’s title sequence for the FA Cup does seem to rip off recent Beeb montages of vintage action, 1970s hair, seas of faces and, in the final shot, a sea of mud, this presumably in homage to the most famously muddy cup venue there’s ever been, Hereford United’s Edgar Street.

You don’t get mud in televised games now, I said to myself, settling down with my macaroon bar to watch Man City v Man United in the third round, but, very quickly, the Etihad took on a decidedly glaurish aspect. This was to do with the pitch – in Manchester the rain doesn’t muck about – but also the general gloom, which might have been entirely natural, but ITV’s reliance on the 60 watt bulb can’t have helped. Who was complaining, though? Not me. For here was a hoary old game from football’s past – and look, a hoary old flying tackle as well.

Vincent Kompany got the ball, took it cleanly, demonstrated great precision, didn’t touch Nani at all, and there was no complaint from the winger who usually loves a good writhe and moan – but I still think the referee was right to send him off. Not all of the aforementioned was obvious to the ref when he made his decision. It can’t have been apparent to Roberto Mancini, the invisible card-waggling manager, who claimed Wayne Rooney’s protestations had got his man dismissed. It was only clear to us, the full story, after we’d watched the 23rd replay of the incident. The official has to decide on the available evidence, and quickly. What he most definitely saw was Kompany launching himself off the ground at some speed, studs showing. And, until the laws are changed, or video evidence is permitted, that’s reckless, if not dangerous.

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I’m not saying it’s right, or good for the game – or that I don’t have sympathy with Mark Lawrenson and Alan Hansen, who both remarked afterwards, with regret, that tackling will soon disappear completely (this from two players who always preferred to take the ball, rather than the ball-man-trackside hoarding-ballboy-chunk of terrace wall combo so beloved of some of their contemporaries). But the game is so much faster than in their day. When the about-to-be-tackled is moving at a great rate and the tackler isn’t hanging around either, dire consequences can follow. Just ask Newcastle’s Hatem Ben Arfa, who was left with a broken leg on the same pitch after a thunderous challenge by Nigel De Jong.

That one and others like it – Stoke’s Ryan Shawcross on Arsenal’s Aaron Ramsey, Birmingham’s Martin Taylor on the Gunners’ Eduardo – seemed to make redundant the defence: “But he got the ball first.” Rightly too. A player’s moral responsibilities do not end after he’s brushed the leather sphere. Now there’s been a subtle shift in the tackling debate, if that’s not a contradiction in terms. The issue is no longer tackles which maim but tackles which could have done so. The best of luck in sorting that out.

Traditionalists claim that any more clampdowns on tackling will neuter football. Modernisers insist that, if it isn’t checked, more career-threatening injuries are inevitable. Today’s players continue to muddy the waters and make life even more difficult for the officials by going down like they’ve been shot. Yesterday’s hard men must look at the game now and laugh.

If Vincent Kompany, a tough customer for sure, had been around in the good old, bad old days he’d have a snarly nickname like that of Ron Harris (“Chopper”), Norman Hunter (“Bites Yer Legs”) and our own Tam Forsyth (“Angelfish” – no, sorry, I mean “Jaws”). Almost certainly he’d be Vincent “Bad” Kompany. But of all the key participants in last Sunday’s controversy and aftermath, he’s emerged with the most credit.

Immediately following the match there were no accusations from him, no Twitter rages. Instead he let the dust settle and on Wednesday issued a grown-up statement marked out by measured tones and good sense. England, he said, likes “hardness” in football, also “fairness”. But exorcise the lusty tackle and you lose both. When his career’s over he’s not going to sell many X-rated DVDs (“Bad Kompany’s Baddest Tackles!”) but, on Etihad wages, he won’t have to.