Fabrice Muamba shock revealed true spirit of game, says Gordon Strachan

THE collapse of Fabrice Muamba during a match on Saturday shocked millions around the country. But the reaction of those who were there also highlighted the community spirit which lies just under the surface of football, according to Gordon Strachan.

The former Celtic manager was working for ITV at the FA Cup match between Tottenham Hotspur and Bolton Wanderers and had expected to stay at White Hart Lane into the evening to take part in the network’s highlights programme.

The show went ahead in the studio instead, but by the time Strachan left the Spurs ground he had witnessed a moving sight: the entire crowd united in their support of the medical team who were trying to revive the Bolton player.

“It was an incredible sight,” Strachan explained yesterday. “The crowd were quiet for about three or four minutes, then they started singing his name. Then it went quiet again.

“Then one of the medics was giving him CPR and every time he beat his chest the crowd were surging forward, urging him on. It then got to the stage that it turned into a roar, just like when a game kicks off.

“They were trying to wish this guy better. And everybody was hoping ‘Please, move an arm, move a leg, do something’. It was an extraordinary atmosphere. We do act badly sometimes, managers, players, fans. We change. Everybody changes when they go to a football match.

“But in one moment there was a collective will there, to hope this guy would move. They knew right away this was a problem. These people were wanting this guy to recover. But before that they were shouting ‘Kick him, shove him’, this, that and everything.

“We’re all the same. [Spurs assistant manager] Joe Jordan was screaming at the fourth official, the players were moaning at each other.

“And then it suddenly goes. And it shows you that the game can change people. We have to remember that. We’re not all bad and it is just a game.”

Strachan has concentrated on media work since resigning as the boss of Middlesbrough in October 2010 and appears in no hurry to get back into management. His love of the game is unchanged, however, and he insists that the vast majority of those involved in football are essentially decent people, no matter if they get carried away during a match.

“That 90 minutes brings out the worst in us sometimes. We have to understand sometimes that if fans are screaming for a manager’s head, that’s the way they are. Then, in an hour’s time, when they’ve sat down at home they’ll ask ‘What was I doing screaming at the manager?’

“Or what was a manager doing screaming at another manager. Or the referee. Or two players arguing with each other.”

While he has experienced that kind of abuse during a match, and learned to live with it long ago, Strachan is thankful that he has been the recipient of very little grief elsewhere. Some players or managers involved with the Old Firm may find it hard to go about their daily lives unmolested, but he has rarely come across the kind of misguided supporter whose fanaticism extends to screaming at an opposing player or manager in the street two or three days after a game.

“You really don’t meet many of them. I’m not being funny, but the people who would do that are not really right anyway. They’ve not got social skills or anything, people who would say things like that to you.

“And say I did get some abuse like that, in Glasgow or somewhere, I didn’t think ‘Oh, that’s a Rangers supporter’. I just thought ‘The guy’s a backside’. It doesn’t matter what colours you’re wearing: you’re either a backside or a decent person and that’s the way I always took it.”

The cliche is to say that events such as Muamba’s heart attack put football into perspective, but Strachan, for all he loves the game, has always been able to keep it in its place. “When I’ve taken time out of football I’ve gone and done things I’d always meant to: I’ve been on safaris, my wife and I visited the Bernabeu Stadium because I’d never played there, I’ve been to Australia, Great Barrier Reef. There’s very little that I still want to do, but going to the Masters is one, and I’m doing that next week.”

He is taking a break from management just now, and has done the same in the past, notably after deciding his time at Celtic was at an end. But he has never wanted to take a break from all football, and incidents such as Saturday’s have only stengthened his belief that it is a force for good.

“Football is an incredible environment where you meet so many good people, contrary to what you may hear,” he said. “I believe everybody has one sport they’re good at, and if you find it your time will be taken up with that, and through that you’ll have discipline, your social skills will get better. And I think Britain as a whole will get better.”