The Times - UK (2021-12-21)

60 Tuesday December 21 2021 | the times

SportFootball

work. And then being let down by a

selfish star.

Leeds are doing it right. Get

vaccinated. Leeds know the enormity

of the virus. The Leeds legend

Norman Hunter died after

contracting coronavirus in April 2020.

Kalvin Phillips’s beloved Granny Val

passed away with Covid in February.

Anyone with any knowledge of the

players knows that they feel a sense

of duty to community, and that

entails getting the jabs.

It’s right that the Premier League

show goes on, fulfilling the festive

fixture list, because it is all about

broadcast obligations and fears over

fixture congestion. But there needs to

be greater consistency in Premier

League thinking. Leeds were

struggling with injuries as well as

Covid yet ordered to play on against

Arsenal. Chelsea were thrown to the

Wolves. Aston Villa were rescued

three hours before kick-off against

Burnley. Manchester United were

reprieved the night before their game

with Brentford. No consistency.

Clubs know that government

intervention may come in January

with the possibility of games behind

closed doors if the R number

continues to rise. That is why players

need to be vaccinated, partly because

they are role models and send a

message out to the wider community.

The level of “lies and

misinformation” — to borrow Jürgen

Klopp’s phrase — percolating online

among the anti-vaxxers is concerning.

Chatting with NHS staff while

receiving my booster jab at the start

of the weekend, it was alarming to

hear one nurse detail how she came

off social media because of abuse

from anti-vaxxers. The other said that

the portable sign outside the vaccine

centre had had razor-blades taped to

it, so that staff would cut themselves

when bringing it in.

So it was heartening at the end of

the weekend to hear such measured

comments from Jude Bellingham, the

18-year-old England player, who told

the BBC’s Sally Nugent he had “both

jabs and the booster to be safe”. It is

important that players speak out.

They will receive some of the abuse

the NHS heroes do. But that shows

Bellingham’s strength of character.

Same with Rob Price and the

players, staff and executive at Leeds.

In May, at the Player of the Year

Awards at Elland Road, Price received

the Bobby Collins Award for guiding

the club through the pandemic. He

still is. Those clubs with still

embarrassingly low take-up numbers

of the vital vaccine should take note.

W

hen the parents of

Rob Price, Leeds

United’s hugely

respected head of

medicine and

performance, passed away from Covid

within a fortnight of each other in

January, he gathered the players at

Thorp Arch and urged them to get

the vaccine when eligible.

The players knew the tragedy that

had occurred. Colin Price went into

hospital for a procedure and caught

Covid. Hazel Price went in to

say goodbye to her husband

and also contracted the

virus. Leeds mourned

with Price, right. It is

why all 82 members of

Leeds’s staff, from

playing to management,

media to canteen, who

operate in the “red zone” of

match day, are double-

vaccinated and why they all got

the booster either last week or after

Saturday’s game against Arsenal.

They listen to Price, who has

worked with distinction at Hull City,

Fifa, Liverpool, England Under-21 and

as a physiotherapist in the NHS in

the 1990s. They heed the advice of a

medical expert who is so admired by

players because of his experience, his

character, his story. Given the rigours

of Marcelo Bielsa’s training, Price is

an important individual in the lives of

Leeds’s players. They trust him.

So they rolled up their sleeves and

got jabbed. This is how you face the

pandemic. With courage and

Tragedy that

inspired Leeds

stars to get jab

knowledge. And this is why all clubs

should follow Leeds’s example. Listen

to the experts. The Premier League

trumpeted on Monday night that “92

per cent of players and club staff have

received one, two or three vaccination

doses, with 84 per cent of players on

the vaccination journey”. Leeds’s

players and staff, barring one player

still awaiting his booster, are at 100

per cent first-jabbed, second-jabbed

and boosted because everyone

understands the importance of the

vaccine. They are not like a couple of

the dressing-room residents at

Manchester United who believe

the anti-vax cranks on Facebook.

Leeds follow the science not the

conspiracy theorists.

Strong leadership helped Leeds

players and staff on the vaccine

journey, from Bielsa, the manager, to

Liam Cooper, the captain, to

Angus Kinnear, the chief

executive, the director of

football Victor Orta and

the owner Andrea

Radrizzani. Price’s

desperate experience hit

home, too. Nobody at

Leeds has spoken publicly

about it (and I received

permission from Price and

the club to write this) but fans

did note the outpouring of support

from the players in January.

After the victory at St James’ Park

on January 26, Cooper and the

players held up a shirt in the dressing

room with “PRICE” on the back.

“When one suffers we all suffer,”

Cooper tweeted. “Condolences to Rob

and his family. That was for you and

yours mate.”

That’s why the players followed

Price’s instructions to get vaccinated.

They respected an expert who had

wretched personal experience of

Covid’s pernicious threat. Price knew

the vaccine would protect staff. Even

Henry Winter

Chief Football

Writer

if they did contract Covid, as one

player did suddenly before Saturday’s

match with Arsenal, the vaccine

would provide a certain insurance

against being hospitalised.

With injury taking a toll, Leeds had

only eight recognised players for the

game but, being Leeds, and not ones

to complain, they got on with it.

If anything, there is a cogent

argument that Leeds were effectively

being punished by the Premier

League for being so committed to the

vaccine. Where is the justice in this?

If Leeds had unvaccinated players,

who’d been in contact with somebody

who tested positive, they would have

had to isolate for ten days and the

club could have asked for the Arsenal

game to be called off.

Leeds are too measured as a club to

let rip but they could have rounded

on the club that got a game

postponed because one or more of

their unvaccinated players was

isolating. They hadn’t tested positive.

They had just come into a contact

with somebody who had, so they had

ten days in the domestic slammer.

Those individuals should feel

ashamed. Football’s anti-vaxxers

should think of their fans, who spent

hard-earned money to attend that

match, booking travel and some even

accommodation, juggling shifts or

negotiating with bosses for time off

separates good coaches

from the great.

Chelsea alone had

two contenders who

deserved the coach’s

award more. Thomas

Tuchel guided the

men’s team skilfully to

Champions League

glory. The charismatic

Emma Hayes steered

the women’s side to the

domestic treble.

Medals matter.

G

areth Southgate

is an admirable

leader, a master

man-manager and a

delight for the media

but he did not deserve

the BBC Sports

Personality Coach of

the Year award. When

England’s players most

needed direction from

the dugout, Southgate

failed to respond to

Roberto Mancini’s

tactical changes in the

final of Euro 2020.

This swooning

celebration of being a

runner-up should be

replaced by analysis of

his delayed response to

growing Italian control

at Wembley on July 11.

Southgate did superbly

to get England to the

final but failed to get

them over the finishing

line. That’s what

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Southgate was

named Coach of

the Year for taking

England’s men to

their first major

final since 1966