I'm trying to be as careful as I can here, and refrained from posting on the VT forum as it just descends into dick measuring competitions as to whose clubs have worse offenders.

But, in light of recent activities concerning our sport - and our team - I have to wonder if clubs actually do anything to educate and develop their players off the field, too?

In other sports, let's take football for example, when kids are on clubs' academies, they are given education on their sport, but also Sport Science and lessons on how to deal with the media; avoiding sticky situations and tricky questions, and such like. Let's compare Wayne Rooney with Shaun Ainscough. Quite different, I know, but Wayne Rooney gave one public interview whilst at Everton and since his move to Manchester United, he has been able to conceal his apparent lack of lexical choice or broader understanding of the English language beyond "erm, y'know" and "great" and still manages to scrape through interviews understood by most of the audience. Shaun Ainscough on the other hand, was interviewed this year on SKY and probably even the Wiganers needed subtitles. It was a bit cringeworthy tbh and it doesn't portray our game or its players in the best possible light.

Moving onto instances such as flouting of the law, do players not understand that they are in the local public eye and will attract antagostic peers. It took Steven Gerrard a decade and tens of England caps to be involved in a scrape in a club; some Rugby League players have got themselves into trouble before their careers have begun properly.

My point is; do clubs do enough to educate players on the pitfalls of their careers and, if not, should they? Should they be taking young players into classrooms and workshops and telling them with all the talent in the world, some players won't ever reach their full potential due to their off-field antics and some will waste whatever careers they have built for themselves, eg Bobbie Goulding.
Or should they just leave them be and let them educate themselves?

Excellent post.

A couple of weeks ago I asked one current Wigan academy player if they ever got any media training.

The answer was a rather obvious "No"

Jut look at the reply from the young player on the Dougie Charnock thread. Do we teach English at school anymore?

At the end of the day, many fotballers at Premier League clubs gain their media training, sport science knowledge and what have you, during their time at the club's reserve grade. These people are on full time contracts where after their training is done for the day, they can afford to stay and learn how to deal with the media and learn what alcohol does to the body. The reserves at Super League clubs are on part time contracts, where the bulk of their time with the club is focused on training, matches and I presume the odd video session. All of which (I presume) is done during evenings and weekends.

my mates lad spent time at both everton and blackburn from the age of 12 through to 15,everthing was based purely on footballing matters,no media or more importantly life skills training.if any youngsters make it to footballing premier league status this is pretty much the case anyway,the clubs provide people to sort out their houses,cars and ultimately any legal assistance they require but the individual has to be responsible for their own behaviour and know the difference between right and wrong.
everyone makes the wrong choice or decision when growing through your teenage years and on into early adulthood,that's what defines what type of character you will become,if you learn by these mistakes then that's fine,if you don't then trouble won't be far away regardless of whether you are a proffesional athlete or the average man on the street.
a sporting club cannot take responsibilty for it's staff when they are out of it's environment,they just hope that their players will avoid getting themselves into situations which can be to the detriment of all concerned.
we as a sport have no more of a problem than football or rugby union with the way our players behave,the lifestyle of young people with expendable cash nowadays is fraught with temptation and risk so ultimately the choices are in their own hands,most young people don't take the advice of their parents anyway so it's unlikely that they would listen to someone else as well.

Surely you mean

er, erm, erm, no, I don't fink so, ya know what I mean like.

"Well erm, at de end ov de day we worked ard an got de result"

Is that meant to sound like Lenny Henry used to on Tiswas when he did the comedy Rastafarian character whose name escapes me?

Algernon Winston Spencer Castlereagh Razzmatazz

Footballers have no passion when they give interviews, because they have been brain washed into spouting as many cliches as possible. Give me Ainscough interview anyday where you can detect the passion and excitement in his voice.

Seriously, it's an interview, not a cup final.

'"

This is how it should be done.

Listen to Sam Tomkins video interview.
[urlhttp://www.wiganwarriors.com/index.asp[/url

Was it Richard Moore last season with the 'Yeh, ya know' interview?

That's because he's a good warrington lad.

Er Are you sure. Drink driving offence at 19, a shoplifting offence a couple of years before (he might of not been in the Liverpool team at this age, but everyone knew his talent and that he had a better chance the most of making it).

Not to mention the dubious company he has kept over the years.

That's the VT and the Sin Bin down to a T, fella. I'm going to read the rest of your post now, but just thought I would get that one in. Personal feelings and all that, you know.

Paul Sculthorpe was renowned for using "you know" every other sentence.

I seen an interview a couple of weeks ago with our lord Tony Smith and even HE was getting into the swing of things with it.

Paul Cooke and Craig Gower might have had some off field incidents but they were great with the media, both intelligent and articulate. Gower would have been a great ambassador for league in Aus, a smart bloke who made a shedload of money outside the game through his business interests, he just had a habit of acting like a plank when he was on the booze.