Led's Zeppelin
Can't Re Member
- May 28, 2013
- 7,365
- 20,242
St. Gordon Taylor OBE is a marvellous man. I'm hoping he will be genuinely canonised soon.
He is the union boss for that underpaid, under-appreciated, silent and invisible underclass of modern-day slavery, professional footballers.
So hard is his job that despite declaring zero-tolerance for gambling in football, the strain of the responsibility has led him to run up gambling debts of around £100,000 himself. And yet beneath the crushing burden of having to support himself and his gambling debts on a near-minimum-wage salary of no more than £3.4million, he still maintains his stoic readiness to stand in a shadow about once in every four months and mumble something about the good work he does looking after downtrodden Premiership players.
And when it comes to the coal-face, he's not afraid to get his hands dirty.
When confronted with a sensitive and difficult issue like Paul Gascoigne's personal issues, rather than hide behind the strict code of confidentiality required of lower-status lower-paid skivvies like the medical profession, he is quite ready to blurt out to the TV cameras all about the mental health problems and addictions that less exalted people than St Gordon might believe need to be kept private.
What a man.
Without him, it's hard to imagine what a state our poor footballers might be in.
I don't think many people can understand what a hard job it must be to protect the rights of premiership players and maintain decent working conditions for them whilst at the same time ensuring that the union that represents them does as little as possible to connect with the grubby people who actually pay for it all.
Canonise him I say. As soon as possible.
Out of the biggest fucking canon you can find.
He is the union boss for that underpaid, under-appreciated, silent and invisible underclass of modern-day slavery, professional footballers.
So hard is his job that despite declaring zero-tolerance for gambling in football, the strain of the responsibility has led him to run up gambling debts of around £100,000 himself. And yet beneath the crushing burden of having to support himself and his gambling debts on a near-minimum-wage salary of no more than £3.4million, he still maintains his stoic readiness to stand in a shadow about once in every four months and mumble something about the good work he does looking after downtrodden Premiership players.
And when it comes to the coal-face, he's not afraid to get his hands dirty.
When confronted with a sensitive and difficult issue like Paul Gascoigne's personal issues, rather than hide behind the strict code of confidentiality required of lower-status lower-paid skivvies like the medical profession, he is quite ready to blurt out to the TV cameras all about the mental health problems and addictions that less exalted people than St Gordon might believe need to be kept private.
What a man.
Without him, it's hard to imagine what a state our poor footballers might be in.
I don't think many people can understand what a hard job it must be to protect the rights of premiership players and maintain decent working conditions for them whilst at the same time ensuring that the union that represents them does as little as possible to connect with the grubby people who actually pay for it all.
Canonise him I say. As soon as possible.
Out of the biggest fucking canon you can find.
