To boo or not to boo?

At Wembley yesterday, the booing of Ashley Cole was unnecessary and frankly, shameful. Football is a game where goals are scored largely by virtue of another player's mistake. Even the most wonderful of goals can usually be traced back to, at the very least, the opposition giving the ball away. Cole made a mistake, nothing more. He hadn't had a great game, but England themselves had not covered themselves with glory, and despite the fact that the error had gifted Kazakhstan a way back into the game, he did not deserve the reaction that followed.

Nearly 90,000 turned up a Wembley for a game that should, and ultimately did, prove to be a comfortable win for the home nation, but it is a wonder that such numbers turn out given the fractious and fragile nature of their support. It was wholly predictable, and somewhat deserved, that the half time whistle would be greeted with a chorus of boos. I don't think Fabio Capello or anybody else can have great complaint with this. The derision is aimed at the whole team (and Capello himself) for an unsatisfactory half. But when a player becomes singled out it is malicious.

What are the roots of this discontent? It is nothing new to Wembley. The old Wembley had a similar atmosphere when the Manchester United players were singled out. Gary Neville would get booed from the first whistle to the last even if he was the best player on the field. This, of course, is nothing more than club allegiance. The new Chelsea had not emerged and United were winning the Premiership virtually every year and a large percentage of the Wembley gathering is southern-based. This can also be reinforced by virtue of the fact that that particular trait was ended when England took to the road, albeit that many of the games were played at Old Trafford.

These days, my opinion is that we live in a time where the media is celebrity obsessed and with it comes the need for these people to live perfect lives. Seemingly there is no room for an actress to have a spot on the face in public without ridicule and every indiscretion is leapt upon with glee from the tabloid press. Ashley Cole is no stranger to the front and back pages of the Sunday press having had his wage negotiations and his marriage played out in full view of the world. This in turn has led to cat calls at Wembley. If there is any justification for him being vilified for his conduct during his acrimonious move to Chelsea, I'm still old-fashioned enough to believe that whatever his marriage difficulties are, they are not for the judgement of several thousand punters that have paid to watch a football match.

The fact is none of us live perfect lives. Show me a person that hasn't made a mistake at work and I'll show you one that is unemployed. It happens, we take a bollocking from the boss and move on and hope that we learn from said mistake. If Cole was to do the same thing on Wednesday night, I'll leap out of my armchair and throw some abuse at the television, but only for the fact that he hasn't learnt the lesson.

Another valid point of view is the lack of identification with the players in these days of the multi-millionaire footballer. Why should a player earning upwards of £100,000 a week make a crass error that would not be made by a sub-paying player on a Sunday morning. I refer to the previous paragraphs, because he is not perfect.

True enough, England were flattered enormously by their win yesterday and the game could have been very different had Kazakhstan taken a golden chance immediately after half time, and similarly I believe Morecambe had a couple of chances before Gillingham took hold of their game. But both teams won by handsome amounts, let us just accept the victories as three points each and spare the heavy criticism for when it is truly warranted.