I do not think the sportsmen are behaving any worse than the teams in the past and if you act like a chop these days there is going to be someone ready to film or instigate things to make a story. Social media can destroy a persons career just for the sake of going viral which is the big difference from the past and the present.
The latest events with the England cricket team bring back memories from when I was involved in team sports and stupid things do happen more often than they should. When you are in a team environment staying huddled up in a hotel with so many team members good ideas are not necessarily good ideas.
The England cricket team has had a few episodes over the last couple of years all revolving around alcohol and late nights surpassing the teams curfew. The problem arises when the police are involved which places the team in the public eye and this is negative press no team needs.
There is a big difference from what we got up to and what the England team have done as we were not a professional team and this was not our career. My team at the time had players who became professional cricketers and for some reason cricketers drank more than any of my other team sports.
I can recall certain matches where instead of driving to the grounds in the morning we were already there having slept in the changing rooms over night after a very late night drinking on the town. Not everyone as there are always the responsible ones but there will always be half the team that can be lead a stray. Looking back now these were definitely wild times and were not moments to be proud of. I have never been a big drinker so I was always controlled and would have been the voice of reason. We were young and never had a budget that included hotel accommodation so when travelling to play games a long way away we often slept in the changing rooms. When you are in the army you tend to not think normally and you can sleep anywhere lol.
I can recall the coach/manager at the time talking about a curfew for the players because we were challenging for the league title and this would have been the first silverware in the history of the club. I actually do not think it would have improved the teams performance knowing the characters involved and why I think England's decision to not have a curfew now is the right call.
A player should be able to let their hair down, but also be man enough to know when it is time to go or risk not being part of the team. The latest incident with one of their players has seen him being dropped and replaced by another player. This should be a wake up call knowing your career is on the line and if not then they deserve to miss out.
The problem these days is that we have social media and nothing stays out of the public eye. There will be plenty of people trying to make a name for themselves instigating situations that would not normally happen and I think this is what is happening to the English players and they are falling for it. When you have had too many drinks it is easy to see how things can head south pretty quickly especially if someone is looking for likes on social media.
One can only imagine the cricket teams of the 1980's with the likes of Botham and Lamb involved with the difference being there was no fighting. If there was social media back then who knows how they could have been framed.
