Wayne has burned all our bridges

I cannot understand Wayne Bridges decision to withdraw from the England team. He issued a statement saying "My position in the England team is untenable and potentially divisive". How untrue is that, he is a footballer, he doesn't even know words like that, let alone what they mean. I smell a rat, or Max Clifford as he is more commonly known.

The behaviour of footballers recently has shown no respect for their teams, the owners of football clubs that pay them these ridiculous amounts of money, their wives, team mates, fans, or country.

The word 'Team' is now a term associated with the person the public supports, usually because they appear to have been ill treated by their partner. Team Andre or Price, the Manchester City players wore shirts with 'Team Bridge' on them! And, Ashley Cole who seems more interested in scoring wearing a really bad pair of pants than an England shirt. Steven Gerrard throwing a strop because the DJ wasn't playing the song he wanted, well not everyone wants to listen to Ferry cross the bleedin Mersey, or you'll never walk alone 24/7.

Is this professional football they are involved in, or a script from a poor soap opera which was itself supposed to be a dramatised fantasy of the premier league but is now actually more like a factual documentary. The story lines from 'Dream team' and 'Footballers wives' are not so far fetched anymore and scenes are being reenacted for real, in real clubs, by real players!.

Who is to blame? The managers of clubs have to take some responsibility, they encourage, sometimes demand that their top players are settled with a wife and preferably a child. It makes for a more focused player apparently, they wont want to go out clubbing and pulling birds. I am not condoning a married guy being unfaithful at all, I am condemning some managers for making this so called 'Settled' lifestyle a prerequisite for success in his side.

These young men, mid to late twenties are fit, good looking, good physique, famous and very very rich. That is a cocktail to excite the taste buds of a large number of young women, with more than sex on their mind, their own fame and more often than not a nice bung from a national newspaper for telling after the kissing is over.

That is a story on it's own.

The only true fact usually associated with newspapers is the one that scandal sells. A photo of Ashley Cole with someone other than his wife is far more attractive to an editor than one with her.

This week Fabio Capella went out to inspect the facilities for the England team out in South Africa, he was very happy with them, what did journalists report? The opposite of course. The Sun which is Britain's most popular tabloid has an average daily readership of 7,900,000 and was first published on September 15th 1964, two years after England won their first and only world cup. I have no doubts that if they had of been selling newspapers just 30 months earlier our chances of winning that championship would have been destroyed.

Having said all that, there really is only one party to blame, Labour. Seriously though, sports people, TV celebrities and basically anyone who puts themselves in the line of the paparazzi lens have got to stop and seriously think about the effect their actions have on not just those closest to them, but a nation as a whole. I am sure I'm not alone in thinking we had a great chance of a good run in South Africa this year, we have since lost captain marvel, the replacement captain Rio Ferdinand isn't likely to be fit for any decent length of time, maybe drugs can pull him through his injuries, just don't give any urine samples Rio. Ashley Cole is out with a broken foot and even if he recovers from that his heart will be broken and we still don't know if he will be allowed out from sex addiction rehab by England's first game against the USA. Today Wayne Bridge pulled out because he feels he can't play alongside the guy that had sex with the Mother of his child. Seems to me he has chosen the wrong time to exercise pulling out.

Whoever is right or wrong doesn't come into it, as far as I'm concerned we the public have been cheated on. We are now looking for a new, youngish, fit, strong guy that can 'Play back and think of England'.