83565221_collymore_241223cby Mike Devlin

There are two certain things in this life according to Benjamin Franklin; death and taxes. He was right of course, until we arrived at the modern era, where we find a third: being blocked on Twitter by Stan Collymore.

As a matter of recourse, I will say that I haven’t been blocked by Stan – although I suspect that is forthcoming should he read this; hi Stan! It’s @BlueWolf1894 just to make things easier for yourself – but I have blocked him. Oh, the sweet, sweet taste of satisfaction.

But anyway; Stan. Not that great of a footballer it has to be said (which is weird for someone who became at the time the most expensive English transfer ever), and now bastion of all things loud and vociferous. He resides on talkSPORT where he tends toc argue with invited guests/fans/non-fans/plants/gravity in a tone that suggests “I did some kicky-about stuff so therefore I know more than you, and you don’t knows you nuffin’ – nuffin’, I said!”

Friday night, however, it was less about him (no, it really wasn’t, but I am really, really trying to be objective here), and more about Fabian Delph: Despicable, disgraceful, disgusting, and most definitely disterrible. There was no love lost for the man, from ironically, one who seems to incessantly crave it.

Could you argue with Stan? I’m sorry that is obviously a rhetorical question, much like his own questions to his audience, whereby he refuses to listen to anyone who does not agree with him 100%. I’m sorry, Stan, you do not agree? Let’s see these innocent messages sent to you on Twitter that you deemed reprehensible:

Collymore tweet 1

Collymore tweet 2

Collymore tweet 3

Collymore tweet 4

Collymore tweet 5

Collymore tweet 6

Collymore tweet 7

Now many of these Tweets to him were first timers – I could have displayed all those ‘punchy’ and ‘dogging’ tweets but that would have been unfair, and totally uncalled for, so I will not mention that again. What they were, were merely Tweets that were not offensive, yet our Stan was offended. Bless him.

The result? Everyone of those ended up immediately being blocked by Stan the Man; he sure does love blocking, something perhaps Ulrika should have learned to do.*

But going back to Delph, the main question was one of loyalty, or a certain lack thereof. Stan was most annoyed – but then he usually is – and he took to the airwaves to vent his annoyance at 114dB. So you want to talk about loyalty, Stan? OK, let’s do that then.

Longest time you’ve ever been at a club? That would be three years, ironically at Delph’s old club, Aston Villa. Not that you stayed there exclusively because you were sent on loan to Fulham for a brief period. You had been at Forest, before the aforementioned record transfer fee that took you to Liverpool – massive loyalty there, I’m sure you’ll agree, Stan. In fact that loyalty prevented you from staying anywhere for too long, which I suppose was due to your predisposition of being self-centred and “not a team player”, as was once reported in The Telegraph, amongst other places. It even ended up with you facing a £7m lawsuit case brought by your last club, Real Oviedo with you staying there for essentially what amounted to twenty-eight minutes. Loyalty.

So there we have it; opinionated without allowing anyone else to have an opinion themselves, and loyalty only when it suits. This is why I’ve written my opinion down – I almost called you to say all this live on air, but I knew it would be pointless as you’d just be shouty, refuse to let me speak and then ultimately cut me off (that’s what you do, Stan). But as you can see, I’ve not been offensive, I’ve not been abusive, I haven’t shouted, I’ve not been disrespectful, and I haven’t made anything up (OK, maybe the ‘twenty-seven minutes’ bit, but it wasn’t that far from the truth), but that doesn’t matter to you, does it, Stan? No, of course not.

There’s never been loyalty in football; it is a fallacy brought on by nostalgia. Sure some players stay longer than others, and whilst you, Stan, or anyone else will point to the past, you forget that this was before the Bosman ruling that allowed clubs to retain player’s contracts indefinitely. Not so much ‘loyalty’, more ‘trapped’. Modern day players who do remain at a club for a long time (do not dare say ‘Gerrard’) are in fact the exception to the rule; grass is green, Stan, just because Kentucky Bluegrass is sort of blue, doesn’t change the fact that grass is green.

None of what I have said here is going to change anything, but I suspect most, if not all, will have readers nodding their heads in agreement, but if not? Well, you know what, Stan? That’s okay. Having a different opinion is fine by me; I do not insist that I’m right and everyone else who disagrees with me is not allowed to think that way.

Maybe you should try it.

* Sorry, sorry, sorry – I said I wasn’t going to mention that again