John McCormick writes: news of a couple of surveys was e-mailed to the Salut! Sunderland team recently. The first e-mail was more or less a repeat of something we had a little while ago, from a website calling itself Dirtyplayers.co.uk. The second was new to me. We’re happy to share their findings but if I am honest, I’m not impressed by either survey and feel one, and only one, could have value.
The dirtyplayers.org wesbite originally reported, among other things, that Gareth Barry had accumulated the most ‘Dirty Points’ in the history of the Premier League and that Lee Cattermole was the dirtiest player based on number of appearances. The e-mail we got this week followed this up by telling us that Gareth Barry had picked up his 121st yellow card in the Spurs – West Brom game, and that he’d played 131 games for Everton, who had recently been branded the dirtiest team in Premier League history.
The second, from ticketgum via journalistic.org reported that (up to) 94 per cent of refs surveyed by ticketgum reported being abused during games …
dirty players
What me, dirty? Get yourself a good lawyer, Lee Cattermole
Just when you thought being bottom of the Championship made you safe from such things, along comes a website that actually calls itself DirtyPlayers.co.uk and calls into question our fond collective belief that in Lee Cattermole, Sunderland have the most cultured, gentlest and fairest of players without thought of tripping, crunching, nudging or pulling back opponents.