Graham Kelly: Courts are no place for routine sporting mishaps

Stephen Breach is, if I may borrow one of David Mellor's time-honoured phrases, the salt of the earth. At the age of 47 his playing career was not so much winding down as grinding to a full stop.

The new season dawned as it always does on an August Saturday, bright and sunny, and Steve reckoned his old head could coax his legs through a fourth year with Broadbridge Heath down in the Second Division of the Sussex County League. He was the guy who could be relied upon to bring the kids along from his position as sweeper. He had been a part-time professional with Margate, had 10 years with Crawley, and captained the county representative side, so his grounding gleaned as a junior at Arsenal and Brighton could always be put to good effect with the younger players.

But the new season lasted only 43 minutes for Steve. Attempting to shield the ball from an opponent in midfield, there was a collision, which resulted in the opponent falling to the pitch holding his nose. Steve was sent off, much to his surprise. He had a good disciplinary record, having been sent off once for denying a goal-scoring opportunity four years ago, and believed the referee this time was influenced by the opponent going to ground with a bloodied nose.

The following Monday a white police van arrived where Steve worked as a transport manager and took him to the police station. Steve was arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm. Three weeks later he was charged with occasioning actual bodily harm and thereby ended up in Croydon Crown Court last week on trial for five days.

He was old-fashioned enough to be quite concerned when he gazed down from the dock and realised his good name depended on his ability to convince a jury including eight women that, when his challenger closed him down at speed back in August, his instinctive attempt to put his arm out was merely part of his legitimate ploy to make himself big.

What Steve did not know until after his arrest was that the complainant, i.e. the injured party, the opponent, was, in fact, a police officer. The sergeant who arrested him told the court she kept this from him because she did not want to intimidate him.

The jury had to decide essentially a straightforward football issue, without advice from the video advisory panel. The complainant said he had been deliberately elbowed as he challenged for the ball. The referee had the ball five or six yards away, which was wrong. The referee's assistants gave accounts that differed from the referee's, but both said there was a deliberate elbow.

Steve and two long-time members of his club testified to the effect that it was a completely accidental collision which caused the blow to the player's nose. It is scarcely credible that the criminal justice system can be set in motion in consequence of an injury of which there are many, many thousands every sporting weekend of the year. The phrase "wasting police time" leaps to mind.

Did it not occur to anyone in the prosecutor's department that, if, as had been complained, Stephen Breach had really been guilty of viciously elbowing his opponent with premeditation off the ball, there might not have been a bit of a dust-up afterwards?

The complainant informed his colleagues in the local nick that it was possible he would have to undergo reconstruction surgery, though this seems rather less than likely from the small laceration described by the senior house doctor at Haywards Heath Hospital, where butterfly stitching was administered before discharge.

Though some elements sometimes act as if they are untouchable, I am not suggesting that football should be above the law. But if the full weight of the criminal justice system is to be invoked, then it should at least be for something far removed from the normal rough and tumble of the on-the-ball challenge, an incident of serious import resulting from off-the-ball behaviour.

Steve Breach need not have been so apprehensive about the women on the jury, for the panel unanimously accepted his version of the incident. As the Football Association spokesman said after the cases involving the two Leeds players, Alan Smith and Mark Viduka: "They were accidental collisions in the context of a physical contact sport".

Steve was given the standard 35 days' suspension for being sent off, so step forward also the gentlemen of the Sussex County Football Association who, on hearing of his acquittal, have now cancelled his appeal hearing and quashed his red card on account of the harrowing time he has had. He may yet play again next season.

grahamkelly@btinternet.com