The strength of Frank Lampard

I’ve never met Frank Lampard. As with any other famous person, people look at Lampard on the television and judge him from afar. Some people love him, others hate him. For some it’s a question of colours, while others are able to see past the shirt and see, well, the bloke underneath.

I am no different from anyone else who follows football in that I also hold opinions on the players. I wasn’t at all impressed with Lampard the footballer in the 2006 World Cup, for example; on the other hand I felt a tremendous surge of affection for the man when he broke down after dedicating his goal to his late mother.

On the 24th April a London DJ called James O’Brien decided to judge Lampard for allegedly abandoning his children to a poorer lifestyle, calling him “weak” and “scum”. Lampard responded to the DJ live on the show, and the conversation was replayed time and again on various websites.

During the conversation O’Brien mentioned the “nature of the job” – but it isn’t the nature of his job to insult people, and it is the nature of his job to check facts and give the right to reply before calling somebody names. He also stated that “sixty million people can’t ring Frank Lampard” – indeed they can’t, but he could, and if the people can’t then all the more reason to check the facts first in order to avoid misleading the listeners.

O’Brien also stated that he would fight “tooth and flipping nail” so as not to allow his family to be split up – I have no reason to doubt that he would, but that doesn’t alter the fact that some couples separate and even divorce. I’m sure those couples – including the Lampards –also fight to keep their family together, but it isn’t always possible as any mature person will understand.

Many of the news websites that carried the story described the conversation as an “outburst”, Lampard as “furious” and the situation as being one in which the player “lost his cool” – but hearing the conversation I would say that he went nowhere near the red mist that has been described in the press. There was no ranting and raving, no raised voices or swearwords. He was calm and articulated his feelings well.

For what it is worth – and Frank Lampard needn’t give a damn what I think about anything – the man behaved with maturity and dignity, and as I am as guilty as the next person of judging from afar, I have to say Lampard has gone up in my estimation.

Like I said, I’ve never met Frank Lampard. I’ve never met James O’Brien either, but the difference is that I’ve heard of Lampard. Perhaps that’s the point – now O’Brien has had his fifteen minutes of fame.