John Terry and his cheating: Why no one should care

Apparently, John Terry has cheated on his wife/partner/girlfriend/whatever she is to him. I heard this on the grapevine. Through the subtle and tasteful network of information that is the weekend tabloids (...), we have been informed of this, then slapped across the face with it, beaten over the head with it, and had its sorry, unimportant arse rubbed in our faces. And for what reason?

SO WHAT!? I genuinely feel sorry for people who find this kind of garbage news interesting enough to warrant frontpage coverage, with follow up stories and way too many inches of comment articles from loudmouth journalists over the course of the week, that have taken to this with dispicable glee.

And I've rarely been more infuriated when reading a newspaper than when I read the two cents of Terry Prone (Evening Herald, 3rd February). It's bad enough that there was yet MORE coverage of an ENGLISH football player in an IRISH tabloid (that wasn't the sports pages), but when Prone began to condone this kind of coverage and analysis of something that really should be kept private, my letter-of-complaint writing hand began to itch quite badly.

It was as if this event is something monumental, not just in the world of tabloid journalism but also in the sporting world, which anybody knows is pure bull. As a sports journalist myself, I know that when I'm reporting on a match or commenting on a player's ability, I certainly do not delve into his private life (apart from the possible one use of the horrible "playing offside" joke in passing), yet Prone seems to think that sports journalists gloss over private lives of sports professionals in fear of not getting an exclusive interview. Absolute madness.

She then shakes her head in disapproval because he is the England team captain, and he is an idol for millions of young English footballers. He shouldn't cheat because these kids will learn to copy him.

Did she stop to think for one second that the very thing she was doing was adding fuel to that fire? These young footballers would never hear ANYTHING about Terry cheating if the tabloids had eased up on the coverage, and the sports journalists focussed purely on the football side of things (which in most cases, they did).

I'm beginning to get the feeling that every woman feels personally insulted when a public male figure cheats on his wife. I can't remember the last time there was as much furore over a female celebrity cheating on her husband. Well, I'll be waiting in the wings with bated breath and keen interest to see how the media reacts to this next case of this.