Liam Kelly: Football Isnt Always The Most Important Thing

While everyone was watching last weekend with baited breath to see what was going to happen to Fabrice Muamba, there was a terrible event taking place in Scotland, which really does show perhaps the most horrible contrast of emotions imaginable.

Kilmarnock defeated Celtic 1-0 to win the Scottish League Cup last Sunday. It should have been a joyous occasion, but one of their players, young midfielder Liam Kelly suffered a tremendous personal tragedy, with the news that his dad had died of a heart attack just after the final whistle.

In an instant what should have been perhaps the best day of his life became perhaps the worst. He was seen running up the tunnel just before the rest of his team mates went to collect their medals, and his Dad died a short time later.

Anyone who has lost a parent knows just how horrible it is, especially when young, but somehow it makes it doubly awful given the circumstances. It should have been a joyful occasion, one for everyone to enjoy and- given what happened, it will be forever be tainted, and tainted for the Kelly family in the most awful way imaginable.

Spare a thought too for his team mates. They too – although not grief stricken of course – were unable to enjoy the day as much as they would like. Killie Manager Kenny Shiels even questioned a higher power after the game when he said: “post-match press conference, Kilmarnock manager Kenny Shiels said: "The dressing room is very despondent and I don't know why the man above sends down these messages to us.
"We are thinking more about Liam than our triumphalism."

Goalkeeper Cammy Bell, a close friend of Kelly, was particularly upset when he said: “"If I could take away my performance I would, if Liam's dad was all right.

The point of this blog, other to send the very, very best wishes of all at Football Business, Football Franchise and Soccer Business to Liam Kelly and his family at this dreadful time, is to say that sometimes we all forget that football isn’t as important as we sometimes think it is.

We all get wrapped up in a bubble. Our teams can be the most important thing to us, our lives can revolve around football – and of course so can our working lives too, but no matter how much importance we place on it, something like this – and perhaps what happened to Fabrice Muamba – does, as Callum Bell said “put things into perspective for me.”

And yet, as we saw last week, the football community can pull together in a way that few other communities these days can manage. The Kilmarnock players wore t-shirts bearing the slogan “we are all with you” before their game at the weekend, but as the Tottenham and Bolton players plan to show their support for Muamba tonight at their re-arranged cup game, so hopefully Liam and his family can find some comfort from that.

Sometimes, as we have been reminded recently, it isn’t just what happens on the pitch that makes football a beautiful game, but equally the “game” part of that phrase is one we would do well to remember.

Fabrice Mumaba - Some Good From Tradegy

The news the Fabrice Muamba has today had a “brief chat” with his Manager Owen Coyle is a great fillip to everyone who cares about football, or who was watching the game on Saturday either at White Hart Lane, or as I was, on TV.

What we have seen in the last few days really shows that football, for all its faults can still be a tremendous force for good. It can bring people together in a way that other sports, and indeed pretty much anything else, cannot.

We have seen football fans put aside their petty – and sometimes nasty – rivalries in order to support a player with which, perhaps, we can all identify, we have seen opposing players, often as we all know guilty of appalling acts of cynicism on the field genuinely care for Muamba, and we can only hope that the players himself when he is well enough, and his family and friends now can derive great comfort from the emotion.

And while making his recovery, if Fabrice is looking to draw strength from recent events he could do worse than have a look at the tale of one time Irish international Clive Clarke.

Clive Clarke was a full back or midfielder, primarily at Stoke City, for whom he made 262 appearances in between 1998 and 2005. In 2007 he was at Leicester on loan from Sunderland when he collapsed at half time in a Carling Cup Match between The Foxes and Nottingham Forest.

Just like Muamba, he was a young, fit footballer, slightly older than the Bolton man, he was 27 and too he had suffered a cardiac arrest however, like we all hope that Muamba will, was recover and carry on a normal life.

Clarke spoke to the BBC the other day and told how the dreadful events at Tottenham had echoes of what had happened to him four and a half years before. “"I came down the tunnel at half-time feeling a little bit dizzy, light-headed," he said. “"I went into the changing room, sat down and the next thing I knew I woke up in the back of an ambulance.

"I think the players and management staff probably feared the worst. They thought that I had probably died in the changing room.

"I was lucky I had good people around me who acted very quickly and saved my life."
And the story is much the same for the Bolton man – largely due to his position as a Premier League player thankfully, he was able to receive the best medical care available and perhaps more immediately than most would have done in the same situation.

Clarke said that it was only a couple of days after the event that he began to reflect on what had occurred that day. Doctors did tests, but no one knows why a fit young athlete should be struck down with a Cardiac Arrest in the first place.

And, that perhaps is the biggest mystery of them all and one of the reasons why there has been so much emotion towards Muamba. It just shouldn’t happen to one so young, and so fit. On the flip side of that, though, that natural fitness and youth is probably what saved both Muamba and Clarke before him.

The Irishman was unable to resume his football career at top level. He was advised not to by Medical Staff, but remains in the game as a part time agent, and just last month was calling for routine heart scans to be brought into the game as a matter of course.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, given what he has been through Clarke is heavily involved in a charity called Cry (Cardiac Risk In The Young), something he admits he wasn’t aware of before it happened to him.

It’s fair to say that, perhaps the story of what happened to Clarke perhaps isn’t as well known as that of Fabrice Muamba, but it is easy to forget that, even in 2007 the world was a very different place. The place most of us followed the news of Muamba on Saturday night was on Twitter, which was relatively unknown even five years ago.

If the fact that so many millions of people around the world are now aware of the risk of health problems amongst young people because of the terrible things that happened both to Muamba and to Clarke then we can all be thankful that something with a long term positive effect has happened.

Everyone at Football Business, Soccer Business and Football Franchise would like to send our best wishes to Fabrice Muamba and his family and friends at this difficult time.