A celebration stripped of taste and dignity

That splendid satirist Dennis Pennis once asked the actress Demi Moore: ?Would you ever consider keeping your clothes on if the script demanded it??

The same kind of question might have been addressed to the Chelsea players Frank Lampard, John Terry and Didier Drogba on an extremely cold evening in north London.

Their immediate reaction upon winning an FA Cup replay at Tottenham was to tear off their shirts, beat their chests and generally incite the locals with a display of shabbily choreographed triumphalism. Not so much a sports team, more a bunch of City traders celebrating their annual bonuses.

Naturally, this in no way excuses that foolish fellow who invaded the field to remonstrate with the shirtless ones. After all, nobody wants to see football pitches awash with petulant clowns throwing peevish punches, even when they happen to be fans rather than footballers.

And Chelsea are not the only side guilty of this arrogant posturing, merely the most obviously irritating.

Indeed, they are so obviously, so crassly irritating that I wondered if somebody in authority at Stamford Bridge ? the owner, the chief executive, the outgoing manager ? might murmur a pointed lesson about the virtues of taste and dignity. Then I remembered that the people in question are, respectively,Roman Abramovich, Peter Kenyon and Jose Mourinho.

So Lampard, Terry, Drogba and the rest will continue to behave with all the discreet class of hen-night strippers.

And taste and dignity will not raise their voices.

This bloke despises us with such a passion that the record has well and truly stuck. His hatred has nothing to do with RA, JM or PK but pre-dates the arrival of Bates. This column makes Alan Green seem unbiased.

He could have written about the scary spectacle of fans attacking players taking us back to the dark ages of terrace violence, cages etc. But that wouldn't fit the much more important agenda of slagging off Chelsea. So all perspective has to go out of the window. Words fai.....

When Roman was pelted with bottles by the Barca fans after the game at the Bridge a few years back, Patrick Collins condoned it.

The end of his journalistic credibility pre-dates the arrival of Bates.

When Roman was pelted with bottles by the Barca fans after the game at the Bridge a few years back, Patrick Collins condoned it.

The end of his journalistic credibility pre-dates the arrival of Bates.

It occurs to me that this is a pretty unique week in sporting history, with the (AFAIK) unprecedented murder of a top coach during a world cup cricket tournament. A pretty big story in most sportswriters' eyes. But in Collins's book it's less worthy of a piece in his weekly column than Chelsea players taking off their shirts in celebration.

It's beyond belief.

I've just posted this message on the MoS website.

In a week of appalling sporting tragedy, with the horrifying murder of a top coach during a world cup cricket tournament, how edifying that your columnist considers this less worthy of a piece in his weekly column than Chelsea players taking off their shirts in celebration.

It's beyond belief and shames a supposedly serious sportswriter.

I look forward to his reply.