England cricketer Ben Stokes has just come out, with some form of luck, of an eleven-month legal case for affray while out drinking with some friends and may well make his reappearance for England this weekend just days after England rugby player Danny Cipriani pleaded guilty to common assault and resisting arrest after an incident at a nightclub in Jersey which left a female police officer bruised.
The 30-year-old was fined a total of 2,000 pounds - 1,500 for resisting arrest and 500 for assault - and ordered to pay 250 pounds in compensation to the officer. Cipriani and Stokes are among some of the finest players of their sports this generation has, so why can they not live up the country’s expectations of them on the pitch and stay out of the headlines, and courts, for all the wrong reasons?
Cipriani’s career, which was once looking to be glittering, has been rocked by problems, mostly connected to alcohol. These are not the first and will be no means the last sporting idols to get caught by alcohol. The list of sporting greats who have fallen victim to the bottle over the past decades is endless but, and this is by no means an excuse, it has rarely ended in street violence.
While pleased for Stokes’s family that he was cleared of affray, what example do he and the likes of Capriani set to budding sportsmen and women and the fans? If and when they get hold of their balls again, I hope they have enough to publicly apologise.