Well that was a lot of build up for a fuss over nothing! Or very little, anyway. I can picture the Sun reporters flying over from London with smiles on their faces already writing their articles and picturing the poor cameraman with a patch over his missing eye, covered in bruises, cuts and with broken limbs in casts, they arrive in Dublin and go to the hospital and he's got the kind of black eye you get from bumping into a door. Carroll's still a bit of a twat but not a huge deal in my eyes, providing it's true that all that happened was he tried to grab his camera. The biggest shocker of the entire scenario was what the West Ham boys were wearing, very Liverpool 96 FA Cup final!
This is more of a headline..... Andy Carroll in piss stain shocker!!!....(really shows up on a cream suit) Reminds me of the old joke..."What's that on your trousers Andy?"......"It's just a wee stain"... http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4679621/andy-carroll-hammers-photographer.html
To be fair, Judging by that picture, Paddy Cummins does have a very slappable face. If he kept taking pictures after he had been told not to then he deserved his clump IMO. Fair play to the OP for getting this first. I do want to clarify that I never called you a liar, just that I wanted the facts before making any real comment. And Beefy - I dont see what difference it makes if there was eye gouging or not. A fight is a fight and if he grabbed his face in the scuffle and caught his eye then I dont see it as any big deal. Im just glad that this has gone pretty much un-noticed. We dont need any more bad press after that handful of wallies at white hart lane last week.
****ing hell guys, you must have expected him to have murdered the guy if you look at that picture and say "is that it?" This kind of violence is not acceptable from anyone and I'm shocked you're trying to portray it as nothing out of the ordinary and even saying the photographer deserved it! Oh and it is in all the papers: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/dec/04/andy-carroll-police-alleged-assault http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/west-ham-striker-andy-carroll-1471721 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ictured-leg-brace-Dublin-Christmas-party.html
You're being a bit of an old woman arent you? If he went up to him and lamped him for no reason then I agree. If he was continually asked to stop taking photos (as seems to be the case) but carried on then **** him. "oooh that nasty footballer hurt me because he had had enough of me taking photos of him all night". Grow up you whiney little bell end. Ive been punched in the face for far less and I didnt sulk about it. This is the real world. Lads in their twenties do get drunk and have fights. Change your job if you dont wanna deal with confrontation.
No mate, this is the real world, people go to prison for this kind of thing. "Lads in their 20s" might have fights, but this photographer is not a "lad in his 20s", was not intending to have a fight and no amount of provocation can excuse this behaviour. Frankly it brings shame on your club that you and Brooking can defend this.
Know that for sure do you? The West Ham statement says it was in fact the photographer who had to be restrained. Our word against theirs. We will probably never know the truth but that doesnt automatically mean Andy Carrol was in the wrong. If I was famous and I had been being photographed all night and I asked them to stop, I would be pretty annoyed if they carried on. If they then carried on after being told again and again then I'm pretty sure that I, like most would give the sad little bloke a slap.
Just because punch ups happen doesn't make it right. If you are past your teens and get involved in fights with little provocation...big news, you drink too much! This isn't how adults behave.
But it sounds like he wouldnt listen. So should Carroll have just sat there and just let him take the photos after the photographer ignored numerous requests to stop?
You reckon a 5 foot 8 photographer wanted to have a fight with a 6 foot 3 athlete? Give me a break. Why do you again say we will never know the truth? There will be witnesses and if it goes to court (as seems likely) then we absolutely will know the truth and it's very naive to believe otherwise. No matter how annoyed Carroll was, attacking the photographer is not justified, especially considering he had a team of security personnel there to do his fighting for him (or more likely, act professionally and not gouge the poor ****er's eye).
Who knows. I have a lot of Irish family and they have quite an excitable temperament. Its unlikely but not impossible that this Paddy Cummins took a "**** off" from Andy Carroll badly. The West Ham statement does afterall say that he had to be "restrained". I dont know if it will go to court or not. The Sun obviously couldnt find any other eye witness' as I am sure they would have used them for the story. If It does just remain our word against theirs then we certainly wont ever know. I maintain that if Carrol and his people had requested no more photos and the reporter repeatedly ignored that request, then Carrol was within his rights to act. And we still dont know about any eye gouging. If he has grabbed his face and caught his eye then thats life.
I feel like I should correct this, because when you end up beating some poor sod up under the misapprehension that "it's your right" then you're going to get in trouble. It really isn't. And Carroll's lucky you're not his lawyer. There is really no excuse for Carroll doing anything because, as I've said, he had a team of security personnel around him who could deal with this guy. And they did, as the statement says they "restrained" him, but not from attacking Carroll, from taking more pictures obviously. Oh and having a few Irish family doesn't give you the right to characterise the Irish as a bunch of violent idiots.
I don't know how you're reading West Ham's statement and coming to that conclusion, Trixter. It's far more likely that a pissed up footballer with a history of violence clumped a paparazzi pillock, but I think there's a different conclusion to come to from the club's words. "Despite this, the photographer then carried on taking photos in the close proximity of Andy and was politely asked to stop by the private security team working on the trip. "When he then continued taking more photos he was restrained by the security team for Andy's safety. Sounds like his 'security team' (read, drunken hangers-on) grabbed him and did the damage, but it's a better story to say that Carroll did it. Combined with the pictures of him without his knee brace, clearly looking worse for wear and grabbing some junk food at Burger King, with the pictures of the photographer and it writes itself.
Come on Trixter................don't be a bubble all yer life. The photographer was just earning a living, trying to put food on the table for his family. What if the next time Carrol scores someone in the crowd tells him not to do it again and by some miracle her scores a second? Is that person entitled to jump out of the crowd and lamp Carrol? If Carrol is such a shrinking violet he ought to go out with a bag over his head when he is not on the pitch. In fact it might be an idea if Fat Sam makes him wear a bag on his head when he is on the pitch.
If he really wanted to avoid publicity, then going out in Dublin with a group of his teammates, all dressed in white and drinking heavily, probably wasn't the best way to go about it. West Ham's own statement might open his security team up to charges, as they restrained somebody who wasn't actually doing anything illegal.
I think they'd much rather the security boys got into hot water than one of their players to be honest.
