Try being a Viper – now that’s real fatigue

Mar 21 2010 by Neil Farrington, Sunday Sun

IF I had a pound for every time I’ve heard it said that English footballers are being overworked, I’d be a helluva lot richer than any Newcastle Vipers player.

Mention of which allows me to point out that the North East’s only professional ice hockey team are preparing for their 65th game of the season today.

Yes, 65th. In the space of less than seven months.

At many full-time hockey clubs, players can be rotated and rested at regular intervals to nurse them – and their bruises – through a full campaign.

Not at Newcastle. Not with the smallest squad in the Elite League. Not with their ranks further decimated by injuries.

The maximum number of players on a hockey team roster is 20.

On one memorable recent occasion, the Vipers travelled to Belfast – and won – with nine.

We are talking about a high-octane, high-impact and often high-tempered sport here in which many players routinely skate through niggles, pulls, strains and the pain barrier.

I know of one such player who desperately needs a major operation. Effectively, he is risking his immediate future – if not his career – by playing on.

But play on he does, and for a relative pittance.

Why am I telling you this? Just for extra ammunition the next time you hear of someone like Shaun Wright-Phillips being “mugged off” by his club because they won’t pay him more than 70 grand a week.

Or, as is almost inevitable, when England’s failure to deliver at this summer’s World Cup is put down to fatigue.