Last updated at 11:08, Saturday, 28 April 2012

At first view the best road for Liam Noble is simply to get his boots on and do what he is good at, not be remembered as a Joey Barton of the lower-leagues; more memorable for what he comes out with than what he does.

Liam Noble

Carlisle United were onto this quickly. Noble’s Twitter account was born on April 18 and perished on April 25, which is a remarkably short life-span even in the medium of instant judgement. In the circumstances, its enforced disappearance is probably wise. And that is almost enough.

In the short term, it thankfully prevents the 20-year-old from heading down the Barton path. Increasingly the QPR player became known as a celebrity tweeter first and a footballer second. Remember his last good game? Me neither. His philosopher-quoting and sometimes angry debates in cyberspace? Much easier to recall, sadly.

Noble ventured in this questionable direction this week in a rough-house way, first with his four-letter attack on Sunderland, his old club, and then his joining of a low-grade argument with a Black Cats fan. The word “mong” was volleyed back and forth.

There is not much uplifting material to take from all this. First let us apply some balance. Noble was not the only person staining the web with his vocabulary this week. In reply to his anti-Sunderland missives (“s*** club, s*** fans”) one Twitter user suggested the midfielder ought to have his legs broken by way of punishment.

Notable, too, were the writings of a person who claimed offence at his use of “mong”. Before Noble had even made that offending post, this complainant, who later contacted Carlisle United to express his disgust and demand punishment, had weighed into the player brandishing f- and c-words.

This tweet, it seems, has since gone the way of Noble’s account. What this person’s employer thinks of a member of their staff publicly abusing a man he has never met, because he has said unpleasant things about a football club he supports, is not known. Noble’s higher profile was key in all this but let us not pretend there were angels on all sides.

At times like this tumbleweed blows across the moral high ground on Twitter. The temptation is to write the whole business off as horrible and of the gutter, and move on quickly. That, understandably, is United’s wish. It is a distraction they do not need or deserve.

And it is simple enough to do that with the arrows Noble fired off in the direction of the Stadium of Light. From his remarks we can now conclude that the Newcastle fan was on the Black Cats’ books under some kind of duress before he moved to Carlisle. Free from the payroll of a club he professes to despise, he now says what he really thinks.

In certain corners of the north-east this has been condemned as disrespectful and ungrateful. Both readings may be true. From here it mainly looked the work of a wind-up artist who needs a bit of conflict to get him out of bed in the morning. If Noble wishes to burn his bridges to Sunderland, and park himself in the black-and-white corner from here forward, that is his free choice. Carlisle carpeted him for his salty choice of words, which is unarguably sensible, but a sentiment, a feeling, cannot be censored.

None of us, in the end, have the time to referee a Mags-v-Mackems spat. ACAS couldn’t bring that one to a diplomatic conclusion. Of more interest and worthy of attention is the “mong” jibe, which paired Noble, unusually, with the comedian Ricky Gervais in the group of people who have misused a term which should be drummed out of casual debate.

Gervais, also on Twitter, argued that the word has left its moorings that attached it to Down’s Syndrome sufferers and has passed into common usage, to describe an “idiot”. Noble might not have subjected the term to any similar kind of analysis but has casually thrown it back at someone all the same, much as some people of a different era did with “spastic”.

That latter word was hijacked so often and so cruelly that a worthy cause, the Spastics Society, had to change its name. There is no similarly-named organisation to compare with what Noble said but this remains similar ground, with a derogatory term for the severely disabled used as a tool for ‘banter’.

This is plainly not on. The charity Mencap, during the Gervais storm, condemned the comedian strongly. “We want people to know that such language can perpetuate discriminatory attitudes towards disabled people,” said their representative, Mark Gale, of the term “mong”, which is short for “mongoloid”, a word the Down’s Syndrome Association has tried its best to leave behind.

Noble may not have considered this but there is nothing now to stop Carlisle educating their player, now the matter has cooled. I happen to know of at least one man with severe learning disabilities who cheered Noble from the Paddock as he played for United against Charlton on April 14. Undoubtedly there were others in the crowd that day, before and since.

A personal wish is that anyone who thinks “mong” is free to claim and use as they please should be introduced to some Down’s Syndrome sufferers, or be taken on a tour of a special school. There are some wonderful such places nearby. Noble – and not just him – would benefit from such a visit. They might then find that other, less hurtful words are available to wield in an argument.

Noble is among Carlisle’s most popular players. He is a provocateur and celebrated for this. Often he says what fans thinks (“I’d hate to be a Preston fan,” was one of his best lines this season, in the context of North End’s dreary tactics) and behaves how they would if they were lucky enough to wear the blue shirt – with chest out, arms raised, and in the face of anyone who fancies they can bring Carlisle down.

None of us can cheer him for the colour he often brings without accepting that sometimes he’s going to take it close to the line. Football without feistiness would certainly be a duller scene. The problem only arises when a strength becomes a weakness and the line is crossed. A Carlisle United representative publicly calling another person a “mong” has to be seen this way.

Noble was far from the only man to stray offside this week but he is the only one whose wages are being paid by some of the people reading this. So Carlisle, who were right to apply the gag, can now encourage him to learn. Beyond that, all he needs to do from here is go out and play. And it’s all we need to see.

First published at 08:59, Saturday, 28 April 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk