The House of Payne Blog: Ditch the pre-match hand shake (From Your Local Guardian)

The House of Payne Blog: Dithc the pre-match hand shake

1:23pm Friday 17th February 2012 in Local Sports Round-up By John Payne

Harlequins rugby player Danny Care landed some abuse on Twitter the other week when he welcomed the return of Luis Suarez to the starting line up of his beloved Liverpool after his eight-game ban for racially abusing Patrice Evra.

Perhaps Care feels some empathy with a man who can’t stay out of the papers for the wrong reasons but, apart from among those who would be at home on the Kop, few people would shed a tear if the Uruguayan midfielder made a speedy exit from English football.

Despite that, I can’t help feeling that Sir Alex Ferguson has surpassed himself by suggesting that Liverpool should sack Suarez for failing to shake Evra’s hand before United’s 2-1 win at Old Trafford on Saturday.

If we are talking about taking the ultimate sanction, shouldn’t we have been discussing those who failed to attend mandatory drugs tests or kung-fu kicked a Crystal Palace fan after getting sent off? That’s before you start discussing Wayne Rooney.

In fairness to Sir Alex, there are many reasons why – outside the rarified world of football – Suarez may well have been handed his P45 long before now, but making a mockery of those pointless pre-match handshakes is not among them.

As I write these words, I can hear some FA blazer banging on about ‘Respect’.

Well, said blazers have just appointed Nottingham Forest legend Stuart Pearce as temporary manager.

The same Stuart Pearce who showed the Scottish players great respect by refusing to even look in their general direction during the 1996 European Championships, when the pre-match ritual was in its infancy.

The death knell for this nonsense should have sounded when the handshake was scrapped before the QPR v Chelsea game for fear of what would happen between Anton Ferdinand and John Terry.

Maybe that approach should have been repeated at Old Trafford on Saturday, or maybe they should shelve the process altogether.

I agree with John Barnes who says it is much more relevant to shake your opponents’ hand and show them respect after you have done battle than before.

The ‘fair play’ intentions behind the handshakes were laudable.

But any good work they may have done over the years has been undone not just by last weekend’s stupidity but the will-he, won’t-he sagas of recent weeks.