Emma Davies Article

[bigsamsarmyusa]

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/transfer-deadline-day-its-not-about-the-money-money-money-6297988.html

[Paul Comstive]

Oh boo hoo.

She seems nice enough, but please, do us a favour.  She lives an EXTREMELY priveleged life and should not forget that.  There aren't too many families wouldn't swap places with the Davieses given the chance.

[DaveBWFC]

People who don't play football never have to move to different areas for jobs do they Emma.

Get in the real world ffs.

[largehat]

To be honest with you, I used to follow Emma on Twitter and stopped doing so many months ago. Her views are very strange and this article is a perfect example. I am prepared to accept that she might be absolutely delightful in real life of course, but on Twitter she is very off putting. She got into a mess last year when she wrote something very damning about teachers striking and having long holidays, and when people pointed out that her husband earns more in a week than the average teacher does in a year and has all Summer off, she got very defensive and dug herself into an even deeper hole by saying he pays more tax and stuff like that. She claimed she was being picked on, but nobody forced her to make such ridiculous claims in a public place.

And now she has had to go through a little uncertainty for one transfer window in a blue moon and she feels she can speak out about how terrible it is for footballers' families. In her article she says she was very upset when she read in the local Bolton paper last week that it was the end for Kevin - but the article in the Bolton News asked the question "is this the end?".

She also moans about the uncertainty created by speculation but she herself fuelled that speculation by tweeting that Kev wants to stay at Bolton but it isn't his decision. Even though, in public, whenever Coyle has been asked about Kevin Davies he has said he wants him to stay - SHE was the one suggesting the club wanted him out.

She and Kevin raise money for children in Bolton and he is a hero, but she does herself no favours does Emma, unfortunately.

[Paul Comstive]

To be fair to her, I doubt she's gone running to the press complaining. 

She'll have been approached by the newspaper for an interview and she will have simply answered questions that were put to her.

[largehat]

I didn't suggest that, though Paul, I just said she feels she can speak out about the issue even though her husband has been at one club for 90% of the time they have been together - if there is an issue, she's hardly the best placed to comment on it.

[Paul Comstive]

I know you didn't Largehat, and I wasn't aiming it at you.

I was merely making the point that a lot of folk up and down the country will have read that article and been having a pop at her saying how ungrateful she is and how she doesn;t live in the real world, assuming that Emma Davies has gone spouting off to the press.

It's not dissimilar to when the press ask a manager what his opinion is on a matter going on at another club, the manager then gives his opinion and the next thing you know it's splashed all over the back pages, "Manager X says that Club Y are doing so and so wrong" ... and fans read it and are like, "Who the fcuk does he think he is??"

[Jimbo]

I'm not her biggest fan and she has talked shite in the past on her twitter account but I kind of agree with her sentiments in the article.

Especially with regards to the kids. Having money isn't really much solace to a 10 year old ripped away from all their friends, their school etc.

Maybe some people think it is, but then they live quite shallow lives IMO Money might make life easier, I certainly don't think it relates in anyway to happiness though.

The Davies' seem like a fairly normal family despite having money, and there are plenty of other down to earth normal families who'll be disrupted by transfers.

Emma has come out with a few brain farts in the past (especially the teachers comment), I thought this was a decent insight into what goes on behind all the excitement of 'transfers'.

[DaveBWFC]

Isn't it the same for a lot of people though? I've lived in quite a few different places because of work.

And I doubt I was getting paid as much as a footballer for doing it.

[largehat]

I read your comment about half an hour ago Jimbo and have thought it through, and I have to say, I disagree with you. Oh sure, it's not fun for a kid for his mates at school to be pestering him about his dad, and having a bit of uncertainty about the future isn't fun either I am sure.

But those kids' dad plays up front for Bolton Wanderers. When he was alive, my dad worked in a sorting office. Other people's dads work in offices and shops or in a van. I'm sorry but I do think the privileged lifestyle mitigates all that. When I went to school I had to stick up for myself, I didn't get people kissing my arse because I was rich and had a famous dad who was on Match of the Day.

So wondering if Kevin is going to get a massive signing on fee and a different set of people worshipping him for the last year or two of his career is really the little bit of rough with a massive amount of smooth. As others have said, lots of people have to move for jobs because it's what they need to do to support their families.

It's a fact of life in many other careers. I have very little sympathy for Emma Davies and what she would do with her donkeys.

[Jimbo]

But those kids' dad plays up front for Bolton Wanderers. When he was alive, my dad worked in a sorting office. Other people's dads work in offices and shops or in a van. I'm sorry but I do think the privileged lifestyle mitigates all that. When I went to school I had to stick up for myself, I didn't get people kissing my arse because I was rich and had a famous dad who was on Match of the Day.

I'm sure it's not all fun and games. I know when Coyle left Burnley his son took some horrendous abuse from Burnley fans, not just the kids at school but fcuking adults!


And absolutely, families have to move about for jobs, and it's tough on them. Is that emotionally ANY different to a footballer's family having to move about? Not one iota.

As I said before, I believe money makes life easier with physical things, they'll get a bigger house, better clothes, more toys... it doesn't make a jot of difference on emotional ties they form.

If they're ripped away on a whim because someone doesn't like the way their Dad plays football anymore (and this is broad across all football) it isn't any different to the plumber's family having to move across the country to start up a business elsewhere or whatever.

To be honest, I think the point Emma was trying to make was more to do with the uncertainty of having a month where everyone is talking about where you are going, having people coming up to you in the street, having to read about it in the paper every day, all the while not knowing whether you'll be uprooted and in a completley different place in less than one month.

Everyone might love transfer window deadline and the excitement of it all but again, don't care how much you earn, that is unsettling for anyone to have to go through.

She hasn't helped herself in the past, but I don't think she's coming at this one from a woe is me type of deal- although I suppose I can see why people think that.

[azreal88]

I didn't get people kissing my arse because I was rich and had a famous dad who was on Match of the Day.

How do you know his kids don't get shíte for it?  I've known kids of famous people, most of them got bullied at one stage or another because their parents were famous.

Sounds more like bitterness about your own school days, rather than insight about someone else's.

[largehat]

How do you know his kids don't get shíte for it?  I've known kids of famous people, most of them got bullied at one stage or another because their parents were famous.

I don't know, I am speculating. Emma didn't mention anything about bullying in her "it's a hard life" article though did she?

Sounds more like bitterness about your own school days, rather than insight about someone else's.

And now you're speculating, based on even less than I had to go off. Yours is a pretty stupid piece of amateur psychoanalysis.

[azreal88]

It wasn't speculation.  I didn't say "your school life must have been x".  I just said it sounded bitter.

[largehat]

You're speculating that I have some sort of hang up from my own school days which is now informing my view about what type of school experience Kevin and Emma Davies' kids have.

For one thing, I went to a state school, there were no celebrities kids there. I appreciate that kids are very cruel at secondary school age, and you have to win the respect of your peers or you get bullied - but that's the same for everyone. I was a bit of a fatty when I started at school (and still am), and got abuse for it, but 99% of it stopped when I lamped someone in the dinner queue in front of half the school.

I'm going way off topic, I kind of understand why you'd say there's a fair chance those kids would be bullied, but I think Emma would have mentioned it in her article for sure if they were because she seems quite willing to point out the supposed hardships of being in a footballer's family. Fair or not?

[azreal88]

You're speculating that I have some sort of hang up from my own school days which is now informing my view about what type of school experience Kevin and Emma Davies' kids have.

Not really, though I see why you'd say that.  I was merely saying that what you said 'sounded' bitter.  If it's not so, then that's fine.

//Fair or not//

I'm not sure on that one.  If your kids were being bullied, would you mention it in the paper and risk making it worse?

[azreal88]

By the way, I'm not saying they are being bullied.  Just that it's hard to say how kids would react to someone's dad being famous. 

[largehat]

Fair enough to both the above posts.

[Quiroga]

" I remember last deadline day we were amused to read that Kevin was seen at Arsenal going for a medical."

 

[Martinbwfc]

Isn't it the same for a lot of people though? I've lived in quite a few different places because of crime.

And I doubt I was getting paid as much as a footballer for doing it.

Amended

[bigsamsarmyusa]

Being one of the footballing "rich and famous" didn't help Gary Speed and/or his wife and kids, did it!

As the ex-wife and mother of two kids that followed their husband/dad in 17 years of military life, I always found it exciting to find out where we would be stationed next. 

It was hard on the kids leaving friends behind but as soon as they were enrolled in school, they adapted very well and immediately started making new friends.  Kids are VERY adaptable to change; moreso than adults, I'd say.  It helped, too, that they attended schools in areas that were predominantly attended by military children.

Change is what any of us make of it.  As for her donkey(s), if she can have them in Bolton, surely she can have them elsewhere too!

What she and all footballers' wives should be doing is putting their money away for when the footballers' careers end.

[Malcolm Everett]

I never thought I would ever say this but after reading her article I actually feel sorry for footballers even though they play a game they love for living, they make millions of pounds and only have to go into training for a few hours each morning.
It must be tough having to relocate all the time, I guess though its the same when you're in the army, they are always having to move. If you have a young family it must be difficult for the kids and for the wife - and especially when the footballer gets loaned out and temporarily has to move out of the area. I just hope that the wife isn't introduced to the Terry brothers.

[wanderer6969]

Hang on a minute, she wants people to have empathy for footballers' wives / families and yet shows not one shred of empathy for teachers etc who work hard for a living and have a stressful job and are not exactly highly paid, and acutally sl*gs teachers off?  Sorry but that is just hypocrisy.  "Teachers shouldn't complain and they have got it easy, yet us footballers' wives suffer".

Typical footballer's wife, all me me me.  Embarassing. All fur coat and no knickers.

[Malcolm Everett]

You don't know that she doesn't wear knickers.
Well I think she is a poor little mite.

[hjd]

On the problems of relocating etc, when I was 13 my dad got moved to Scotland ffs!! It was 1967. Celtic had just won the European Cup and Scotland had just beaten England at Wembley, England's 1st defeat since winning the World Cup.
Abuse and bullying doesn't come close, and that was just the teachers!