Oxford United issued a statement this week that its "directors, players and officials fully support Ross Weatherstone at this difficult time". Which particular difficult time is it that requires such sympathetic handling? Is Weatherstone the latest contestant to be evicted from the Big Brother house? Or does the poor lad need to be counselled from the trauma of discovering that Arsenal haven't stepped in over the close season to sign him?
Well, no. Weatherstone was this week convicted of threatening behaviour towards an Asian taxi driver, behaviour involving a nasty drunken assault conducted to a racist soundtrack. After picking up Weatherstone and some of his plastered chums in the early hours of the morning, the driver lost control of his vehicle and crashed when one of his customers smashed the taxi's partition window and attempted to throttle him.
Since the club has refused to elaborate on its bald statement, no one knows whether the player has received any punishment beyond the £500 fine ordered by magistrates. But if ever there was a case for public action by a football club, this is it.
Some might say sacking Weatherstone would be a good idea, though this was never a serious possibility given the adjectives generally applied to club and player ("cash-strapped" and "highly promising" respectively). Nevertheless, he ought to be handed a lengthy playing suspension and be sent to conduct some sort of community service coaching young Asian footballers.
Moreover - though many might consider the poor man has suffered enough already - the victim of the assault should be offered a free season ticket to the Manor Ground. Instead, Oxford issue public statements about the player which sound for all the world as if he were the one at the wrong end of a drunken early-morning shoeing.
And where exactly is the PFA in all this? Where, for that matter, is the FA with its fancy new mission statement about using "the power of football to build a better future"? Silent as usual.
