http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/brian-reade-column-steven-naismith-4001304
The news that Steven Naismith has donated four season tickets to unemployed Evertonians stirred the soul on many levels.
Although don’t expect Naismith’s gesture to be mentioned outside the sport pages.
Naismith, who also does work with the homeless says the majority of footballers are down-to-earth, aware of their luck and remember where they came from.
The likes of Craig Bellamy, Jamie Carragher, Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Williams, Steven Gerrard, Dirk Kuyt, David James and Shay Given have raised millions through their charitable foundations.
Also, ask Jack Marshall’s family about all the selfless work Wilshere did when their boy was dying of cancer and you’ll hear nothing but heart-felt gratitude.
Which is what unemployed people will feel towards Naismith, because this gesture values their worth at a time when a vindictive government has stigmatised them in an attempt to court popularity.
But Naismith’s act truly lifts the spirits by highlighting how the Premier League has priced the traditional fan out of football.
Today, the cheapest on-the-day ticket at the same ground is £46. Which is an inflationary jump of more than 1,000% - eight times the actual rate.
And prices keep rising by the year.
Can’t the clubs and the Premier League see how their financial structures deliberately exclude the poorest of fans?
Naismith’s simple act of helping four jobless Evertonians get into Goodison every fortnight puts that question another way: if a footballer, on average Premier League wages, feels obliged to put something back into the community, why can’t the bodies which make real money out of the game - the clubs, the Premier League, the FA, and the broadcasters – do it on a scale befitting their massive incomes?
Naismith’s gesture should make the men in authority feel shame at how they’re effectively banning fans with little money from football grounds.
But an even bigger shame is that they won’t feel any.
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