... and now for some good news

By Tom Geoghegan
BBC News Magazine

Drink driving, ill discipline and bad language. Football's image is at a low ebb after a series of damaging stories, so where are the good role models?

Even in the context of a year of negative headlines, it's been a bad week for footballers.

First Jermaine Pennant was jailed for three months after drink-driving while banned.

Then Martin Ward, deputy leader of the Secondary Heads Association, suggested that swearing, cheating and violence on the pitch was corrupting children watching the games on television.

Yet there are some positive stories to be heard.

All players are contractually obliged to spend a certain number of hours doing community work, says the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA).

But some players - even those with less than angelic reputations on the pitch - go beyond the call of duty.

THE CHRISTIAN

Gavin Peacock, a former player at QPR and Chelsea, is now a BBC football pundit. He is still involved in Christians in Sport, which is a charity providing pastoral care and Biblical instruction to professional sports players.

He became a Christian in his teens and later hosted prayer meetings about every five weeks at his London home for other footballers.

I would like to think I played the game in a fair way and if that's my faith running through me, then great Gavin Peacock

Players such as Carl Leaburn and Matt Jansen attended and the group would talk about their faith and other issues affecting them. They listened to passages from the Bible and related it to their experiences in the game.

Today, Peacock's role as host is filled by Newcastle's Shola Ameobi but he still visits youth groups to talk about his faith.

Being a Christian means admitting you need God in your life, he says, regardless of your status in sport. And he did not leave his Christian values behind when he walked on to the pitch.

"I would like to think I played the game in a fair way and if that's my faith running through me, then great," he says.

"There's been a lot said recently about players' behaviour and Wayne Rooney in particular. I think that's unacceptable behaviour.

"It's about standards and if you're a Christian it's not any easier but at least you have those standards in front of you. Without a doubt, my faith is a force for good in that respect."

THE CHAMPION OF AFRICANS

Arsenal captain Patrick Vieira helped set up Diambars, which is an education project for promising footballers in his native Senegal, with some other French players. Diambars means "warriors" in Senegal's Wolof language.

Vieira defies his fearsome reputation as a player

After years of planning the scheme with Bernard Lama (formerly West Ham) and Jimmy Adjovi-Boco (formerly Hibernian), Vieira returned to his homeland in 2003 for the first time in 18 years, to see the first Diambars Institute opened in Saly.

It is a football academy but with 70% of the time spent learning other subjects, with a pledge to support all its pupils, even if they leave football.

Scouts tour the country looking for promising players and although it only takes 48 lucky children each year, it aims to inspire hundreds more about the importance of going to school.

"The message we are giving out across the nation is you have to go school - basically education goes hand in hand with football - no education; no football," says Vieira, who hopes the Saly institute is the first of many.

THE FUNDRAISER

Tranmere's Jason McAteer would be the first to admit he was no angel on the pitch. The former Liverpool and Republic of Ireland player is considered one of football's mischief-makers and it's a role he has sometimes revelled in.

But a tsunami aid football match on 27 March, expected to raise £1m, is all down to his goodwill.

Watching the tragic events unfolding after Christmas, he remembered the warm welcome he got while touring Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand with Liverpool in 1996.

And filled with horror as the death toll mounted, he decided to ring friends like Jamie Redknapp, Robbie Fowler, John Barnes, Kevin Keegan and Kenny Dalglish. Soon he had two star-studded sides and a venue, Anfield.

"Charity is a very powerful word," he told reporters. "It makes people stand up and think. It drags the best out of them."

THE AIDS CAMPAIGNER

A visit to Zimbabwe by Andy Cole in 1999 had a profound effect on the striker.

I left Africa knowing I just had to do something Andrew Cole

He had just become a treble-winner with Manchester United and was at the peak of his career, when he witnessed the devastation caused by HIV/Aids, in particular the number of orphans.

So he set up the Andy Cole Children's Foundation to help youngsters in southern Africa. It has since raised hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Cole, now at Fulham, is a very private person but in a rare media interview in 2002, he said: "I left Africa knowing I just had to do something.

"They were children, some little older than toddlers, whose lives had been broken down to such an extent that they were forced into sleeping in drains and gutters and to rummaging in bins for scraps of food."

THE REFORMED ALCOHOLIC

Former England captain Tony Adams set up the Sporting Chance clinic in 2000, to provide support, counselling and treatment to sportsmen and women suffering from addictions.

Its most recent high-profile client is Adrian Mutu, the ex-Chelsea player who admitted cocaine abuse. Others include Paul McGrath and Paul Merson.

Adams successfully overcame his own alcohol addiction after a descent into self-destruction which culminated in a jail sentence for a drink-driving offence. It's a journey the former Arsenal player relives as a lesson to Premiership stars he speaks to while touring clubs with the PFA.

The Hampshire clinic offers residential or day care and its clients' addictions can range from alcohol and drug abuse to gambling and eating disorders.

It uses the Twelve Steps programme of recovery used by Alcoholics Anonymous, but with crucial differences such as football training available on site.