Jailed for violent tackle
Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2010 7:19 pmSeems to be vogue for tackling debates at the mo. Here's an interesting one to read.
A footballer has become the first in the history of the British game to be sent to prison for a horror tackle on an opposition player.
Mark Chapman's reckless challenge shattered father-of-two Terry Johnson's leg in two places and ended his chances of ever playing again.
The 20-year-old Sunday league player was charged with grievous bodily harm, and today he began a six-month jail term after a judge accused him of meting out 'wanton violence'.
While footballers have been sent to prison before for punching opponents or stamping on them, the Football Association confirmed Chapman was the first to be locked up solely for a bad tackle.
His 26-year-old victim welcomed the unprecedented sentence. 'It's ruined my life, I will never be able to play football again,' he said.
'As far as I'm concerned he deserved what he got - what goes around comes around.'
The tackle came seconds before the final whistle in a Rugby and District Sunday league match in Warwickshire, a court heard.
Chapman's team, Long Lawford, were losing 3-1 to opponents Wheeltappers, and Mr Johnson, playing left-back, was covering the ball as it went out of play.
But to his horror, Chapman, a centre forward who had earlier been criticised by team-mates for a lack of effort, came sliding in with his studs raised and smashed his leg from behind.
'All I can really remember was stamping coming up behind me and I then I felt the pain in my leg straight away - it was like being hit by a train,' he said.
'I heard a snap and everyone thought it was two shinpads snapping, but it was my leg.'
Mr Johnson needed reconstructive surgery and had to have a steel rod inserted to hold the bone pieces together.
Surgeons have warned it will take another 18 months to repair the damage, and he will never play football again.
'I've also lost two-and-a-half inches of muscle on my calf, it looks like a twig now,' he added.
Since the tackle the electrician has been unable to work and struggled to support daughters Ruby, four, Eliza, three, or partner Lydia Adams, 24.
Chapman - who had been disciplined a number of times for his behaviour on the pitch, although not for violent conduct - was sent off after the referee decided he had deliberately tried to injure his opponent.
Following last October's tackle he was charged with causing GBH, and after pleading guilty at Warwick Crown Court the judge rejected claims it had not been reckless.
Lawrence Watts, defending, drew parallels with a Premiership game last Saturday in which Arsenal's Aaron Ramsey had his leg badly broken by a tackle by a Stoke City defender who is not facing criminal charges.
But Judge Robert Orme rejected the suggestion and said it was a totally different situation.
'This is a deliberate act, a premeditated act,' he said. 'A football match gives no-one any excuse to carry out wanton violence.'
He added that what he branded a 'quite crazy and mad challenge' had to be considered a 'very deliberate criminal act'.
Chapman, of Long Lawford, was jailed for six months.
Last year Mark Ward, 23, was jailed for four months for common assault after he fractured Jonathan Carroll's ankle in a sliding tackle during a Sunday league game in Middlesbrough, but he had also insulted him and stamped on his leg afterwards.
Also last year Darren Forwood, 21, was jailed for 28 months after admitting manslaughter of rival player Stephen Ritchie, 43, after killing him with a single punch during a bad-tempered amateur match in West London.
Sky Sports pundit Chris Kamara, then a Swindon Town player, was convicted of GBH in 1988 after he caught Shrewsbury Town's Jim Melrose with his elbow but was fined £1,200
And in 1995 former Scottish international Duncan Ferguson was jailed for three months for headbutting Raith Rovers' John McStay while playing for Rangers.
A spokesman for the Football Association said: 'It's the first time anyone has been sent to prison for a tackle.
'There have been two cases where people were sent to prison for other incidents on the pitch, but nothing like this.