Hayden Meikle: Footballers and other ratbags

Boys behaving badly. Every sport has them, but which code really possesses the worst-behaved bunch of plonkers?

What a good question, if I do say so myself. Especially as the Premier League is on a break and we need something to keep us busy while we wait for the resumption of hostilities.

Let's rank them.

From the good boys down to the very, very bad, these are the Kop That Sports Behaviour Rankings:

Best behaved: Golf

Winner by a landslide. You can't beat a sport that preaches self-governance, crisply ironed dress pants and the "you're away'' line.

Sure, you've got John Daly, who's had a hundred wives and is a hopeless boozer and once smashed a fan's camera against a tree.

But generally, golfers are a classy bunch. They're polite and smart and they are too busy obsessing over yardage to get into trouble.

Very good: Tennis

This high ranking might surprise but very few tennis players get into much trouble.

When you think about it, most of the negative headlines in tennis over the last few years have actually been caused by parents and fans.

Damir Dokic, estranged father of Australian player Jelena Dokic, was last week sentenced to 15 months in prison for threatening to kill Australia's ambassador to Serbia.

The Barmy Balkan also made the occasional bomb threat, smashed a reporter's phone, pondered kidnapping his daughter and was dramatically tossed out of Wimbledon in 2000 for abusing a food server.

Jim Pierce (Mary's father) hurled abuse at his daughter's opponents and was banned by the WTA in 1993, while Marinko Lucic was voted by a British newspaper poll in 2003 as the worst tennis dad ever after it was revealed he beat his daughter, the promising Mirjana, to help her
concentrate.

And, finally, Gunter Parche was the obsessed German fan who loved Steffi Graf so much he ran on to the court and stabbed rival Monica Seles in 1993 in the sport's most shocking incident.

The players themselves? Apart from grunting and the odd thrown racket, they're basically well behaved.

Generally fine but the occasional lapse: Rugby

For a testosterone-charged sport, rugby actually comes off relatively well when you analyse player behaviour.

Some public urination, handbag-hurling, drunken window-smashing and various misdemeanours do occur, but the biggest rugby scandal in years was Bloodgate, a scam orchestrated by a coach.

Gentlemen when they choose: Cricket

If it wasn't for Jesse Ryder, New Zealand cricket would be seen as a haven for the haloed.

Ryder, a supremely talented fat kid, put his hand through a window in a Christchurch bar while in a sozzled state, suffering a nasty injury in the process.

He had another booze-related incident, then was involved in some sort of off-field drama involving security guards while playing in the IPL.

Across the ditch, Andrew Symonds is the prince of plonkers. He missed a team training because of a fishing trip, got into a brawl in a pub, called our Brendon McCullum a "lump of s...t'' during a radio interview, and was sent home from the world T20 for a late-night drinking session.

Otherwise, most cricketers seem content with being nasty and foul-mouthed on the field.