Room 101: Anthony Carter – Moseley full-back

1. Phone line blockers
These are normally relatives that seem to have an ability to talk about nothing forever – which means the rest of us are left listening to ‘the number you have dialled knows you are waiting‘ message followed by ‘the person you have called is on the phone, please leave a message after the tone’. So you leave it an hour only to get the same treatment! This is aimed mainly at my mum Ann and my aunties: Angela, Maria and the two Josies who I’m sure could cut their two-hour conversations into five minutes like the rest of us. Even though this choice is personal to me I’m sure other people out there have these incessant chatterboxes in their lives.
TRP verdict:  How can the inspiration for a Blondie classic (Hanging on the Telephone) be bad!? You’re out
2. Crazy Coloured boots
This is partly aimed at players, but mainly sports companies. The ‘Old Skool’ crew in the Moseley squad, namely Brad Davies and myself, are always telling the younger players how easy they’ve got it and how things were different ‘back in the day’. One rule from when we were first starting out was that you only ever wore black boots. That rule, though, is impossible to enforce nowadays such is the paucity of black boots on the market. Nike, Adidas…they all insist on making boots with luminous colour splashed all over them. While the younger members of the Moseley squad are a lost cause in this respect, you might be surprised to learn that Aston Villa FC, where I work as a physio in the academy, have abided by the rule – at least until a player reaches first team status. This is enforced strongly by fellow physio, Olly Needham, who is trying – to give it an ‘Any Given Sunday’ reference – to turn the tide of flash Willy Beamans into more grounded Jack ‘Cap’ Rooneys.
TRP verdict:  On any given Sunday you’re in with this one.
3. Unapologetic referees
If I make a mistake on the field like dropping the ball, missing a tackle or whatever, I turn around to my team-mates during a game or in the post-game analysis and say, “sorry about that, it’s my fault.” I think this goes for about 98 per cent of coaches and players involved in rugby. Few, not all, referees seem to find this simple process difficult. No-one expects the referee to get it right all of the time because it is a very difficult job and mistakes are inevitable. And I appreciate that it is a job where, without someone doing it, we wouldn’t have a game at all. But I wish the officials would sometimes put their hands up and own up to getting things wrong. There would be so much more empathy between referees and coaches and players if they were to do this.
TRP verdict:  It’s a sorry state of affairs. You’re in.