Sports Action Winner, by Ryan Byrne

Similar to McCarthy's, but the other way round.

99 times out of 100 – no broken leg.

In my own case, cameras of any kind were like hen's teeth. In Prince's Park, I was closing in on goal when I heard the opposition coach shout "Take his legs!"

I think it's definitely dangerous play and the red card was deserved. Never saw it as intentional and don't understand that argument. But never the less it was a horrible challenge and something that should always be avoided.

No blame on Seamus, that's not the issue. More recognizing it as an accident in which the enthusiasm of both players created a very dangerous situation.

Your choice of words is telling: "connected with his shin" – but it was actually Coleman who kicked his leg!

Sure, week-in and week-out, players fly in with challenges, but usually it's an actual slide tackle on the ground, studs on the ground. And if it's not and they don't get the ball, it's almost always a red. He got the punishment the challenged deserved by the letter of the law and how it's observed today.

No one ever tried to strike a ball with their studs. Going in with your studs is a sure way to practically eliminate the risk of injury to yourself at the expense of recklessly endangering the health of your opponent.

So I don't necessarily see it as a savage attack by Taylor. But it's still a shithouse challenge. This photo doesn't change that view at all.

It also appears to be a challenge from the side on this image. It wasn't, the challenge was nearly front on. This image is a fraction after impact.

It was a bad tackle, reckless and with no thought as to the outcome. This game was being played at a fast pace and no quarter was given by either side, but Taylor's tackle was, to my mind, a cowardly attempt to get the man...a so called "hard tackle" to "let him know you're there"... Both feet off the ground and nowhere near the ball.

Deserved more than a two game ban which is what Niasse received for an apparent "dive".

Look at the anguish displayed by Soloman Rondon for a similar incident with James McCarthy for which he was utterly innocent of any blame. Then look at the disgusting 'couldn't give a shit, it's just a tackle' reaction of Neil Taylor. Of course he's not that type of player...

Sorry but I was ready to agree with you wholeheartedly until seeing the video angle.

The worst tackle I have ever seen was Vinny Jones jumping in on a Spurs player with the ball virtually on the touch line and no sign of danger. I think that player oddly enough was Gary Stephens??

Vinny Jones jumps up laughing. Now there's a man who needed locking up.

On the real topic though. Look at that leg of Coleman and think how is he back playing football at all?? You have to be really strong mentally just to recover from that.

I did my ankles so often that I ended up buying boots rather than shoes just to wear on a night out.

Another terrible tackle I witnessed was Rioch against a kid from Middlesbrough. He practically cut the kid in two. The lad just laid still and some thought he had been killed. He was defo out for the count and stretchered off. I have no idea what happened to the kid but Rioch went up to the Park End part of Goodison and played keepy-uppy with himself whilst he was treated and eventually put on a stretcher.

As for the Coleman incident, I wasn't watching but was pig sick when I heard about it. It appears to me the type of reckless challenge you get in a derby that's running on total adrenaline and were the prize is massive. Reckless and a red card was right. A 5-game ban would have sent out a stronger message that tackling must be considered and reckless challenges avoided at all costs.

I'm not saying he intended to do serious damage, but it's an old old trick to make sure your foot is higher than the other guy's.

Taylor saw Seamus coming, he knew he was going to put his foot through the ball and the stiff straight leg was designed more to make Seamus think twice rather than to win the ball.

The clear difference between the two players is that only one of them is going for the ball.

I wouldn't put the tackle in the same category as the one shithouse Nolan put in on Victor Anichebe (vicious and gutless) but players have a duty of care towards each other and Taylor was reckless.

There are no circumstances where a player can justify a high straight leg in a 50/50.

Seamus didn't go high though, he went tough but fair. That sums him up as a footballer and a man. A Shitbag challenge in my opinion.

As for the Nolan tackle. I have heard Nolan described as "a hard man". He could not be more the opposite than that description.

You really shouldn't be showing that picture on an Everton forum, as I said, what is your point? Unbelievable!

Really?

While were on bad tackles, there was some Greek cunt on Jimmy Husband in the real European Cup. Managed BTW by the truely great (sic) Ferenc Puskàs. They went on to beat Red Star and play Ajax in the final.

What a game that would have been: Everton v Ajax. I think we would have lost because we were off the blob, but what a game, Ball vs Cruyff and others.

Also there was the tackle on Inchy by that bastard currently commentating on the tele. Forgot his name. Quite right too. Bastard.

I remember that well and believe it's the worst tackle I've ever seen.

Michael, what you fail to observe and report on is Taylor is off the ground with studs up – as dangerous as they come and an automatic red card these days, even if you don't connect.

IMO it was a reckless challenge where emotions were running high.

In any era, it was unbelievable that it wasn't a red card.

Putting Taylor in that kind of category is harsh but I stand by my view that it was a cowardly, reckless challenge.

I was a little surprised to see this photo at all, nevermind see it given an award, and being broadcast (and joked about) on national TV in Ireland. But I see that did cause a some reaction on social media, which made me think about what might have changed since the snowflake sensibilities of the massed TV controllers had seen fit to erase any high-definition video coverage and prevent it from being published at the time.

I confess, I didn't understand those sensitivities then, nor the Kossof (#18) reaction now. The game is being covered live, they show live action replay of every other coming together. Now we even have VAR... I believe showing the full video – that they must have had from at least three different angles – would have been a far more meaningful deterrent of such reckless tackles. But, amazing to me in this day and age of wall-to-wall TV coverage, this, of all the horrifying things put on telly, was deemed too horrible to be shown to football fans.

Yet here we have that hideous moment captured as a still, praised as a photographic achievement, and granted an award!!! I guess that had me wondering if somehow, time having elapsed and Coleman being fully recovered, this meant it was now "safe" to use the photo to examine the event in more detail than was possible back when it happened.

But the discussion here quickly went back to the poor grainy video, as if that answered everything, when it is hard to see exactly what really happened. Ernie (#6) even says the challenge was nearly front on – I'm not sure how he gets that from the video – or he has a very generous definition for 'front on'.

On reflection, Gerrard's tackle couldn't have been THAT because he's "not that kind of a player," being England Captain and all.

And the one on Kevin Campell was just mistimed.

The tackle you mention on Husband was a shocker. Husband was on peak form at the time and the tackle, which was very early in the game, was undoubtedly strategically targeted.

Of course our boys have never been averse to the odd bit of foul play – witness for instance one of the worst tackles I've ever seen being perpetrated by Ratcliffe on Lerby in the second half of the famous Bayern semi-final. Cuts him in half. He then had the nerve to indicate to the ref that he'd won the ball!

The post I'm originally responding to by Pete specifically makes reference to a Spurs player he thought was called Gary Stephens, hence my comment: "...they were both called Gary Stevens but with different middle names ." Not too sure how you confuse a lad called Trevor with the other two called Gary, even if his surname is almost the same.

FYI: http://www.englandfootballonline.com/cmpwc/CmpWC1986Squad.html

Not even sure Simpson got even a yellow, and Duncan gets three months in Barlinnie for that 'headbutt'. On YouTube if you can stomach it.

I rather think Michael there is a little lack of consistency between your opening post and your follow up post @ 27.

Personally, I think the post @ 27 opens up an interesting line of debate. By contrast, your opening post, in the main, re-visits what you (and another poster) at the time of the incident tried to incessantly argue that it was an accident in that Seaumus effectively broke his own leg.

In doing so you and the other poster linked and referenced video footage (that the TV channels chose not to air live) to 'prove' your point.

Now I'm no 'snowflake' as you term it, but I know I wasn't alone in commenting at the time that I found your and the other poster's need to 'prove' your argument with video evidence a tad ghoulish.

I wasn't interested then and I'm not interested now in playing the blame game, or the nuances of the cause and culpability of Seaumus' leg break.

I just felt sickened for the lad. That very same sentiment returned a couple of weeks back with McCarthy's leg break. Again, the images were not replayed and I for one was thankful for that.

I genuinely felt nauseous and light-headed for 10-15 minutes following McCarthy's leg break, just imagining what had happened. I didn't need a slo-mo replay of the incident to confirm what was obvious.

Now maybe that is because I have seen such a leg break first hand in my playing days and perhaps I remain psychosomatically scarred as a result. It's 30+ years now, but typing this I can still see with great clarity a team mate's leg bent at an unnatural angle and the shin bone sticking through his stocking. It ain't nice...

No Michael, I much prefer the point you make in post 27:

"...the exaltation of the photograph [which you] were a little surprised to see this photo at all, nevermind see it given an award, and being broadcast (and joked about) on national TV in Ireland."

You of course chiefly link that to the absence of video replays of the incident during the live game (a call by the TV producer I personally understand, given the likely very broad viewer demographic and the time of the airing of the game).

I don't think the publishing now or the award given to this photo necessarily means as you proffer that "...somehow, time having elapsed and Coleman being fully recovered, this meant it was now "safe" to use the photo to examine the event in more detail than was possible back when it happened."

I think it is nothing more than announcing a photo prize without the deeper connotations you attempt to attach to the news.

In conclusion, I have to say the standard and entries for this particular award must have been very low.

Yes, it captures 'the moment'. But so what? With the image quality and capacity of modern digital cameras to take rapid multiple images of fast-moving sports like football, the photographer simply 'lucked out'. They were just fortunate enough to be pointing the camera at the incident as it happened, no more.

There are many iconical photos of football down the years that capture the sport and its emotions far better than this lucky 'freeze frame' moment.

It doesn't matter, whether the victims leg was stationery or following through. Taylor should have been banned for a lot longer. Taylor could have blocked that ball easily by getting in position, but that would have hurt, him.

This was a feisty match with a lot of hard challenges from both sides, but no way can this be classified as an accident.

I'm using an understanding of playing the game, not a protractor.

It's a head on challenge where the ball isn't in playing distance. If the only way you make the distance is to jump with a straight leg, stay on your feet. Seamus got there, Taylor didn't.

A challenge from the side, where your aim is to trap or play the ball with the top of your foot, is completely different. Again, doesn't have to be a perfect 90 degrees.

Your argument based on the photograph and it's misrepresentative angle (subsequently ignoring the latterly added video) is as antagonistic as the name-calling of anyone with a different perspective to your own 'a Snowflake'!

Amazingly, given general responses, I almost expected a climb down and a 'fair comment guys, I didn't see any other evidence than this photo previously.'

In the absence of that and your continuation I now suspect this is all just a smokescreen to create a discussion, however unnecessary and straightforward the subject matter. If that is the case at least it worked. Otherwise I am baffled, but then again maybe I'm just being a Snowflake.

That's the 'snowflake' mentality I'm referring to (not those with a different perspective on the incident itself). And contrasting it with the exaltation of this photograph now. Why is that high resolution image okay for us to see, when the high-definition video is not?

If it's to a settle a debate then I'd suggest there are more important things in life.

I think the HD video should have been mandatory viewing for footballers everywhere at the time, in the hope it may help to deter actions they take on the field that cause broken legs.

There is a debate in there about how our perceptions of a horrible event like this are formed in an instant, and the extent to which those perceptions are biased by the information (or mis-information) we are (or are not) provided with.

I don't subscribe to the idea the suspension should match the length of absence of the injured player but Taylor's action deserved a greater punishment than one handed out recently for spitting.

I cannot understand why TV companies are so squeamish about showing such images. No useful purpose is served by shielding the audience from the consequences of foul play or simple physical contact where foul play was not a factor. They seem to have no compunction about broadcasting boxing where people are intent on doing damage to their opponent.

I'm not sure I'd let my kids watch Seamus's leg get snapped. I don't want them scared of challenges.

To be honest, there was a time when I couldn't watch these breaks. Seems to have become normalised over the years.