A sporting mystery

The second most viewed article on UK newspaper the Guardian's website today (after the one about the Apple Tablet) is headlined: Robbie Fowler refuses to start on bench for North Queensland Fury.

I thought this article sounded interesting. I always try to keep up with any mention of Australia in the overseas press: Two Indian Students Assaulted in Melbourne, for example. Or: I'm exploding with happiness, says pregnant Danni Minogue as she returns to Britain with Kris Smith, and so on.

So of course I clicked on 'Robbie Fowler refuses to start on bench for North Queensland Fury' because Robbie Fowler sounded like one defiant young man and I am naturally curious about defiant young men and how they might be connected to North Queensland, and why, indeed, the Guardian should even care.

I read the entire article, and while I can feel moderately confident that Robbie Fowler is a sportsperson of some kind, nowhere in the piece could I find a reference to which sport his skillz relate to. I daresay the answer to the mystery hinges on me finding out the meaning of the word 'striker' and whether it pertains to archery, baseball, pheasant-hunting or just plain hitting people over the head with a stick, but to be honest I can't be bothered. I'm just old-fashioned, I guess, because I think it should be the responsibility of the journalist for an online newspaper to explain these things to me, especially if it's going to be the number two most popular story of the day.

Of far more interest and amusement is the fact that Mr Fowler's wife is failing to 'settle' in Townsville. 'It's not like back at home where there's more stuff to do,' Mr Fowler explains. I adore that quote, with its mild tone of astonishment hinting that the Fowlers had moved to Townsville under the impression that there might be stuff to do there.

Here is the article, in case you'd like to try to unravel the mystery sport for yourself. The only other clue you've got to work with is the word 'goal', which makes me think it's probably about netball after all.

The former Liverpool and England striker Robbie Fowler sat and watched his North Queensland Fury team-mates from the stands rather than take his place on the bench for their A-League match against Brisbane Roar on Saturday.

Fowler refused to start as a substitute for the home match against Brisbane in Townsville and was subsequently left off the team sheet by the Fury coach, Ian Ferguson. Brisbane and North Queensland subsequently played out a 1-1 draw.

Ferguson later denied that Fowler had made his final outing for the club. "No, not at all," he said. "There's a couple of issues we have to sort out. Robbie's a great player, he's an experienced player, he's a player that we want to keep at the club.

"At the end of the day I felt it was obviously a decision I had to make, I wanted Robbie to go on the bench and he refused to go on the bench. We'll go over it on Monday, we'll have a serious talk and see what it takes."

Fowler has scored nine goals this season for the ninth-place Fury but reports have suggested the 34-year-old is seeking to leave despite still having a year to run on his contract. Fowler, who is the Fury's captain, has admitted that his wife has failed to settle in North Queensland.

Fowler told the Daily Mail this week that his wife is finding it tough adjusting in Townsville, the northern Australian city where the Fury are based.

"The kids are very adaptable to where they are, but my wife still needs a bit of convincing," he said. "It's not like back at home where there's more stuff to do and more families that we know, so she's still adjusting."

Fowler, who scored 161 goals in the Premier League, became one of the A-League's biggest recent recruits when he joined the Fury in February of last year.

Postscript: I have since revisited the article. And there, on the Guardian website, right up the top, I can now see the subheading 'Sport—Football', swathed in two different tones of green and surrounded by a general sort of 'DUH, YOU IDIOT' vibe.

But I still stand by my point that the content (and heading) of a story shouldn't be so rude as to assume that the reader will realise they've been whisked far away from the frothy little page they were reading in the Life & Style section, all the way over to the 'Sport—Football' section if they happen to click on some mysterious 'most viewed' story of the day.

Sorry if I've just given away the mystery, by the way.