ROY Hodgson has expressed sadness at fan behaviour after his favourite article of furniture was destroyed.
The England manager, whose affinity for communal outdoor seating is well documented, condemned the actions of fans after a useable bench was broken up to fashion makeshift weapons.
Hodgson said: “Everyone knows that a bench is where you keep the best players in a football team. It’s madness to ruin a perfectly good one when it could have been used to accommodate £150,000,000 worth of promising footballers.
“I can’t understand the mentality of people who see a bench and decide to break it. I call our team bench ‘The Twelfth Man’ and sometimes ’Roy’s Boy’.
“To see one destroyed is heartbreaking.”
England fan Joseph Turner said: “If we’d thought about it of course we wouldn’t have broken it. The bench has been a huge part of the careers of some of England’s best players, and it looks like that’s going to continue.
“We meant no disrespect. Next time we will break a cabinet or something.”
