luke mccormick

[deltaincline]

According to reports McCormick has been in training with the club already.

Yeah I read that too, Flash.

I'm not having it though. PDC is a family bloke by his own admission. Can't see him welcoming someone with blood on his hands into the revitalised STFC fold.

[Coca Fola]

Wifey put this a good way:

- If McCormick was your son, would you want him to have a second chance or whould you want him vilified wherever he went for the rest of his life?

- If it were your sons that died, would you want him to have a second chance or whould you want him vilified wherever he went for the rest of his life?

Would you be so compassionate in both answers?  It would take a bigger man than me to do so.

Spot on.

[The Frog]

i was told by a youth team player he has been training, that was about 2 weeks ago thought nothing of it

[Sippo]

Yeah I read that too, Flash.

I'm not having it though. PDC is a family bloke by his own admission. Can't see him welcoming someone with blood on his hands into the revitalised STFC fold.

But he has invited him training...

[@MacPhlea]

I know several people who staunchly vilify people who drink and drive and yet then proceed to smoke pot and drive.

The fact is he made a series of choices, bad choices, that led to him killing two children and badly disabling their father.

I will put my hands up and say that I have driven whilst drunk.  I had no intention of doing so at the beginning of the evening or during the course of the evening but woke up in the morning to go to work and collect my car from where I had parked it and discovered it was missing -  I reported it stolen only to be told 2 hours later it was parked outside my neighbours house blocking their driveway...  I do not remember driving it home and could have easily have wiped out half of Chippenham and neither intended to drive or remember doing so.  To give this more perspective I was a Police officer at the time and had never drunk driven before and have the same views of anti DD myself BUT remember this...

Alcohol effects people in different ways and different types of drink work differently on the same body. From my experience of alcohol (both from personal experience and dealing with it in a professional stance) I have seen perfectly good people do things they would never have dreamed of doing at the start of the evening and make decisions no sober person would have dreamed of as a result of drink and in most cases bad decisions come off the back of drinking something that they don't normally drink.

Two times over the limit isn't normally an amount that would render you paraletic drinking your normal tipple BUT switch to something you are not used to and that same amount of alcohol consumption will have a different effect and, more importantly, may result in you a making decisions that you would not normally make.

I guess the whole debate comes down to a question of who he killed rather than the choices he made... had he killed two dogs and been done for drink driving this debate wouldn't have been so vociferous... Did we debate Michael Pook's DD conviction so deeply?

[Batch]

Yes, he did act like a cunt and society has punished him through the law of the land.

I think the key issue here is my thinking in this case the law is an ass. It is what it is, but for me its not enough. That's not my call, but I will never support the bloke being at my club.

I don't think society has punished him either. The law has, but I bet a majority of people would say 3 1/2 years behind bars isn't enough.

Football is his trade so why try and foist him on someone else's?

In the eyes of the law he is free to do what he wants. But not at Swindon thank-you.

So disappointed with Wray and Watkins if this happens.

[Nomoreheroes]

[tans]

I owe you an apology.

Haha

[jayohaitchenn]

That video is horrendous, he's obviously gutted. It's worlds apart from what that cunt Hughes did, I actually feel a llittle bit sorry for McCormick.

[Ardiles]

Funny how we react in different ways.  I watched the clip as well and, if anything, it reinforced my view that I don't want him at the club.  He drank enough to send himself more than twice over the limit, and then knowingly took his Range Rover out for an erratic 97 mph spin on a motorway.  While you wouldn't condone them either, this is in a different league from stories elsewhere on this thread...even before considering the tragic consequence that two children died and the permanent disability inflicted on their father.

For me, the fact that he was 'gutted' is irrelevant.  The damage was already done.  Too late.

[Costanza]

@SamMorshead_SA

"Jeremy Wray confirms to me Luke McCormick will join club on trial in June & he's been part of training since Jan on day release"

"We thought long and hard about it... it was something offered to me... I did not go out looking for sensationalist headlines"

It's just a trial at this stage, nothing else.

[LucienSanchez]

I think he must know what a twat he's been, and it will haunt him forever. He has served his sentence in law, and I am sure he will personally feel punished for the rest of his life. It does seem like his professional life will recommence untarnished (apart from the dogs abuse he's get every game), and I'd have thought coaching and community work might have been a better avenue morally.

I guess he'd be cheap, and if he's still decent would be good value for money in a pure footballing sense. I just don't want my club to have him.

[RWB Robin]

Wifey put this a good way:

- If McCormick was your son, would you want him to have a second chance or whould you want him vilified wherever he went for the rest of his life?

- If it were your sons that died, would you want him to have a second chance or whould you want him vilified wherever he went for the rest of his life?

Would you be so compassionate in both answers?  It would take a bigger man than me to do so.

At risk of adding to the 'bleeding hart bullshit' (in itself a bullshit phrase):

The crime is getting behind the wheel of a car when he was unfit to drive.  Anyone and everyone who has done that is potentially as guilty as McCormick, as several people have pointed out.  Add to that anyone who has driven a car which is unfit to drive, anyone who has exceeded the speed limit in a 30mph zone, or anyone else who has driven without due care or consideration.  What happened with McCormick is total tragedy and disaster, firstly for the children who died and their dad who was injured, secondly for their family who will never ever get over it and thirdly for McCormick (and his family) who will also never get over it.

But he did not make that totally wrong decision to drive with the intention of hurting anybody, any more than I did when I drove at 34mph in a 30mph zone.  I could so easily have gone round a corner and hit someone, and I would have been entirely responsible.  There is absolutely no justification in law for the principle 'It doesn't matter so long as I don't get found out'. That is just hypocrisy.

Further to that I - and I suspect everyone else who is writing on here - have absolutely no idea what has happened in McCormick's life since going to prison.  We know nothing about the terms of his release.  We know nothing about whether he has had contact with the family he damaged so appallingly.  We know nothing about the basis on which he is currently with the club.  He is a footballer by profession.  There is nothing so far as i know that prevents a person who has served a prison sentence (for anything) from restarting the career for which they are trained, unless their crime has a direct bearing on the profession - as , for instance, in financial crimes or sex crimes.

It is a reasonable question to ask whether someone who is an 'entertainer', and therefore thrives on public profile, should really come back into the public eye.  That is a very difficult question, and if we start down that road, where do we stop?  I trust the leadership of the club to ask those questions very carefully, and to make the best possible decision for everyone concerned.

There is nothing more detestable in our society generally than the animal instinct to make scapegoats, whether in the out-and-out tabloid rubbish that some have written, or in the patronising 'There but for the grace of God go I' attitude of some others.  We ARE in it, unless there are any saints on here - and I have yet to encounter any.  

If the club decide that Luke McCormick has the right attitude to pick up a career (and where else in the lower leagues would a player find a more disciplined approach), then I would not want to stand in his or their way.

[Leggett]

Same as Ardiles, whether he's gutted or not makes no difference. People are saying he was unlucky, he wasn't unlucky, he made a cuntish, selfish and fucking dangerous decision and it bit him, hard. People are saying plenty of others do it. That makes zero difference, he's in a privileged position to earn a very nice living from playing a game, I don't think he deserves another crack at it. After all, he chose to drink and drive, nobody forced him. As a father I could not bring myself to cheer for him as a Swindon player.

Hughes is a different kind of cunt, he fled. The two can't be compared, other than neither should earn a living from playing football.

[Costanza]

(I'm talking about his career and little else)

McCormick, long term, will be fine wherever he ends up. He's a 28 year old goalkeeper from the lower leagues. I dare say that people like Paolo Di Canio would consider the redemption of McCormick a challenge.

Wherever McCormick continues his career, the abuse will be really bad for a while and will eventually reduce itself to a few people every game. This is based on what has happened to Lee Hughes, Jordan Robertson and Adam Chapman (they all killed, they all returned).

McCormick's occupation is football, whether he should or shouldn't be allowed to return into the game is up for debate but it makes sense that he personally wants to go back into what was his profession before he went inside.

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Also,

http://www.thisisswindontownfc.co.uk/news/9721156.Wray_explains_McCormick_decision/