Morgan has always played like that

2:47pm Thursday 13th November 2008

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Everyone is coming down hard on my old mate Chris Morgan after the elbow incident with Iain Hume.

The FA say they can’t take any further action because he was shown a yellow card. But if they could, they’d try and throw the book at him because you don’t want that happening in the game.

Video evidence shows it all and you can see he’s gone to get him. But he was not looking to intentionally hurt him, just give him a clip.

That’s the way Morgs has always played since first breaking into the Barnsley team. He’s made a really good career for himself from being a physical, strong defender.

Everyone gets caught with elbows. In the Luton home game, their right winger elbowed me.

I could see it coming and tried to get out of the way but he just got a yellow card and nothing happened. Obviously, if he’d fractured my skull it would have been a lot different.

It’s just unfortunate for Hume that he’s suffered such a serious injury and I hope he makes a full recovery.

I remember an incident when Lee McCulloch caught Morgs with a right-hander. Morgs came on Match of the Day afterwards, with his face swollen up, to say that McCulloch had come in the dressing room afterwards to apologise so he was not going to worry about it.

He was getting praised for that attitude but now those same people are going to try to nail him. I saw Sky the other day were showing every little incident he’s been involved in through his career.

But everyone’s going to have that, especially a committed defender who makes tackles.

I’ve known Morgs since he was about 12. He was the year below me at schoolboy level and came up the Barnsley ranks.

One of his first games was an FA Cup tie at Newcastle when he went in for a challenge with David Batty. Morgs was only 18 at the time but he wiped Batty out.

Batty was left lying on the floor while Morgs got back up and patted him on the head as if nothing had happened.

I’ve read that Hume is considering whether to press charges but I hope it doesn’t come to that. I’d rather the FA deal with everything.