Adam Clayton’s Conspicuous Bollocks: The Premier League Review

In our Premier League Review, we discuss the main talking points from the weekend's top-flight encounters. Here, we focus exclusively on Adam Clayton's scrote.

With Middlesbrough getting their first win of the season on Sunday, the team had every right to celebrate. Tripping on victory, filled with adrenaline, the players got together for a classic footballers-in-their-pants photo after the match. In the heat of the moment, in front of the assembled smartphones, Adam Clayton made a bold decision. Whether he was dazzled by the reflected glory of his teammates or high on a near-lethal dose of airborne testosterone, he did something that one would usually associate with public school rugby tours, or lads' holidays to Zante.

He exposed his ballsack to the harsh glare of the camera, leaving his testicles to protrude from the side of his kecks.

Adam Clayton going nuts after Middlesbrough's win vs Sunderland. He deserves the sack for this. pic.twitter.com/dQdLEeYkj5
— Liam Canning (@LiamPaulCanning) August 21, 2016

On the face of it, this is 'just a bit of fun'. These are standard hijinks, imbued with the lackadaisical approach to public nudity for which British males are globally renowned. It's just a bit of ballsack, after all. It's just a pair of knackers. The day that we are no longer allowed to flash the world our gonads is the day that freedom of expression dies. Adam Clayton is the latest in a long line of British exhibitionists, many of whom, on any given weekend, can be seen maintaining the traditions of their forefathers on the high streets of regional university towns. There they are, in the early hours of Sunday morning, getting kicked out of Vodka Revs for having their bollocks out. There they are, stumbling homewards, shouting "OI OI" while sporadically wibbling their genitalia at each other on the cobbled pavements of Leamington Spa.

In another sense, however, this is Adam Clayton's Rubicon moment. He has crossed the line between professional footballer and 'that guy with his ballsack out', and has gone beyond the point of no return. Clayton has exposed his tender manhood to scrutiny, and has given away a part of himself in the process. He is no longer a footballer, as much as he is a widely shared picture of a footballer's scrotum. His tatty bojangles are public property now, to be turned into online content over which he has frighteningly little control.