MICHAEL DUBERRY COLUMN

Joe Montana, Walter Peyton and Dan Marino are just some of the players back in the mid-1980s that got me interested in American Football, and I’ve been hooked ever since.

The NFL has produced many superstars throughout its illustrious and rich history.

Success and trouble seem to go hand in hand in the NFL, with many of the stars finding themselves in some sort of trouble.

Recently the NFL has found itself under yet another dark cloud, with two of the game’s top stars in serious trouble with the law.

Running back Ray Rice was caught on camera knocking out his fiancée in a lift, before dragging the unconscious lady out.

Rice has since been released by his then employers, Baltimore Ravens, and given an indefinite suspension by the NFL.

I have no sympathy for him and his punishment as violence, and especially domestic violence, is appalling to say the least.

A man should never hit a woman.

It’s one thing to knock down an 18st defensive lineman on the way to a touch down, but it’s another thing to knock down your fiancée in a row.

He went from hero to zero in one cowardly act and sometimes things are hard to recover from.

THE other star in trouble was Adrian Peterson, who handed himself into the authorities on Saturday after allegedly hitting his four-year-old child.

Peterson plays running back for NFL side Minnesota Vikings and many believe him to be a candidate for the NFL Hall of Fame.

The charges he faces are reckless or negligent injury to a child, and he’s now being held on a $15,000 (£9,000) bond.

His employers, the Minnesota Vikings, did not select him to play in Sunday’s game against the New England Patriots.

When I heard of his case, my first reaction was that I couldn’t believe he is in trouble for parenting his own child the way he feels best.

I grew up in a house where my brother and I got hit if we were naughty.

Some of you may have grown up in similar environments, while to others it might seem strange. But that’s how it was in the Duberry house.

It was only later on when I seen the reports on what Peterson had allegedly done that I changed my view on the matter.

There is a huge difference between discipline and corporal punishment.

I took some hits as a kid, but not with a tree branch, not to the point of drawing blood and certainly not when I was four like Peterson’s child.

He crossed the line, in my opinion, and took it way to far.

Even those parents from a generation of hidings and beatings I’m sure will agree with me.

As a parent myself, I am fortunate that I don’t have to resort to beatings or hitting and run my house on respect or fear.

Had Peterson smacked his child on the bottom in the supermarket for being a brat then I wouldn’t be saying all of this.

Instead I would be just simply saying that is how he chooses to parent his children and it’s up to him.

I don’t tell anyone how to bring up their kids, and hopefully nobody will tell me how to raise mine.

But I do feel that what Adrian Peterson did was a terrible thing and the story needs to be told.

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