Nelson Mandela and Amnesty International are going to come after you lot.

So you think four of the biggest clubs in the league have got it wrong in shipping on Gleeson?

His form for all those clubs has remained at a very high standard. He is either the most harshly treated man on the planet. Or a Cock......

It must be something bad as he never looked the stressed out type, that's how he came across at forums etc, really laid back, sort of uncomplicated y'know, like he would have laughed hysterically at that Meerket advert for weeks on end.

The stigma of stress and depression means a lot of people are able to hide it quite well, you get the time honoured line all the time off families when someone commits suicide of

"i always thought they was so happy, i never realised"

Cheer up Martin Gleeson..

Yeah, I guess.

Shame really, he's one of the few backs in SL I enjoy watching to be honest.

Sally has summed up this bizarre view of Gleeson. The guy has notched up plenty of awards over his career and they've been fully deserved. If the bloke likes to live life dangerously who cares?

I bet he reaches similar situations to Franky 4 fingers in the film, Snatch. Soon as somebody mentions booze he has a crazy flashback - in his case probably with Sean Long in a travelodge wearing pink knickers being whipped by two Asian hookers.

This thread has been a lot more mature discussion than some of those on other boards but a couple of the posts on here just sum up my point.

This business where everybody seems to want to be in the know and pass and spread on gossip has always just seemed totally bizarre to me, it just strikes me as a load of attention seekers. If someone wants to get a bit of attention they can just come on the internet make a few cryptic comments and say "can't say officially on here but if anyone wants to know by PM I will tell em" then on come all the sheep "hey could u PM me pls mate", all wanting to give this sad act the attention for repeating a rumour which he/she has either read somewhere else on the net.

This happens in all the working class towns/cities, where most people have hard lives and have bugger all in their lives, but they all want to peddle gossip about people from their community who have actually made it, and usually its negative. All my Geordie mates who you would think would think the sun shines out of Alan Shearers backside, like to tell me that "great player, but if you meet him in person, he's a complete idiot", I've asked them, have you met him? and it's "no but ask any taxi driver". They all have the same stories about Cheryl Cole as well.

Wigan is one of the worst towns for this, I bet you any Wiganer you meet, will be able to tell you all sorts of stuff about Martin Gleeson, Martin Aspinwall etc, again it's all "my mate saw him out in town and this happened", but to be honest I could join in all these rumours as well....because I've read them all on the net. It happens up in Leeds where I live now, everybody up here has an Ellery Hanley story, usually related to anecdotes of his superhuman strength and success with the local females, I think some of them are just reworked Chuck Norris stories.

Gleeson is hardly unique at moving from top club to top club. Hanley and Andy Gregory did it, Lee Gilmour and Paul Johnson as well.

There's a difference between that and ending up like Bobbie Goulding, being passed around by Hudds (when they were bottom of the league), Wakefield, Salford and Leigh at the end of his career. Bobbie is the one who wasted his talent, which he now freely admits, remember him in his late 20s, when he was still a good enough player to play for a top team, being an angry man sticking his fingers up and wobbling his belly at us, you knew that he was frustrated with how things had turned out.

Lets not forget Martin Gleeson for all his supposed long history of indiscretions, was scoring twice at Old Trafford and picking up a Grand Final medal only eight months ago. For most people that would be the high point pinnacle of their career. For Gleeson it is supposedly in a period of decline.

You are going to get that in forums though. Transfer gossip, rumours of absence, who's doing what? Who's best friends off the field. Who's been spotted drunk in town etc etc.

We're a small sport in comparison to some, but we have many fans. As such, there is limited amount of fact to talk about, unless you want to constantly talk about previous facts? That would become a bit tedious after a while.

I like rumours of transfers, mainly because I will then begin to cast my eye over that player, gives me something else to watch in a neutral game (although I watch any rugby league game, I really enjoy the sport).

I know the defamation of character style is a bit off at times, but to be honest, the media are full of it as well. All these 'sources close to' and 'guess who was'. Shame really, I avoid tabloids completly. One recent one was that missing architect who was killed. The landlord was arrested, the papers were full of stories calling him a wierdo etc etc, he gets released without charge. Never once do the apologise.

I must admit though, if someone has a story about a rugby league player, I will listen to it. Its my passion (rugby, not gossip)

This is taken from the Hull FC board, and sums up perfectly what an awful lot of people think.Myself included.

steve_norton wrote:Maybe I am too old fashioned but as someone who sees how easy it is for people to waste thousands of pounds of their employers money by taking time off for stress I think in a lot of instance its an easy way out. If you can't do your job because of stress then perhaps you shouldn't be doing it in the first place, too many people think the world owes them a living.

If Martin Gleeson has things going on in his personal life that need sorting out then by all means take time off work to sort them out but don't call it stress and set a timetable for that to happen and Martin to return to work.

Speaking generally, not about Martin Gleeson, we waste far too much money pandering to people who claim to be stressed and it seems an easy way out, especially since weak GP's seem only too willing to sign people off work for it. I know recently of a nurse who split up with her boyfriend and a doctor signed her off for a month for stress. We all payed for that and it was totally unnecessary. Modern life these days is pretty easy, we don't want for much and what we don't have the government generally gives us. A little perspective and more personal responsibility is needed.

I know of a teacher who was recently given 6 months off work because she was going through a divorce. And guess who's paying her wages? Yes, me and you, so she can lie back and wollow in her own mire.

never forget the time I was an apprentice in Trafford Park. A bloke came into work 1 monday morning looking knackered. When asked why he looked so tired, he replied that he had been in the hospital all night with his mother who was dying and eventually died in the night. When asked what the bloody hell he was doing coming into work ( by the foreman), he replied, " I did'nt know whatelse to do, you've just got to get on with it."

they don't make em like they used to.

Bit of an y reply that.

I know a guy who ran someone over in a bus and killed them, it wasn't his fault but he went off sick with 'stress'.

Poor him eh, he should of just got on with it ?

The PC brigade on here are embarrassing. Gleeson is a mug who's brought all this on himself, don't give him pity, as he never felt sorry for you when he took your money in his wage packet and blown it up the wall getting blitzed.

Still, I've worked with plenty of people that have had time off work due to 'stress', and, in most cases, they bring it on themselves through their own actions. It wouldn't surprise me if this is the same as Gleeson.

Martin Aspinwalls in prison right now.......so i think you can asume some tales from Wiganers are true.

Surprised it took till the end of page 5 for the PC brigade to be mentioned. How do you know he brought it on himself? I love the judgmental crap on here.

By brought, I meant the aggro he's getting at the moment. People don't have sympathy for Gleeson because of his antics through his career. Gleeson doesn't deserve sympathy. If this was an impeccable pro who has tried his utmost to keep a clean record through his career, I'd wish him well and accept that he's having a hard time of it. But he's not, so if somebody doesn't want to wish him well, they shouldn't be challenged by somebody documenting experiences of stress.

Imagine if this time last year if Terry Newton had said he was suffering from stress and depression what would the response have been?

"He's a cheat/thug he's brought it on himself, I've no sympathy for him, he should man up, too many people are soft these days"

He knew he wouldn't have got any sympathy off anyone so he kept quiet about it and killed himself.

Then afterwards, people were saying why isn't there more support for rugby league players, the game should have done something to support him, before it got to that stage.

Don't know what support he is getting or the cause of this stress, but hope RFL have at least offered to see if they can help.

Are you trying to say that, if people gave Terry sympathy, he wouldn't have topped himself? Considering we know little of Terry's mental state and/or reasons why he took his own life, I'm unsure whether public sympathy would have helped him at all. As for the 'league should have done more', that's an entirely different debate, as Newton was a player banned for taking an illegal substance, whereas Gleeson is just taking time off. If this time off prevents Gleeson from committing suicide, then that would be brilliant, but people shouldn't be expected to give sympathy. Gleeson's lived a much-scrutinized career, if people want to judge him from that, they are more than entitled to.

What really angers me with some of the unsympathetic replies on this thread is the perception that stress is just like a bout of flu.Well maybe for a few the word stress means a few weeks off work but from my own personal experience stress usually leads 2 depression not to mention other mental issues so whatever wrongs Martin Gleeson has done he's a human being and not Jack The Ripper.

You are aware that it is not the real Steve "Knocker" Norton who wrote aren't you?

The sad, clueless, heartless individual who wrote that was also shot down in flames because of his remarks and led to the thread being closed, yet again.

I'm struggling, as Sally Cinnamon also seems to be, to understand the fascination with delving elbow-deep into another person's private life and almost revelling in their problems.

I truly hope that you and the idiot you have quoted never suffer any mental problems and if you do, I hope you arer treated by someone with a little more compassion than you have so far shown.

I think we'll end the thread on that note