As a West Ham fan who knows that one of the main reasons the team managed to stay in the premier league last season was due to the skills of goalkeeper Robert Green, I was shocked by his fumble against the USA in South Africa.

It was out of character, and it was also devastating for him, for the team and for the Inger-land fans. The press was, as we might expect, unforgiving.

Green’s mistake led to two Sunday red-tops presenting us with the same bad pun (based, lest you don’t get it, on the Maradona incident in the 1986 World Cup).

But the criticism wasn’t confined to the pops. The Sunday Times, drawing on the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster for inspiration, said Green’s spill was one the Americans would certainly not complain about.

The usually nice ex-goalkeeper-turned-pundit Bob Wilson was harshly critical of Green’s “basic schoolboy error” in the Sunday Telegraph, though the always nice Michael Owen showed a measure of sympathy in the same paper.

But if Green thought it would be a one-day wonder, then today’s papers give more than a hint of what he can expect for the rest of his footballing life (and maybe beyond that).

Rightly, the Daily Telegraph points out that Green – one of Britain’s least-known players – is now the most talked-about footballer, and not just in England.

Almost every front page refers in some way to Green’s howler. Most carry pictures of him playing golf, enabling headline writers the opportunity to put the boot in with a range of puns.

So we have Putter Fingers (The Sun); “So how many shots did you drop today, Robert?” (Daily Telegraph); “After THAT goal clanger, bet he missed the putt” (Daily Mail); and “Green tries his hand at a whole new ball game” (The Independent). Marina Hyde plays psychiatrist in The Guardian to ask So, Mr Green, why don’t you lie back and tell me all about that tricky ball?

The Daily Express page one blurb is somewhat charitable with a simple “England’s gaffe goalie puts his troubles behind him”, but inside comes the knife: Green finds a ball game he can get to grips with.

The Daily Mirror finds a different way to embarrass Green by claiming that he had let a “stunning model… slip through his fingers”, a reference to his having split with a girlfriend just before the World Cup. Headline? Here’s one he dropped earlier.

The Daily Star shows an unusual restraint by refusing to take a pop at Green, indulging instead in hyperbolic optimism with the splash heading “Lions are still gonna win it.” Oh yeah?

The Times also holds back from heaping front page ordure on the luckless Green. It chooses to offer some sympathy in a leading article that also draws on the oil spill, describing Green as “the man who handled the ball as if it had just been dunked in the Gulf of Mexico and had emerged as slippery as wet soap.”

Then it switches analogies to compare goalkeepers with rock band drummers, the people who take on tasks that ensure low profiles and little public acclaim.

Other leader writers are also sympathetic. The Indy argues: “This urge to scapegoat individuals for national sporting disappointments is as unappealing as it is nonsensical.”

The Telegraph, in Standing by our goalie, believes that “butterfingers” Green “has shown dignity in humiliation.”

The Express asks: “Who’d be a goalkeeper? One mistake and you’re a figure of loathing.” It concludes: “Spare a thought for England keeper Rob Green who must be feeling pretty desolate. From hero to zero in a split second just isn’t fair.”

The Mirror speaks up for Green too. Green “showed great dignity and commendable honesty”, it notes.

And The Sun, echoing the Star, says: “We can STILL win the World Cup. But not if we allow one goalkeeping bungle to destroy our faith in our team.”

It adds: “If you feel inclined to give someone a hard time today, what about ITV? The clowns running their HD channel destroyed the match for 1.5m viewers by switching to an advert just as Gerrard was scoring. By any definition, high or otherwise, that IS a disaster.”

So, will I still want to see Green between the sticks at West Ham next season? You bet. Mind you, I’d rather the owners weren’t there. But that’s another story.

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• Baroness Ford urges West Ham to make their intentions clear
• No reason why athletics and football cannot co-exist, she says

Wrangles over who gets to use the Olympic Stadium after the London 2012 Games must finish by the end of this year, the Olympic legacy chief Baroness Ford said today.

Considering West Ham United’s new and high-profile interest in moving in to the east London stadium after the Games amid other suggested would-be tenants, a public consultation process will be used to help make the decision, she told MPs.

Baroness Ford, chair of the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC), which is in charge of planning, developing and managing the Olympic Park, said: “It seems the time is absolutely right now to go into a public process to get a set of settled uses for the stadium.

“This is a £540 million public asset so it goes without saying that we are not just going to have some conversation off stage left and someone is going to take over the stadium.

“It has to be a publicly managed process to demonstrate value for money and that we are keeping the bid commitments that were there.”

It will start with three months of market testing, including publication of an OPLC prospectus in the next few weeks inviting people to make suggestions on what they can do in legacy. A formal procurement process will then take place.

Baroness Ford told the Culture, Media and Sport Committee: “We are really hoping we will get to an agreed position by the end of the year so we can say ‘here are the uses for the stadium’ and we can put that to one side and get on with other things.

“I am quite confident that we can get to a good decision on the stadium but we must do it this year because it can not be left to just drag on.”

Rumours have been rife that rugby and Twenty20 cricket could also be interested in using the stadium but Baroness Ford insisted that the bid pledge of having a grand prix athletics track after the Games “have to be met”.

She said: “We know that the amount of times that athletics will be used in the stadium will not be a huge amount of times, maybe a couple of dozen times a year, but for me premier athletics must be part of the mix because that was part of the bid commitment.”

West Ham’s new co-owners David Gold and David Sullivan took over the cash-strapped club this year and immediately confirmed their interest in relocating to the 80,000-capacity Olympic Stadium in Stratford, east London, as they try to improve the club finances.

The stadium is to be shrunk into a 25,000-seater venue after the Games complete with an athletics track. At the moment, there seems no reason why football and athletics could not exist together in the stadium, Baroness Ford pointed out.

She said: “Technically the pitch within the track is absolutely Fifa-compliant, from the point of view of size and sight lines, and evidently the stadium is IAAF-compliant.

“These things could technically co-exist, it is whether people would want to co-exist.

“Ed Warner [the UK Athletics chief executive] I know is quite happy to share with football and it is now for football to tell us, if they want to come in to the stadium, how they would want to keep their part of the bargain in terms of the bid.”

Baroness Ford said West Ham are not “the only show in town” in terms of use of the stadium as the OPLC is in “lots of discussions with many other people”.

She noted: “We need to get this settled once and for all this year. “The current planning status quo is for the stadium to be taken down and rebuilt into a 25,000- seater, the new Crystal Palace, and if that is what we decide to do, fine. We should not apologise for that. We have Twickenham, we have Wembley, and we would have a new athletics stadium – that is what is currently envisaged.

“If alongside that or complementary to that other things can happen in the stadium that make it more viable, more animated, give loads of access, that involve the community – that would be absolutely fantastic.”

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