Rio Ferdinand: Being mum and dad.

[susanq]

It was interesting to see where his learned behaviour of keeping his emotions hidden came from, after his father appeared in the programme. Rio's sons seemed to be doing the same thing, learning their behaviour from him. I hope he can show them it's ok to cry about losing their mum, and they shouldn't just 'man up'. This was an excellent documentary and was done very sensitively. Well done, BBC.

[Durzel]

Bookmarked to remind me to watch this ASAP.

Unfortunately stuff like this is a cold reminder of the fact that we're all mortal and we spend long periods of our life taking that fact for granted. Life is a brutal, unforgiving, unsympathetic, uncompromising .

[briangriffin]

Tuvra said:

I always cringe inside when people slate footballers as some kind of lesser class, yes, they earn lots of money, yes, some of them (not all of them) have poor taste in cars and yes, they earn more than most of us can ever begin to imagine, but so what? They were born with a natural gift and are suitably rewarded for their hard work, dedication and given talent. Footballers are human beings, their money does not make them any different from you or I, they bleed, they hurt and they lose those they love dearly, as Rio's story shows

I haven't seen the program yet but I will be watching it later, probably with a tear in the eye. I've always been a fan of Rio.

Totally agreed, ask him if he'd give it all up for one moment back with his wife and I'm sure he'd say yes, so sad, I don't know how anyone deals wit it

[Boozy]

briangriffin said:

Totally agreed, ask him if he'd give it all up for one moment back with his wife and I'm sure he'd say yes, so sad, I don't know how anyone deals wit it

Having just watched it I'd bet he'd chuck it in so he could have his kids have that moment.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

I know I'm going to get flamed for this, but unfortunately lots of young men with young children lose their wives. And most of them will have treated them a damn sight better when they were alive than Rio did.


http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/rio-fer...

[Northbloke]

Just watched on catchup. Very well made but difficult to watch.

TwigtheWonderkid said:

And most of them will have treated them a damn sight better when they were alive than Rio did.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/rio-fer...

Well that puts a different perspective on it!

Wonder what Rio himself makes of all that behaviour now.

[PurpleAki]

And that is just the tip of the iceberg...

[susanq]

Maybe they were tears of guilt.

[Too Late]

Watched it on iPlayer the other night and thought it was superb.

Way back when he was a youth player at West Ham i used to go down to chadwell heath and watch the players train during the summer school holidays. Rio and Lampard would both love talking to fans.

He has a superb support network and it was so sad that they had planned in such detail their lives and retirement to have it all thrown into chaos. You could see how worried he was about his kids..

At the end you cant help and reflect and think how grateful you are for the people you have around you.

[hornetrider]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

I know I'm going to get flamed for this, but unfortunately lots of young men with young children lose their wives. And most of them will have treated them a damn sight better when they were alive than Rio did.


http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/rio-fer...

Couldn't agree more. The bloke is a serial cheating toerag who had zero respect for his poor wife when she was alive.

[MYOB]

Whilst it's very sad to lose a spouse and father/mother, it's very clear that Rio has decided to deal with grief by absorbing himself in work. He explored options for family therapy etc but it seemed that this was something initiated by the BBC rather than from Rio.

It's obvious what he needs to do, open up more with his kids and spend more time with them. He can afford to do this at no great loss.

Yes, it was sad, but I didn't see anything that made me change my mind about him.

[Zad]

And two wrongs still don't make a right.