Soccer: For the good of the team

Rory Fallon. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Footballers are known as greedy sods at times, particularly at the high end of the English Premier League.

Ashley Cole infamously nearly swerved off the road in anger when he was offered £55,000 a week to stay at Arsenal in 2004 rather than the £60,000 he thought he was worth (he's now sleeping more soundly with £120,000 a week under the mattress now he's at Chelsea).

Wayne Rooney nearly walked out on Manchester United last year until they sweetened the pot with a £160,000-a-week deal and Cristiano Ronaldo got the pip with United when he discovered he wasn't the best paid player at the club.

Right now, All Whites striker Rory Fallon wouldn't mind just being paid. It's not happened since December.

His club Plymouth Argyle went into administration in February because of crippling debts, incurring a 10-point penalty and putting them at grave risk of being relegated from League One.

Plymouth won 1-0 at Dagenham and Redbridge yesterday and are now five points from safety with just four games remaining.

Fallon had the chance to escape when Plymouth last month agreed to loan him to Bristol Rovers and get him off their wage bill - frozen at the moment as the club struggles to pay its salaries.

Fallon wasn't having any of it. The easy option wasn't in his thinking.

"I just felt I would be running away and leaving the club in the lurch if I joined Bristol," says Fallon, a born-again Christian. "The gaffer [Peter Reid] wouldn't have had any senior strikers so I felt it would be wrong.

"In the good times and the bad times, you have to stand by your club. Without the team, there is no club. I felt I had to finish this season off, whether we stayed up or went down. I wouldn't feel right about going. My own integrity would be compromised."

His decision to stay has, naturally, gone down well with fans. The 29-year-old has not always enjoyed a great relationship with the Pilgrims' faithful but they voted him Player of the Month for March in recognition of his commitment.

He's not the only one to forgo wages. The players were asked four months ago to sign a document saying they would surrender their wages for the time being and agreed "for the greater good". They have been told they will be paid but there is no guarantee - especially if the club is liquidated.

Reid has also chipped in. The former England midfielder is reportedly paying the power bills out of his own pocket - auctioning his FA Cup runners-up medal for the Plymouth relief fund.

Far from leaving everyone at the club downtrodden, the financial issues have seen an upswing in results.

They have won five and drawn another of their 11 games since the club went into administration and Fallon said it had galvanised the team.

They made another important decision on Wednesday when fullback Jack Stevens was sold to Southampton for £150,000. The players were told by the administrator some of the money would be used to pay them 15 per cent of their wages for the month but they met and agreed to donate them to the staff of the club instead.

"We hear a lot of the staff are really struggling," Fallon says. "Players are better paid than the staff and have savings so we decided to give the staff our 15 per cent.

"Footballers get a really bad reputation, especially in England in the Premier League, but it just shows some footballers have a heart. It's not great going through all of your savings but I felt I could get to the end of the season."

What happens then is unknown. It's hoped a new buyer can be found but it is a sad position for a club founded in 1886.

Regardless, it's unlikely Fallon will be there. His contract expires in June and, given he was bought for a club record £300,000 in 2007, would be one of the higher earners at the club.

Fallon should at least be able to find another home in the English leagues. He's been at seven clubs since he first joined Barnsley as a professional in 1999 and recently spent a two-month loan spell at Championship side Ipswich. Bristol's offer shows clubs are interested in the target man who has netted 70 goals in 219 appearances.

Throughout all of this, however, Fallon has also been battling injuries. He had a hernia operation last year and last week saw a London specialist about a hip injury that has prevented him from training for the last three weeks.

He will need injections to get through the last four games before the off-season.

It means he's likely to miss New Zealand's matches against Mexico and Australia in June but, for now, his club is his priority.

Even if they can't pay his wages.