I feel a little compassion for footy players in some respects, even this bunch of spooners. The fans as schizoid. They love/hate bomb them constantly. Bozos want to get a photo with you or fight you every time you go out in public. What healthy person wants to be the object of hero worship or jealousy? Might be novel and fun for a day or two. After a few years? It would drive you nuts. Predatory women see you as a target, while others are deperado groupies wanting to give you the rockstar treatment. How would you know which was which? Or if that psycho ex you just had a bad breakup with is going to come out and call you a wife basher and get your name smeared in front of the whole country? (Josh Reynolds can tell you about that). Subject to pressures, scrutiny and temptations normal people never know.
How would you react when one minute your arse is being kissed by a stadium full of people and the next week you have a shocker and they're howling for your blood? You'd be a bit distant and aloof. At least I sure would. Not because I'd think I was better than anyone. Would just want as little to do with the public as possible. That might make me seem like a dickhead, or arrogant. But it's bad enough when you have a regular job dealing with a few customers a day. People are basket cases.
Got to hand it to someone like Thurston for how he carried himself off the field. (Met him one time. Actually didn't know it was Thurston until a family recognized him and wanted a photo taken. He was friendly, polite, gave them their pic, and then VROOOM, he gtfo there fast. Kind of told me a lot about what fame must really be like. Frightening, actually. A different world).