…and so to the press. The obnoxious, hypocritical, morality-lacking business I would love to get into. In the previous two World Cup pieces, I’ve touched upon the idea that the media may play a part in our failures and this is what we’ll discuss here, for it’s not been a great year for the red tops.
The year started with ‘Terry-gate’, the remarkably over-played story of John Terry’s extra-curricular activities with Wayne Bridge’s former girlfriend, Daphne from Frasie….sorry, Vanessa Perroncell. The fallout of which was Bridge’s withdrawal from the World Cup squad, the removal of Terry as England captain (a cheat replaced by a drug cheat..) and a rumoured split in the camp. All this in a World Cup year too…
During the tournament, it was reported by TalkSport that Steven Gerrard and Terry had caused something of a rift in the squad. One side forgiving Terry and looking past the incident, the other thinking that he’s the lying cheating scumbag that he clearly is. However, this entire story was later proved to be a fallacy. In a similar vein to Piers Morgan’s approval of the Mirror’s doctored army photos in 2004, the process of finding out whether there was truth in the story was ignored in favour of a few quick listeners/readers, at the cost of national pride and achievement.
I’m aware that journalists are hired to sell newspapers and earn listeners. That’s clear, and this makes criticising their actions a little difficult. The sensible action (if we’re all pulling in the same direction) would be to sit on the stories until we’re either out of the World Cup or celebrating victory. The stories will not disappear in the meantime, and the effect of a scandal-free tournament would be telling. This doesn’t happen though and the penalties they pay in court for reporting false claims are not high enough to dissuade newspapers going to print on it.
Fortunately, it seems as though it isn’t just the fans who have noticed this. Arsenal forward Andrei Arshavin went on something of a rant before the World Cup, telling Sky Sports News that: “In England, you are killing the national team with the level of intrusion. Everyone wants England to become world champions, but you’re killing them at the same time. Give it a few weeks and they’ll put a camera in a footballer’s pants to get a story. There’s no limit to what you’ll print.”
He’s not the only pro who can see it either. Professionally smug media sort Gary Lineker recently quit his job at the Daily Mail, explaining to Eddie Mair of Radio 4 that he could not continue as a columnist for a paper which had “clearly damaged” England’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup. The campaign seems to be gathering pace..
Barney Ronay of the Times put the traditional major tournament coverage into perfect perspective: “The point is that The Press have only two stories here: England win the World Cup or England don’t win the World Cup. One of these is a lot more likely, and so The Press is already diligently turning it into a coherent story, with a villain, some sex and a tempting notion of hubris. The Press now has a narrative for failure. We have a story arc, even if it’s the same one – debauchery, decadence, pitfalls of celebrity – as last time around.”
The coverage of the player’s private lives is bad enough, but their approach to on-pitch affairs borders on the ludicrous. The headline following the draw for the World Cup groups last year suggested that Algeria, Slovenia and the USA was the easiest group we could possibly have hoped for. It was hardly a professional stance and one that made our struggles almost inevitable. This type of blasé dismissal lays too much expectation into the minds of the players and however much they may try to ignore it, the thought that they should really walk over these guys without too much effort would definitely linger. Underestimation is the root cause of most surprise World Cup struggles.
It all echoes back to the by-now infamous Sun headline before the European Championships semi-final in 1996 between England and Germany. ‘Achtung, Surrender!’ read the headline, ‘For your Fritz, ze Euro 96 Championship is over’ followed. Brash, brazen and over-confident, they sow the seeds of our own failure.
Following the defeat at the hands of Germany 14 years later, it seemed as though the headlines were pre-written, ready and willing for a disaster to necessitate them. ‘Rout of Africa’ read the Mirror, ‘If the few had defended so badly as England, we’d all be speaking German right now’ read the unsurprisingly wartime Daily Mail, The Star followed suit with ‘Fritz all over’. The Sun ran with ‘You let your country down’, although the question must be asked about whether they were on their own in this regard.
Rooney’s Algerian outburst was one clearly born out of stress and frustration, of which I’m sure the media’s constantly aggressive line of attack with ‘when will you find your form Wayne?’ or ‘how do you feel about being our ONLY HOPE Wayne?’ played a significant part. The lack of any kind of understanding between any two England players could be blamed on tiredness and the Jabulani, but I’m sure the press efforts to build up the Terry affair and his alleged fall-out with Gerrard had nothing to do with it. Problems such as those this squad experienced can normally be brushed under the carpet easily enough, but if it gets to the point where you’re reading about it on every newsstand or hearing it looped every hour on every news programme, it becomes infinitely more difficult to ignore and move past.
Personally speaking, these England players have a myriad of problems, that’s for sure. Most of them strike me as simply just not being particularly nice people at the end of the day. However, the press attitude of ‘invent, repeat, exaggerate’ only heightens the problem and can take a huge chunk of the blame for our barren run. Of course, it would be infinitely easier if none of our players were having babies with mistresses, punching DJ’s or sleeping with ageing prostitutes, but then I guess we’re living in something of a dream world there.
At the end of the day, the newspapers exist to sell copies and want to make a mint. They clearly don’t want England to fail, they just want something to cram into their mouth right now. There comes a point when they need to think of the bigger picture though. Everyone will want to keep a copy of the newspaper the day after England won the World Cup after all…
If you like this, try reading Part One or Part Two of my post-mortem.
Things That Irritate Me.... 
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