WC2010: TV coverage starts to feel sorry for itself

By Craig Anderson
for Scotzine.com

Published: June 29, 2010

THE written press south of the border may be looking for a scapegoat in the aftermath of England’s defeat to Germany, but the broadcast media aren’t much better.

Fabio Capello is in the crosshairs of the scribes so the campaign to oust him will no doubt gather pace, but the TV crowd continue to huff and puff about what might have been.

In fact so desperate they are to find some kind of hero in the mess of England’s campaign, they’ve now latched on to the English officials, who officiated last night’s 3-0 win for Brazil over Chile.

Pathetic isn’t the word for it. Perhaps just sad is a better description and the gushing praise from ITV’s team for a man who doesn’t even get a kick of the ball is ludicrous.

Now I’m not suggesting that Howard Webb and his two assistants, Darren Cann and Mike Mullarkey, haven’t performed well. In fact I would agree with the assessment that they’ve been better than most.

But Clive Tyldesley’s almost homo-erotic description of a linesman waving a flag was almost bordering on fetishism. If analyst Jim Beglin had given him some “time to himself”, I don’t think I would be surprised to be honest.

Anchor man Adrian Chiles wasn’t much better when they cut back to the studio and was almost trying cheerlead Andy Townsend, Gareth Southgate and Patrick Vieira down the same road.

But for us up the road, this will be what the little Englanders will be hoping for. An English angle on a World Cup that gave them nothing but disappointment.

It smacks of desperation and the BBC aren’t much better on the back of England’s defeat to Germany. Alan Hansen, who many have accused of “going native” actually seemed quite smug as Germany destroyed them, almost gleefully highlighting the fact that you could have driven Sherman tanks through England’s porous defence.

So seeing presenter Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer and Lee Dixon with their faces tripping them in the immediate aftermath was almost worth the license fee alone, given how much they’ve talked their team up in recent weeks.

Objectivity went out the window as soon as they failed to have guest pundit Jurgen Klinsmann on to give a German perspective, instead relegating him to a touchline analyser with Garth Crooks, of all people, for the Argentina v Mexico game later that day.

What was missing and this would have made my day, is Ian Wright throwing his toys out the pram, like he did when England lost a match to Northern Ireland in Belfast. Now that was TV gold.

This is the very reason why Scots enjoy seeing England humiliated. Of the people I’ve spoken to, there is respect for the team and the players, but nothing so forthcoming when it comes to so-called TV experts, displaying sheer arrogance for a team that simply aren’t good enough.

Bear in mind these are the sort of “experts” that claimed before Sunday’s game that there would maybe be “two Germans England might have in their team”. Certainly makes it so much more enjoyable when statements like that are thrown out there.

We may be able to enjoy the tournament more after England’s elimination, but for the next two weeks Messrs Lineker and Chiles will use any tenuous link to convey the feeling of what might have been. It’ll start on Saturday when the Germans play Argentina in the quarter finals. They’ll have the black armbands looked out already.

The funeral of Fabio’s fallen starts here, folks. Thank God there’s some decent football on to take our attention away from it.


http://scotzine.com/2010/06/29/wc2010-tv-coverage-starts-to-feel-sorry-for-itself/