The BBC’s dull, uncritical and patronising World Cup pundits put the Earps in twerps
FOCUS not on the differences between men’s and women’s football.
Let’s look instead at something that unites both games.
The ancient art of “getting ahead of yourself”.
A subject I’m painfully familiar with, having just coerced four others into booking a hotel in Germany for next summer’s Euros, in the full expectation Scotland will qualify for the tournament.
An act of unforgivable folly and hubris, I know, but it does mean I can spot this failing in both ITV and the BBC, who’ve been getting way ahead of themselves ever since the England women’s team arrived Down Under.
With fairly good reason, it transpired.
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They eased through to the final, against Spain, without too much inconvenience, which meant I had a choice to make on Sunday morning.
Perfect mockery
For reasons of big ratings, rather than anything to do with Gabby Logan, Alex Scott and the gang, I went with the BBC, whose coverage of the tournament I’ve found dull, sycophantic, patronising, uncritical, overly technical and underpinned by such a simmering sense of righteous indignation that I’d swear, if I didn’t know better, they were all secretly thrilled Mary Earps’s goalkeeper’s jersey wasn’t for sale, as it made them all feel like Emmeline Pankhurst.
The Beeb team was partial as hell as well, of course.
To the extent no one gave Spain much hope before the game, partly because squad members had fallen out with coach Jorge Vilda (blokes, hey!), but mainly because someone they were now referring to as “Mystic Fara Williams” promised it would be: “Two nil to the Lionesses.”
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Indeed, so sure were they of England’s destiny and their own reflected glory that instead of showing the closing ceremony, they talked over it and then showed a film of reporter Jo Currie at the lionesses’ enclosure in Taronga Zoo just so she could say: “Everyone knows, this weekend, the lionesses are the main attraction.”
I suppose we should thank Jo for sparing us the didgeridoo solo, but we all know what comes after the pride, don’t we . . .
Yeah, the kick-off. At which point it swiftly became clear Jorge and the Spanish team had the complete measure of Saint Sarina Wiegman and England.
They also possessed the outstanding player in Aitana Bonmati, who none of the experts flagged up beforehand, while Lucy Bronze, who absolutely everyone had flagged up beforehand, looked more lost than my German hotel deposit.
The commentary team of Robyn Cowen and Rachel Brown-Finnis sensed it as well, obviously, but kept trying to spin things the other way, making a perfect mockery of their words in the process.
At one point, Robyn yelped: “That’s a brilliant ball from Lucy Bronze, no one there.”
While at another, Rachel assured us: “England’s last-ditch defending has been sublime,” even if it looked more like a Chuckle Brothers sketch from where I was sitting.
By the time Spain missed a penalty, though, Robyn’s desperation was apparent as she screamed: “Could this be it? Could this be a turning point? It has to be . . . ”
It wasn’t.
And lo, there was a great gnashing of teeth among the BBC women.
And Alex Scott, who needs to remember she’s a pundit, not a PR, said: “It wasn’t Lucy Bronze’s fault,” but then said it so often you kind of got the impression it was entirely Lucy Bronze’s fault.
If the BBC gang took defeat badly, though, the bloodiest aftermath was on ITV where, on Monday, they entered a period of professional mourning that engulfed the Loose Women and This Morning.
The oddest display, however, came from GMB’s Richard Madeley, who started talking about a football match like no one has since the 1938 Cup Final.
“It seemed to me the score could’ve been much more in the Spanish favour,” he announced, before going “full Pathé”. “The ball didn’t bounce for England as well as it had done before and if that kick that hit the bar had gone in it would’ve transformed the game.”
“But hurrah for the plucky old Spaniards, I say, that’s one in the eye for Lord Nelson,” he didn’t quite add, but might as well have done.
Richard also wanted to know: “How do we honour the Lionesses?”
A worthy question that’s been asked by a lot of other presenters and often, you sense, by complete frauds who’ve used the success of the team to burnish their own right-on credentials rather than the cause of women’s football.
But there is a very simple answer here.
If you really and truly have the best interests of women’s football at heart, rather than your own cred, then start paying to see some women’s games, or kindly shut the f*** up.
Unexpected morons in the bagging area
TIPPING Point, Ben Shephard: “Which island prison in San Francisco Bay closed on the 21st March, 1963?”
Jess: “Montenegro.”
The Finish Line, Roman Kemp: “In the film The Wizard Of Oz, which character wants a brain?”
Virren: “Pinocchio.”
The Weakest Link, Romesh Ranganathan: “In technology, what word goes before Definition in the TV standard usually abbreviated to ‘HD’?”
Harry Pinero: “Pizza.”
The Chase, Bradley Walsh: “In 1962, John Glenn became the first American to eat a meal where?”
Beth: “McDonald’s.”
“In space.” (Rpt)
Random irritations
PAUL the bloody octopus leading to a never-ending pox of “psychic” daytime animals trying to predict World Cup results.
ITV continuing the war against its own viewers with the crushingly woke Confessions Of Frannie Langton.
Every young moron on telly pronouncing performance as “prerformance”.
BBC1 rounding off its drably predictable World Cup coverage with snowflake anthem This Is Me.
And Celebrity MasterChef and all those other shows which treat drag acts, like Cheryl Hole, as if they were an actual woman rather than a grotesque affront to all women.
NO LOVE LOST ON CELEBS
EVERY year, E4’s Celebs Go Dating attempts to pair up D-list flotsam with members of the public.
And every year it fails because, having scrambled up the first rung of fame’s ladder, the celebs are too shallow and insecure to take a step back.
A sad fact perfectly demonstrated, episode one, by Love Island’s Adam Collard and Kate Moss’s dignity-dodging half-sister Lottie, who ignored all the “civilian” options and slept with each other straight after the opening mixer.
The chances of finding love appear equally slim for Made In Chelsea’s “turbo toff” Mark-Francis Vandelli, who’s shooting for the moon here by looking for someone “moderately cultivated”, and Love Island’s Chloe Burrows, who said: “I’m jealous, overbearing, a little bit clingy and want to meet someone who’ll deal with the problem.”
But I’d imagine they are all currently incarcerated at Belmarsh prison.
Vanessa Feltz is also thundering around, abandoning dates mid-meal because they haven’t set her up with George Clooney, and providing ample material for Rob Beckett, whose brilliant commentary remains the single, solitary reason for watching Celebs Go Dating.
Even he, though, was left dumbstruck by the lack of self-awareness demonstrated by Mark-Francis Vandelli at the mixer, where he cast a dismissive eye around and sniffed: “I have no time for useless, pointless people.”
Me neither. Click.
SOUTH African 1,500 metres runner Tshepo Tshite was good, but the funniest-sounding foreigner at the World Athletics Championships is probably Portuguese marathon runner Adrijana Pop Arsova, who’ll make every sub-editor’s dreams come true if she falls over at Saturday’s finish line.
VIA a QI repeat this week, I learned the quasihemidemisemiquaver is a musical note that happens so quickly (approximately 0.02 seconds) it’s too brief to be distinguished by the human ear.
But, if you want to know how it translates into normal life, it’s exactly the same amount of time, from the start of any interview, it takes Keir Starmer to say: “My dad was a toolmaker.”
Lookalike of the week
THIS week’s winner is Sarina Wiegman and Clarence J Boddicker from RoboCop.
Emailed in by Stewart Farquharson.
Picture research: Amy Reading.
Great sporting insights
TIM SHERWOOD: “Chelsea will do terribly well to be as atrocious as last year.”
Mike Dean: “It was the last minute of the game, with five minutes to play.”
Ellen White: “Mary Fowler has taken this game by the scruff of her neck.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray)
LOOSE Women, Monday: “What happens when Janet Street-Porter comes face to face with a group of Janet Street-Porter lookalikes?”
They’re put under starter’s orders, normally.
TV GOLD
SKY Atlantic’s Winning Time: The Rise Of The Lakers Dynasty proving to be the best show on TV, from the opening theme tune (My Favorite Mutiny, by The Coup) onwards.
Top Guns: Inside The RAF coming face to face with Russian jets, on Channel 4.
Josh Kerr’s thrilling 1,500 metres win at the World Athletics Championships.
And C4’s compellingly brilliant The Price Of Truth paying homage to journalist Dmitry Muratov, whose defiance of Vladimir Putin and his cowardly thugs is one of the most extraordinary stories of courage this century.
Everyone should watch this show.
COMPARE and contrast. Loose Women, Monday, Janet Street-Porter: “This is an amazing achievement. I think we should have a Bank Holiday for The Lionesses and a smashing parade where we can all wear our England shirts and celebrate together.”
A slightly different response to the one Janet gave during the men’s tournament in 2006, when she wrote: “I hate everything to do with the World Cup.
“I hate the sight of middle-aged men in tight white T-shirts with “England” running across their man breasts, I hate flags fluttering off every van in the country, I hate the sound of the commentary . . . ”
And on and on it goes, with Janet merely demonstrating the thing she really hates is men, almost as much as she clearly detests herself.
GREAT TV lies and delusions of the week.
Women’s World Cup Final, Rachel Brown-Finnis: “The goalkeeping has been sublime this tournament.”
Lorraine, Lucie Cave: “Reasons to be cheerful, three. Big Brother is coming back.”
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Celebs Go Dating, Vanessa Feltz: “I want to look incredibly attractive, sexually irresistible, just inordinately rivetingly ravishing.”
And as wheelchair-using legend Brian Potter said on Phoenix Nights: “I wanna moonwalk, but life’s a s**thouse.”