The Study of English Football [Part III]: How the media restricts independent thinking

Just Football’s Study of English Football by Andreas Vou continues now with Part III and the role of the media in football. If you missed Part I and Part II follow the respective links:

It may be the most common quote about the media but that is because of its ability to sum up one of the world’s most powerful tools in just a few words. Malcom X famously said “The media is the most powerful entity on earth because they control the minds of the masses.”

And for England, that statement could not be more appropriate. When you take a look at the country as a whole it is noticeable that pretty much everything is spoon fed; there are road signs every two metres, a person can be captured on over 300 CCTV cameras each day and there are free help lines for just about any problem you can think of. Some may see that as good organization, tight security and helping the public but in reality it is evidence of an overprotective and meticulous society.

If the bus is scheduled to leave at 13:00 and the driver can see you running in the rain at 13:01 the driver will leave because ‘those are the rules’. Some universities have banned students from throwing their hats at graduation for health and safety rules and ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ has been banned from nurseries for being politically incorrect.

It is like living life with a massive safety net where there is no room for independent thought. So this person has missed his bus he goes to a pub, orders his drink which is poured to an exact 25ml measurement (to prevent excessive drinking – that really worked out) and sits down to talk with his friends. The discussion of the day? Whatever is written in the newspaper.

This lack of free thinking is best illustrated by the influence that newspapers have on the English public. From the top five newspapers: The United Kingdom sells 8.35million copies each day in a population of 61million. The only country that gets close is Germany who sells 6.3million daily copies out of 81million people, followed by France with 2.42million copies/62million population and Spain 1.5million/46million population. With a total of 52million people in England and an estimated 11.6million sold each day means that 1 newspaper is sold to every 4.5 people (3.7 if you include the free newspapers such as Metro and the London Evening Standard.)

And we see this first hand in most of our conversations where the newspaper will literally be narrated as the ultimate truth. What we rarely see is people expanding their knowledge and reading more than one article on the same topic. Instead the majority will take a situation at face value and judge an issue or develop a viewpoint before they have explored both sides of the argument.

From a sporting perspective it is the same concept; the majority take in what they read in the back pages as concrete. Now you could debate that the situation in other major European nations is worse as some of their best selling daily newspapers are dedicated solely to sport; L’Equipe of France sells around 400,000 copies per day while Madrid’s two best selling sports papers Marca and AS sell 330,000 and 140,000 respectively.

L’Equipe dedicates a fairly even share of its papers to each different sport from football to Moto GP, it is one of the most renowned newspapers in the world, best known for creating the Tour de France and the Champions League. What is most admirable about the French newspaper is the way it chooses to go for the biggest sporting topic as its cover story instead of the top news regarding just French football.

Marca and AS are a completely different case, they are both incredibly biased towards Real Madrid as are the Catalan sports papers Mundo Deportivo and Sport towards FC Barcelona. Out of a 50 page newspaper around 85% of it will be about the respective clubs – you could even find out what they had for breakfast.

The majority of football fans’ main supply of insight and knowledge comes from the newspapers. The media has a large influence on the general public. The problem is that those filling our back pages struggle to comprehend the modern game and many of them are ex-footballers who played in an era where there were different requirements to succeed at the top level.

The media has a duty to build a generation of smart football fans but they are more caught up in trying to give their own expert analysis that was more applicable to their day than the current. That is why a lot of football fans do not understand the philosophy of their own clubs.

Villarreal, who lost to Arsenal in the 2006 Champions league semi-final, have an identical style of football to Wenger’s side but their fans and the media around them have a better understanding of their team’s approach. Slow, patient football is applauded, skillful footwork is met with a roar and even a pass back to the goalkeeper, often booed around English stadiums, is applauded in the knowledge that possession is imperative.

Instead our media loves to lavish praise on those hard-working team players with little technical ability and whose main tendency is to run themselves into the ground.

After a good performance against Wales, Scott Parker was being hailed as the answer to England’s midfield problems. But we have seen this so often in the past. It is in our media’s blood to quickly go into raptures over a player. A top player but at 30 years old is it not short-sighted to believe that his next few are going to be his best?

The media has the ability to raise someone into the stars but the moment they make a mistake the media can also slam them face down into the ground. Just ask Paul Robinson. England had finally found a good, solid goalkeeper; a player that for a time was even applauded at some away grounds when taking to the field, the best English goalie since David Seaman. One ‘mistake’ and the media shot down and buried him.

I am convinced that if the next day, the tabloids had the headline: ‘Poor Pitch Costs England’ as opposed to ‘Robinson (choose between clanger/cock-up/howler) costs England’ then Robinson’s England career would not have been destroyed. The sheer mockery astounded me, and at what cost? Losing a top goalkeeper that would probably still be between the sticks if not psychologically crushed to pieces by the press, whose views, as always, precipitated into the minds of the public.

Or Beckham who’s red card against Argentina in the 1998 World Cup was met with media hysteria about his stupidity for his kick-out at Diego Simeone. It was more hatred than criticism aimed at the then youngster, who was met with verbal and physical abuse for the whole season by away fans up and down the country.

In Spain, while they are often bias, they do not relentlessly mock or lambast players for a mistake. In France, sure they said that Zinedine Zidane’s headbutt in the 2006 World Cup was ‘stupid’ and ‘unrepairable’ but he was forgiven three days later by 61% of French fans in a poll.

While we joke about our players and ridicule them, many foreign newspapers offer rich, thought-provoking features. Fans here can go from thinking highly of a player to thinking they are terrible in a flash, there are not many with set views or beliefs based on studying the game by themselves. This is no small part down to the large quantities in which we take in this information.

In life, the majority will share the media’s opinions, except for the intelligent who will have their own.

Coming up in the final instalment, why we need to let our kids grow up properly to progress. Follow us on Twitter or subscribe to Just Football to keep in the loop.

Andreas Vou is an English-Cypriot sports journalist based in Barcelona, involved with scouting and charity work. Follow him on Twitter @AndreasVou89

England, Study of English Football, The Media