Saturday, December 09, 2006
Football and the PR Canker
I have posted before on my feelings with regard to the condition of English football, at least as manifested in the national team. The clubs produce better teams - how could they produce worse? - but have become equally vile in their limitless arrogance. Chelsea, for example, has been going to outrageous lengths to control the press. The press, predictably, have been nauseatingly supine on the matter. Manchester United has also been infected with the disfiguring disease of PR. During my Copenhagen escapades with P Diddy, I did the right hack thing - burst into Manchester United's private room and wrote a mild satire about the incident. The United PR subsequenty complained in the most ludicrous terms. I replied, explaining the God-given basis of the PR-journalist relationship - eternal enmity. She replied with more nonsense, concluding, 'Manchester United will take this up with The Sunday Times.' The pomposity is beyond belief. None of this has anything to do with the fact the United are playing my team, Manchester City, today, though, of course, I hope I have the same effect on them as I did in Copenhagen where they lost 1-0. But it is to do with the dismal power now exerted by PRs, attempting, often successfully, to recruit journalists in their campaign against the public. See my article on this matter from 2003.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
There's something wonderfully fascist about big league professional football, isn't there? And a nice elegant symmetry with the false transcendence of the ego into worship of nationalism. Has Mourinho managed to incite any barrages of death threats on anyone lately?
ReplyDeletePS The first three letters of my word verification are LSD. WHat could this mean?
PPS Go on City
I have always enjoyed watching and playing football. But like most sports, I can't understand how so many words could be wasted talking such utter shite before, during and after it. It's like art, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteActually, Neil, I thnk you may be onto something. Art exhibition consisting of tickets to see Doncaster versus Ipswich with bus laid on. This could be the coming together modern civilization so desperately needs.
ReplyDeleteOne can barely begin to imagine the studio discussion beween the likes of Andy Gray, Phil Thompson and Germaine Greer.
ReplyDeleteThe sneering Greer would have the other pair in tatters. I can see them now, cowering, as she unleashes another volley of invective at the absurdity of the whole, testosterone-drenched, farce: "This isn't an exibition, it's homoerotic, exibitionism for pin-headed, little boys..." "A game of two halves? More like a game of twenty-two halfwits".
ReplyDeleteDoncaster and Ipswich? A rather lowbrow fixture, I would say.
Bryan, I am sorry for your team loss! Better luck next time.
ReplyDeleteAs for comments, I switch sound off on TV. Except on BBC2 Match of the Day, when Adrian Chiles leads discussion - not the usual football boys pandering to each other sort of thing.
Oh, and only LSH for me!
There is little point in wasting more expensive fare on the kind of plebs who frequent art exhibitions, Neil. Anyway, we could argue there is far more reality in such kitchen-sink dramas as Doncaster Ipswich than in the rarified and artificial upper echelons.
ReplyDeleteALso I think you may underestimate the intellectual fire of Phil Thompson. "Homo-erotic exhibitionism is the whole point, you old harridan," he would growl.