Logan leads her team to break new ground
BBC coverage of the World Cup has successfully seen off the social media critics, writes Alan Tyers
Perhaps in another 20 years it will seem quaint to talk about inspiring girls
It is 20 years this month that I have made at least some of a living by writing about football on the telly, how it is broadcast and, as marketeers would now have it, how it is “consumed”.
Back in 1999, on the Football365.com website where I started, my editors were two Manchester City fans, and the role largely involved teasing Clive Tyldesley for saying “that magical night in Barcelona”.
It was a good time to write about the sport on TV, football being a less polished machine, and hence its on-screen faces being more likely to say silly things. Big Ron Atkinson, in his prelapsarian days, was a well of amusement, intentional and, mainly,
otherwise. Dishy Des twinkled, although his star was dimmed by the move to ITV. Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson could still be bothered; Andy Gray and Richard Keys were not yet considered beyond the pale, or at least not by people who had not met them. I remember doing what would now be called a podcast in a broom cupboard near Gloucester Place with ITV’S Brian Moore; I bungled Brian’s directions from Baker Street tube and he arrived flushed, having walked a long way in the heat. Ultra professional and lovely, he was conscientious about being late even to work with some starstruck online nonentities a third of his age. He died a few days later; I continue to pray this was unrelated.
We considered ourselves a right-on bunch, but I do not recall people in the first wave of internet coverage having much interest in women’s football as a sport that could be watched on TV. I do not think many could have predicted two decades ago that The Daily Telegraph would have a women’s sport editor or supplement, and certainly not that the audience for a women’s football match would peak at 7.6million, as it did for the England v Norway quarter-final last Thursday.
The BBC coverage has been largely very good and, perhaps more surprisingly, largely well received. Before the bear-pit of social media, football pundits still inspired passionate, largely negative reactions, although it was harder for the furious anonymous coward to abuse directly the people on his screen. That delight would emerge in the second half of the Noughties, and women have borne a disproportionate amount of the brunt in sport (and beyond). But this time around, it seems reaction to the work of Gabby Logan and her BBC team has been positive. Judging from what one can see on the internet, only commentator Jonathan Pearce has come in for a severe coating.
There are obviously still a few dimmer bulbs who cannot see beyond the presenters’ looks, and some angry weirdos who are just unhappy the national broadcaster is putting the tournament on at all. Some cannot free their minds to enjoy the differences in men’s and women’s football, unable to get over the fact that a Theo Walcott can run faster than a Nikita Parris.
For the rest, the coverage has had several tasks: broadcasting a football tournament, cheering on the Home Nations (but, let’s face it, England) and the more nebulous goal of “inspiring”. For some people, this is sick-bag territory, but it seems to me you cannot cover an event like this without framing it in the terms of what it means for broader society.
Logan said on air she “was welling up” meeting the England Lionesses of 1971, who competed at a Fifa-unsanctioned Women’s World Cup in Mexico. Alex Scott and Hope Solo gave good background about Megan Rapinoe, Donald Trump and the role of the athlete as mouthpiece or amplifier, and how that differs in the US and UK.
As it stands in 2019, a women’s World Cup and its coverage are not yet a sporting event alone. Perhaps in another 20 years it will seem quaint to talk about inspiring girls, perhaps a 45-yearold Millie Bright will be a co-commentator whose way of speaking causes as much spiteful ridicule as Michael Owen’s has done. Equality and fairness might mean exact parity. But whatever happens, the way this tournament has been televised will have been a major milestone.