The BBC and an unbalanced view

Well would you Adam ‘ N’ Eve it? Four out of five British elite sports women believe they are underpaid compared to their male counterparts.

Hmm, to paraphrase one infamous lady of the night from the sixties, ‘ they would say that wouldn’t they’.

The less- than- startling revelation was the result of a survey carried out by the woolly liberals at the BBC to co- incide with ‘ International Women’s Day’, one of those irritating nods to equality with a title that promotes exactly the opposite.

Incidentally there is an‘ International Men’s Day’ every November, just don’t expect the BBC to take any notice.

I tuned in to some of the beeb’s radio coverage of such a momentous day for women expecting hours upon hours of lop- sided features and interviews and they didn’t disappoint.

It appeared to me that, according to our our publiclyfunded broadcaster at least, the lack of interest/ funding/ prize money in women’s sport is down to the media( the written media in particular pre - sumably).

And there was me thinking it was because ladies sport has little public appeal.

The beeb had lady rugby players, foot ballers, hockey players, wrestlers ( I may have made the last one up) queuing up to bemoan their lot.

They weren’t exactly grilled by their interviewers either. The lady rugby player I heard even declared that live coverage of her sport would convince the public what a great spectacle it is.

Er not necessarily. There’s a chance more people would react like me and switch off slow- paced, error- strewn sport and watch the inevitable reality show on the other side.

It’s a very simple case of supply and demand. The national press would write about this stuff if they thought the masses want to read it.

But they don’t. Just like they didn’t want to watch the last Women’s Cricket World Cup live, even though admission was free.

Bizarrely the BBC have pledged to show highlights of the FA Women’s Super League next season.

I say bizarrely because our national broad caster has given up Test cricket, boxing, horse racing, the FA Cup, the Premier League, half of Formula One, and various other sports.

Still why serve the major- ity when you can pander to a minority?

This column broke all website viewing records for this paper when I dared to state that women’s cricket was dull, and not because readers were lining up to praise my work.

Interestingly since I subsequently pointed out that I’d spent 20 years raising the profile of current England skipper Charlotte Edwards ( right, and therefore by association promoting her sport) onthese pages I haven’t heard a dickie bird from those dullards who were quick to label me ‘ misogynistic’, ‘ a’ dinosuar’, ‘ a disgrace’ and worse.

Obviously it’s far easier to jump on the ‘ outrage bandwagon’ than it is to match abuse with compliments.

Meanwhile, in my honest opinion, ladies cricket remains very dull.