Rob Green the scapegoat
Don't get me wrong. The butterfingered backstop cost England a goal against the USA. He knows that, and he's been man enough to admit it. (Some have rather cruelly pointed out his handling of the criticism has been better than his handling of the Jabulani.) But what I wonder is whether he deserved what he got yesterday morning. The sarky little jokes are, I suppose, ahem, par for the course:
Although long-lens pap pictures of someone playing a round of golf...? I suppose the one thing that would really annoy you more than anything when you're trying to get over the biggest error of your entire career is knowing that some bastard with a massive camera is following you around a golf course, praying that you'll drop your golf ball, or slip over. I suppose it's not the worst kind of intrusion, but it's still a bit mean. We know what Rob Green looks like without having to see him playing golf on his day off.
What Green really didn't deserve, though, was this:
What is fairly sinister is that the story of Green's 'love split' seems like it was ready to go, and that the papers were just waiting for a suitable opportunity to publish - like when he made a big error in a match. (Charming of the Mirror, by the way, to call his ex-partner 'one' as if she's just like a football.) It's as if the England players will be under even more pressure now - make a big error, become the inevitable scapegoat, and you'll end up with your private life all over the red-tops as well.
The other thing that gets me is the way the Sun claims Green 'hid' his personal life. As if not trumpeting all your personal agonies to the tabloids is 'hiding' it. How dare he have a private life! How dare he hide it from us by thinking it belongs to him, or that he might have a choice about these things!
But then these are those barmy days of World Cups when the Silly Season news gulf gets filled with footballing flim-flam. News is sport; sport is news. The sports reporters attempt to attack Fabio Capello for not revealing his team until 2 hours before the game - not because it actually damages the team, but because it means they're left in the dark and don't have exclusive inside tracks to report to their sportsdesks back home; so they have to guess and get made to look like mugs if they get it wrong. Rob Green is attacked by news for 'hiding' his private life, not because there's anything wrong with that but because they feel entitled to a piece of his personal agonies and woes to fill some empty space in the front end of the paper.
So who's next for the long lens on the golf course treatment? And what other tawdry stories are tucked away, ready to go as soon as an England star makes a mistake? England had better hope they start winning, or the feelgood factor will turn to poison. And even if they do win, they won't be safe from it.
No related posts.
Buy my book, it’s great
Switch site
Donate
Recent Posts
- Cheerio, cheerio, cheerio…
- Children died
- The letters you never get around to sending
- Applying again
- I just sent Robin round – 2
Most Commented On
Recent Comments
- Iain on Applying again
- Roger on The letters you never get around to sending
- Dave Hodgkinson on The letters you never get around to sending
- droid on The letters you never get around to sending
- Rogue_Leader on The letters you never get around to sending
About Me
Hello. I'm a Bristol-based writer and soon-to-be-redundant journalist. You can read more about me and the Enemies site here, or follow me on Twitter. Email me if you like - antonvowl at live dot co dot uk
If you're struggling to read the site please use the drop down box below to increase the text size.
June 15th, 2010 - 09:16
In fairness to the first 4 papers. Someone offered them the shot, and they had a tongue-in-cheek play with it. Ok maybe a little mean, but certainly no worse than flooded twitter and facebook on Saturday. I’d like to think that with how well he dealt with it afterward he may look back and smile.
As for bringing his private life into it. Well to be honest that’s just…
Crossing the line (Boom Boom!)
June 15th, 2010 - 10:01
It’s interesting that a lot of the foreign pundits on both the BBC and ITV have mentioned (in farily benign but telling terms) the “media environment” in this country. It seems that in every other country the media actually supports their team instead of looking for pathetic and salacious reasons to knock it down. Of course, when we inevitably have to take an early bath it will be everybody else’s fault other than the media’s. They will adopt their usual “it was in the public interest” or “not me guv” personas that surface whenever the spotlight turns on them.
Luckily, Capello has already marked his card with them by rightly having a go for filming inside the dressing room window. This is the beginning of the end of his tenure as England manager. The media will never forgive him for denying the public the right to see the England team’s hairy arseholes, all in the public interest of course. He will ultimately get the blame whether it’s his fault or not now. The Mail has probably got one of the many loathsome twats in their pay scouring the Italian criminal record database or speaking to past lovers just to get some irrelevant dirt that can be published, probably the night before a crucial match just to really fuck up our chances.
As the author of the Northern Rock piece said, “I fucking hate the media”.
June 15th, 2010 - 10:23
The back pages on Sunday were even worse. Whatever happened to getting behind “our boys”? I didn’t realise that supporting a team meant crucifying any of them if they make an error.
(Not to mention the fact that if we’d only scored a couple more ourselves, Green’s mistake wouldn’t really have mattered…)
Along with the accusations of “hiding” something if you don’t call in a journo and give a front-page exclusive on it, I’ve noticed a growing trend in the papers of reporting things that haven’t actually happened yet. Nick Clegg was giving a speech, I think it was yesterday, and yesterday’s Independent already had a bunch of quotes: “Clegg will say… The Deputy Prime Minister will say…” I don’t see the benefit of printing stories like this – what if Clegg had gone off on some other tangent and not said any of those things? Admittedly, it’s not very likely, but still – it’s not like he had actually made the speech yet, and they’d look like a bunch of numpties if they’d confidently reported on the content of his speech in advance and then he’s gone and said something different. Why would the government bother giving the papers advance copies of the speech for printing, anyway – is it just to pre-empt leaks? And if so, isn’t that a bit craven and defeatist?
I suppose it’s not a crucial issue, but it bothered me for two reasons: one because it seemed so unnecessary – why can’t the press just report what has happened? Why do they need the inside skinny on something that’s going to be a public speech? Is 24 hour news going to go into hyperdrive now – instead of instant reporting on what’s just happened, are they going to always want to be reporting on future events wherever possible? Because that’s just creepy…
And two, it seems to be another example of the press being pandered to by the politicians – news coverage being the most important thing. Rather than telling the journos to wait and listen to the speech like everybody else, an advance copy was rushed to them for printing. Why? The power dynamic seems all wrong somehow. It just encourages an overmighty press – like when they start telling me what “the public” think. I’m a member of the public, and I frequently don’t think what they tell me I think.
In sum – the press creep me out sometimes. Rant over.
June 15th, 2010 - 10:48
I’m totally rehashing a commehnt I left on someone else’s blog, but sod it, it fits in well here too and I have old woman hands so I can’t be expected to type out a whole new post, really.
Our attitude towards goalkeepers is fundamentally flawed; we have a culture in which the goalkeeper is the last choice position on the field (in Italy, goalkeeping is a deadly serious business, which is why they produce keepers of the calibre of Buffon and Zoff) so we have a real dearth of decent young keepers. And you can see why it’s so unattractive; the press treats the goalkeeper like he is solely responsible for all goals. Nevermind the defence hanging around slack-jawed like kids at an ice-cream van, doing absolutely bugger all to close down the attack.
I’m not saying Green is perfect and I don’t think I’d have picked him for World Cup duty (I favour Paul Robinson, another keeper torn to shreds by the press) but he made one mistake and actually played quite well for the rest of the game. The tabs profess to love football but the way they rip us to shreds at the slightest hurdle would suggest otherwise.
June 15th, 2010 - 11:39
“What is fairly sinister is that the story of Green’s ‘love split’ seems like it was ready to go”
Classic conspiracy theorist stuff.
Before Saturday none of the papers would have run a front page story about Rob Green simply because the majority of readers had never heard of him.
June 15th, 2010 - 11:50
The majority of readers would never have heard of the England and West Ham goalkeeper?
It’s not a bloody conspiracy theory either. Bellend.
June 15th, 2010 - 13:15
‘Before Saturday none of the papers would have run a front page story about Rob Green simply because the majority of readers had never heard of him.’
Bill, you are either saying that they did have the story waiting until everyone knew his name, or the second he missed the goal, the editors shouted, ‘Quick, we’ve got someone to blame, someone dig up some dirt on this guy, something, anything, NOW!’
Don’t you think it’s creepy and crap journalism either way?
June 15th, 2010 - 14:50
Why is it a conspiracy theory?
I’d guess that they had the info already, but “goalie breaks up with girlfriend” isn’t much of a story. Once the goalie is a big story because of his big mistake, his breakup becomes a story too.
You could spin it the other way as well – say he kept us in the competition in a penalty shootout, I can see the “Hero Green’s Heartbreak” story selling quite well too.
It seems fairly likely that the first choice England goalie would either fuck up or make a brilliant save at some point during the biggest international football competition there is, and that people would care a lot more about him then that at any other time. I don’t see why it’s a conspiracy theory to suggest that an editor would sit on an unremarkable story if he/she had reason to suspect it might get much bigger in a week or two.
June 15th, 2010 - 12:25
So glad it was 3am my time and I slept through it. The last group game is watchable if we’re not already out.
June 17th, 2010 - 09:35
Great World Cup traditions (pt 94):-
Jingoistic tabloids overhype tournament and England’s chances in it.
England miserably fail to live up to standard and scapegoat (a player) is found to blame for that failure.
In 1998 it was Beckham. In 2000 Euros it was Phillip Neville. This time around, Green gets hung out to dry (although we’re not out of the tournament… yet).
The problem is not the media knocking down the side per se, it’s the rampantly hysterical environment surrounding football in this country. England are probably ranked accurately by FIFA at 8th in the world. That means they have zero chance of winning the world cup and we ought to get over ourselves.