The General Football Thread

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St Badger said:
I thought I would watch the Women’s match, Chelsea v Man City.
It is not a good advert for women’s football.
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I am glad you posted this, St. Badger. I saw some of the match but was totally bored by the performance. Turning on to Match of the Day last night, I was a bit shocked to see that it got equal billing with the Liverpool v Arsenal game. Unfortunately, I missed the first goal which was admittedly incredible yet I am inclined to say that the BBC coverage of the women's game is completely over the top. I think it is good that it is getting coverage. Was is not so good is the unbalanced quality of the commentary. There seems to be an attempt to made the game seem as significant as the male equivalent and every player gets described as either "world class" or someone who has had to come through a lot of injuries to attain the level they are playing at.

The reality seems somewhat different. I think that the women's game is now watchable as opposed to being a novelty and the quality has improved tremendously. Despite this, I feel that there are still elements which betray how far their game needs to improve before it can be considered to be at the same level. The offside goal ruled out is a good example. The City player should have tried to shoot instead of passing to a colleague who was clearly well offside. Listening to the commentary, whilst it was nice that these players were being encouraged , there seemed to be little proper criticism. You never hear anyone say that the match was dire or a certain player was useless. The commentaries are not particularly objective. Watching women's football can demonstrate elements of brilliance and ineptitude in the same match far more than you would encounter in the male equivalent. If there is to be parity between the coverage of the male and female elements of the game, there needs to be more balanced and objective criticism.

It is a good thing that the media is covering the women's game. At the same time, I think that the likes of the BBC need to be careful and balanced in their reporting. You would have thought that priority should be given to the better quality levels of football. I wonder if the women's game is as popularly supported as are teams from Divisions One and Two? Non-league teams barely get any recognition in the media. The local BBC only seems to deal with the non-league on the radio with little mention on TV. In addition, the Sport Echo no longer exists and there is very little on the Echo website concerning the lower level of football. The best local coverage in this area of Hampshire now rests with the Hampshire Chronicle who have close ties with WCFC. As far as the media is concerned, the non-league barely registers even though is think that even the international level in the woman's game is probably about equivalent to 6th or 7th tier in UK.

I agree that women's football needs coverage and feel that if it is to be taken seriously, it needs to be balanced and say when the quality is poor. At the same time, I think that the non-league level of the game should have more support.
 
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rednright said:
It seems they want to go Woke rather than have all white blokes that are popular.
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I feel that the best pundits have always been on the radio. For me, the best was the late Jimmy Armfield as he always delivered comments that were measured, fair, articulate and analytical. Others who were good - Graham Taylor, David Pleat, Mark Bright,
 
The Ides of March said:
Well he is better than Claridge, Savage. Maybe Pleat is too old skool for you!!
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Le Tissier's Laces said:
He’s better than Savage, but then so is my cat.

With regard to Pleat, I do at least like my commentators to know the names of the people playing, which was constantly beyond him. Dreadful commentator.
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Give him some licence. He is getting on now but in years past he was OK.
 
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