Kazahk-Slam

Its be applauded for standing up in the middle of a circle of stacking chairs in a drafty community hall confession time. Everyone, I would like to take this opportunity to tell you all that I don't support the England national football team. No, my national allegiancies lie with Wales, when people ask why I tell them its because I'm a glory-hunter. Rather than tread that path now I will stick with the originally vague subject matter; I don't support England. And the key upshot of this is that when I do watch them I can be assured that I am one of the few people doing so able to watch the match subjectively.

The general rule of thumb for the media in past years was that sports coverage was done with equal objectivity. In the past it would have been Kazkhstan and England, the blues and the whites; now its very much 'us' and 'them'. We are presumed to share the same goals and so ITV's lengthy preamble can begin with Steve Ryder eulogising on how "we are all hoping". On a brief tangent ITV also began with a highlight reel of England's great football moments from the past forty years, only there was something not quite right. It looked like those famous moments, but it sounded a bit odd. It was like one of those odd feeds you often get on satellite television or copied DVDs when the sound is just a fraction of a second out and so characters no longer look like they are talking in their normal voice.

It took me a while to register that the reason for this unfamiliar feeling was of course that they were ITV's highlights. So no "What a save... Gordon Banks" from David Coleman... no faded "Sheringham... Sh--rer" from John Motson... and no "They think its all over..." from Kenneth Wolstenholme. This was ITV's England history, and like a long lost communist dictatorship any trace of the dissenters had long since been erased.

Neatly back to the subject in point, and thankfully there was no danger of the BBC lazily stereotyping Kazakhstan as a long lost communist dictatorship. Although that is essentially because on Football Focus they had elected for the even lazier option of a succession of poor 'Borat' character impersonations, with messrs Keown, Lawrenson and Ferdinand spending more time analysing a luminous mankini than any of the Kazahk players. Is this not the national media whose purpose is to inform? How hard would it have been for just one of the threesome named above to have maybe done some sort of research for their job? Instead Kazakhstan were dismissed as 'minnows' by Mark Lawrenson, and on ITV Clive Tyldsley heralded the squad of 'virtual unknowns'.

Although I am not an England fan I am by no-means anti-England. However, Saturday's match became an exception. Not because of any angst against the over-paid players, the wasted talent, or the reactionary fanbase. No I cheered for Kazakhstan simply because Lawrenson, Tyldsley and co. are too lazy to even spend half an hour googling 'Kazakhstan football'.