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Are we downhearted?

Posted by putsimply on 22nd October 2007

Or
We woz robbed

What a weekend for the sporting buffs and the headline writers of the UK press – a real case of is the cup half full or half empty.

Once again the British press rose to the occasion by headlining the ‘failure’ of our sporting heroes instead of saying “well done, it is amazing that you ever got to that position in the first place”.

Poor (is that an oxymoron?) Lewis Hamilton headlined the BBC 10’o Clock News as he had failed to win the World Championship. Hang on a minute, surely it should have been lower down the list, no one had died for heaven’s sake.

This lad is a rookie, in F1 for only one season – how long did it take for Jenson Button to win one Grand Prix and has he ever been in contention for the Championship?It is pretty amazing that he was in contention at all… and now it is all still up in the air because of cold fuel.

As for the Rugby World Cup, will someone give me the address of that video referee so I can recommend my optician to him.

However, once again the England team was never expected to even get into the knockout stages so it is all a bonus that they even got that far. In the news section of the Sunday Telegraph it was not until page 4 that I found any news at all – an image of ‘heartbroken’ Jonny took up the front page with crowd scenes on pages 2-3. I am a fervent Rugby fan having been brought up on a pitch but I have got news for all those journalists out there – it is only a game.

What concerns me about the negativity of all this is that we are trying to encourage young people to take up sport and I am not sure that calling ‘failure’ when people have exceeded expectations helps to make it an attractive option.

putsimply