On Vagueness and EXCLUSIVES: Can England’s stars truly be this boring?

On Vagueness and EXCLUSIVES: Can England’s stars truly be this boring?

On Vagueness and EXCLUSIVES: Can England’s stars truly be this boring?

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By Henry Cooke, writing from London

Prior to England’s clash with Italy at Euro 2012, Scott Parker was asked a simple question.  Would he be holding any grudges against Mario Balotelli, the man who had stamped on his head earlier in the season?

“He got punished for it and has obviously served his punishment.  That was just part and parcel of football, I’m not holding any grudges…”

Even in a sport accustomed to the sterility of the post-match interview this response was exceptional.  Are we expected to believe that a victim of head-stamping, the deliberate stamping of the head, the head, can be so benevolent? If one of England’s most aggressive on-field performers can neuter his opinions to such an extent, will we ever bear witness to the truth?

Well, here’s the thing.  We did.  It just wasn’t the truth we were looking for.  You see, Scott Parker wasn’t finished, he didn’t have much else to say, but his last few words were illuminating:

“… I don’t think anything. That’s just the way it is really.”

And there it was.  Laying amongst the gravel of media training, was a nugget of truth: Scott Parker doesn’t think anything, and he’s not the only one. Despite what they would have us believe, English footballers are capable of independent thought, but their opinions have been isolated and numbed in a PR-emptive strike.

Whether Parker’s comment was due to boredom or taking his Press Officer’s instructions too literally (“remember Scott, you don’t think anything, okay? Fantastic.”), he exposed an uncomfortable truth that has plagued a sport that is otherwise packed with entertainment. We witness unbridled emotion on the field, in the stands and in the dressing rooms, but why does this suddenly change when a camera appears?

There are precious exceptions, when a microphone is thrust upon a player at the ‘wrong’ time and raw emotion muddles their Manchurian programming, but all too often the tedium of the media-trained footballer creates an emotional distance between players and fans.

For the sake of a club’s integrity, a degree of radio silence is always necessary; if all transfer targets, disciplinary matters or tactical decisions were outed then a club would obviously suffer.  But this does not explain why a player should be vague when faced with a simple question, or more specifically, does not know when to be honest, choosing vagueness as a catch-all.

How much longer can we stomach hearing a player respond with forced calm, that scoring a goal wasn’t about him, but “like I said before” it was about the team.  Just once tell us that it felt good. It felt great.  Forget the result…did you see that?!  If we the viewers aren’t getting the content we want or deserve, how did we end up with this situation, and what can be done?  There’s a number of potential explanations, and each contains an element of truth.

Faced with an industry that has no qualms labeling a sober press release as an EXCLUSIVE!! it arguably isn’t fair to expect English footballers to represent the game through anything other than playing football.  What hope does a grain of truth have if it is seized upon, dissected and misrepresented, if not by the original journalist, then by the media organs that ceaselessly regurgitate it?

Such sensationalism demands a response, hence PR-training as standard. But it’s gone too far, our idols are increasingly distant and boring.  If we had trained our footballers in possession for as long as we’d trained them in not answering questions directly, we’d probably have won Euro 2012.  Even our mascots are inaccessible. ‘Gunnersaurus’ the incongruous Arsenal dinosaur “doesn’t do interviews”. But why? Silence suggests there’s something to hide…

In fact, a source close to Gunnersaurus told me (EXCLUSIVELY!!) that he’s addicted to gambling, not really, it’s actually pornography*, but who’s going to challenge it?  Gunnersaurus? No, because he’s not able to comment on anything.  So without honesty, we receive the filler of speculation and our footballers become even more withdrawn.

*Gunnersaurus is not addicted to pornography

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It could also be that we, as a nation, lack imagination in all things football. Our national team is one-dimensional, so are our nicknames.  In the Czech Republic Tomas Rosicky is known as ‘Little Mozart’, Messi is the ‘Atomic Flea, Turkey’s Servet Cetin is brilliantly known as ‘The Bear Strangler’.  Representing England, we have ‘Gazza’, ‘Wazza’ and ‘Becks’.  If that’s representative of our players, fans and medias collectively originality, then maybe the raw materials were never there to start with?

Last but not least, our fear of honesty is heightened by our increasingly litigious nature.  The breaking news that Sam Allardyce intends to sue Steve Kean for a drunken rant - exceptional only for its existence as opposed to it’s content - suggests that he is only ‘Big’ in stature.

With this many problems, the issue becomes less about ‘why’, and more about ‘how’.  If each constituent part of the problem has to change, which order should it happen?  Do our footballers try to ease up, do our papers try not to dumb down?  It’s a stand-off that is familiar beyond football, and it’s unlikely to end soon… but there are alternatives.

Every footballer can’t be a Mario Balotelli, our newspapers, nightclubs and public services couldn’t handle it.  But we can coax our footballers into being more open, just maybe not in pre or post-match interviews.  The growth of independent football blogs (like the one you’re reading, Zonal Marking, The Swiss Ramble), considered features and interviews (The Blizzard, When Saturday Comes, World Soccer ), and cynicism (Mediawatch, The Fiver) encourages the right atmosphere for honesty and with it, insight.

So basically, at the end of the day, our footballers can be dull, but that’s part and parcel of the game, so like I said before, you’ve got to give 110% and you can come away with a result.

This article was written by Henry Cooke. You can follow him on Twitter at @totufnostalgia and check out his website here.