WE certainly enjoyed a wonderful summer of sport.
What a pleasant change it was to see such a variety of sports enjoying the limelight. I even read the back pages and watched hours of sport on television for a change.
Unfortunately, this could not last and most of the media have returned to their usual domination by one sport – football. As a friend was once told by the BBC: “You can forget your headlines if a Premier League player catches a cold.”
I am still puzzled by the performance of the footballers’ Team GB in London 2012, and the reaction to it. Football is, after all (so we are told), our national game.
Yet the football team seems to have sunk almost without trace.
Where was the usual pre-match hysteria about us being the best team ever? Where was the postmatch wringing of hands, pages of analysis in fine detail of how we where robbed? All absent.
I have another, perhaps more important, question also. If investment of money is seen as the key to success in other sports, why did the obscene amounts of money floating around in football not give us at least the chance of a medal?
Alas, this question will never be answered. The nation (or at least the media) will soon forget it’s dalliance with these minor gods and return to the worship of the great god football.
Bill Bartle, Barnard Castle .
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