I have nothing against soccer. It's just that I'm the sort of sports fan who thinks 'thrilling draw' is an oxymoron.
But tonight the ABC, my ABC, led its 7 pm news broadcast not just with the *&%$#@ soccer, but with seven minutes of the @#$%*& soccer.
And at the end of the seven minutes, they said 'And we'll have more on the soccer later on in Sport.'
Sure enough, after two minutes on the crisis in East Timor, one minute on the dead-at-Australian-hands Iraqi bodyguard, and seven seconds on Roger McDonald's $42,000 Miles Franklin Award win, back we went to Stuttgart. Wow, I thought, Eddie McGuire will be pleased. Oh, wait.
After the weather, time for Stateline ... and bugger me sideways, there was the @#$%&* soccer again, in the lead spot and taking up half the program.
I almost wish Croatia had won. Personally, I'm with these blokes.
Carn Italy!
5 comments:
For those of us who don't give a toss about the other versions of football that dominate this country for the remainder of the four years between Cups, this one little month is such a pleasure.
Although it really didn't need to take precedence over the crisis in East Timor, I'll certainly give you that.
Oh yes, I can see that. Like I said, it's not really the soccer I mind. I actually quite like the soccer, as such, though I do draw the line at it becoming a synonym for 'football'!
What I mind is the (almost exclusively low-grade; read the John Clarke link, it's a hoot) saturation media coverage, even on the ABC where the national codes are rightly relegated to the sports section - and to the exclusion even of the East Timor thing, which could get major very quickly and has endless possible ramifications.
Best Beloved approves! Every morning I awake to him cursing the sports coverage. He's cheered by the thought that next match might be the end of it. You make him feel like he's not alone in the world.
Personally, I'd rather soccer than Olympics, but I don't watch the games.
Most distubring thing about the blanket coverage of the Aus-Croatia super-fun-death-match?
The footage of Howard watching it in his tracky-daks, but still flanked by advisers.
csh, you're so right! we had a lengthy post-mortem of that sad video at our place. It was a different, more repulsive tracksuit than the one he wears to go walking in - the pants were more figure-hugging.
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