The beeb's hatred even extends into the ladies' game
England forward Nikita Parris join newly promoted London City Lionesses on a free transfer from Brighton.
www.bbc.co.uk
Apparently, it isn't worth mentioning that Nikita Parris played for City, the team she has played the most games and scored the most goals for (England not included)
I posted a few days back on how the BBC football pages and the rest of the media reported the sad passing of Wyn Davies and the conviction for Drink-Driving of Paul Ince, pointing out the differences in approach to each story.
Davies, who played a mere 3% of his 600+ top class matches for The Red Filth, was heralded as a 'United Legend' to the exclusion of his other clubs, whereas Ince, who played 35% of his career 600+ games for The Filth, was described as a 'Former England captain' with absolutely no reference whatsoever to his main career club.
So it is too with Nikki Parris, the same blatant digs and denigrations aimed at our club throughout the media, contrasting sharply with its treatment of the favoured cartel clubs, whatever the story.
Parris has made 34% of her 220+ career appearances thus far with City Women, far, far more than with any other club. During her time with City she won a WSL title, two FA Cups and two League Cups. She also won 'WSL Player of the Year'. While playing with City, she became the WSL record goalscorer and was ranked 2nd on its list of all-time 'goal assists'. And yet the article about her preferred to highlight that she played for Manchester United Women and Arsenal Women, for whom collectively she contributed nothing like the level of goals/assists with City and only appeared in one FA Cup final and that as a squad member.
Should this matter? It's trivial from certain angles, I get that. And as the discussion here today regarding 'St Helen's Blue in Exile's' encounter with the (quite serious, in my view) bile aimed at our club on 'TalkSport' shows, maybe we should just ignore the whole thing, I get that too.
Yet I do think we should call these people out whenever and wherever this stuff occurs. I do so with friends who support other clubs, for sure. Doing so has forced them to realise that maybe their own clubs need to get their houses in order. How one achieves that kind of awareness with the wider media is impossible to say, given how 'clickbait' drives its profits, the agendas driving the media and the tribal loyalties of the press pack.
I just hope that when we are cleared of the 115, it will draw a line from which the potentially libellous (as in such outpourings from 'TalkSport') to the downright childish (eg the Nikki Parris story) will become things of the past.
I'm not going to hold my breath, though..!