This articles also shows Tony Blair’s thoughts as he “took time out from the EU summit in Seville, Spain to make a five minute phone call” He phoned Sven personally congratulating him on his success with England. This tells everyone that no matter what happens everyone is still proud.
It also says that “a million kettles were switched on at half time” just short of England’s 1990 defeat against Germany. This also proves that everyone was watching the game, with pride of course apart from Sir Bobby Robson who said “the players just didn’t perform.
I think although football leads to happiness it can also trigger some people’s depression into distress. This just shows how much people get into the World Cup.
I then moved on to my third article which was taken from The Daily Mirror and is the leaders comment written by the editor. It starts off by putting down England’s performance but after writing about there disappointment it then moves on to talk about there success. The headline “Look ahead now to the glory days” puts across the message that although defeated we can still look forward to the future. Now with our new manager Sven Goran Eriksson we hope to do much better.
It then states that “Their captain has become the most famous footballer in the world” (David Beckham) after that inspiring moment of the penalty against Argentina he has gained so much respect from the fans. David Seaman has also gained a lot of respect as he didn’t get the blame; he made a lot of outstanding saves during the tournament keeping him as one of the fans favourites. “As individuals and as a team, they earned the respect of football fans throughout the world”. The supporters also gained a lot of Japanese respect as it says “the violent mindless thugs who abuse international soccer are not the true face of England fans”.
Although starting on a negative note it finishes very positively by saying “So don’t let us dwell on yesterdays defeat, let us look forward to the victories to come”.
My next article “Learning to love glorious failure” was written by a reporter called Martin Kelner and was taken out of The Guardian. This article starts off by talking about all the school children who were allowed the day off school to watch the football. This put across a message that everyone was watching that glorious failure.
It then says that everyone got their hopes up when Owen scored. Well I certainly did. Then when Ronaldinho scored everyone’s happiness changed to sheer disappointment. Most people said that it was a fluke and was meant to be a cross but not Gazza. He thought he shaped up for a shot. His exact words were “Eshay Ooferit”
The match shown on TV had great support, panellist Gary Neville was on ITV and he said “I think there will be wild celebrations over the weekend” but he didn’t think that they would be in “Rio”. What he means by this is he thought England were going to win meaning the celebrations would be in England not Rio. Along side Gary, Terry Venebles and Sir Bobby Robson gave great support. Over on BBC1 you had Ian Wright giving it his all. This shows that everyone loves to watch a “glorious failure”.
Next I moved onto “football fever-it’s a man thing” written by Rhymer Rigby and is taken out of The Observer. This article is based on ‘a postcard’ sent from Indonesia. It starts off by saying how the reporter was talking to a dog butcher and when he mentioned that he was English the dog butcher started naming players such as “Owen” and “Beckham”. This proves that England are known world wide, even in Indonesia, who are not even in the World Cup.
The Indonesians support almost anyone. When you go into a shop there are all different flags pinned up. This proves that although Indonesia is not in the World Cup their spirit is still very high. In Indonesia most of the people are religious. This is proven by the England vs Sweden game because 10 minutes into the game all the TVs were turned off for mosque. This shows that their religion is more important than the World Cup. But straight after “the match went back on, cigarettes were relit and betting resumed”.
Although Indonesia is mostly male dominated “there’s no doubt it’s the women who hold the remote controls”. So maybe football fever isn’t always a man thing. This means that Indonesia can’t be mad about football because if the woman’s controlling the TV it’s more likely that you’ll end up watching soaps than football.
The next article I read was “It’s a game of two halves - the overpaid and the exploited”. The words “overpaid” and “exploited” are very negative words used to expose how footballers have gained more of a celebrity status rather than a profession. Written by a reporter named John Humphrys and taken out of The Sunday Times, it starts off by saying what a beautiful game football used to be. Now it’s just an overpaid business.
For people that want to prove that football is bad so that something can be done, they need thugs. Now that the fans have become much better behaved he asks “Where have all the yobs gone for a start? All those English thugs with their bullet heads and beer bellies terrorising the natives and proving our point”. I think this man is stupid because he encourages the thugs when he should be trying to help stop them.
The reporter is basically putting across the message that football is too expensive and is not a game anymore, it’s just a business. The most expensive season ticket is spurs who’s cost “£1,200”. It’s just getting stupid and unreal football has become an overpaid business.
I then moved onto my last article “Why flying the flag bought out the best in the English” written by Patrick Collins taken from The Mail on Sunday. This article picks out the memory of two men standing in the middle of the field at the end of the Brazil game. David Seaman, who was in tears, and David Beckham, who was doing his job as captain. As it says “David Beckham revealed qualities of stirring leadership” This article was represented with a cartoon picture were Beckham was protecting Seaman with the St. George flag. This shows that although we lost we are still proud as a country.
This article puts across the message that Seaman was not to blame and all we can do now is look forward to the future. Also in this article is a bit about Wimbledon. Hopefully we can do well in the tennis.
Looking at all of the articles I have read, most of them talk more about being proud than about our disappointment. Which I think is a positive remark although we had just been knocked out of the World Cup. This shows that despite defeat we still stand proud as a country and hope for future victories.
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