Tuesday 30 March 2004

Reality denial

I’m afraid that nonsense about football isn’t confined to politicians. If anything, this is even worse:
The Derbyshire Times has been shown the red card by organisers of a junior football league, after the newspaper correctly reported on a big-scoring match.

Sheffield and District Junior Sunday League has banned all of its clubs from contacting the paper to publicise its results following a report on a 29-0 win by Brampton Rovers Under-9s.

So what's the problem? Was the report incorrect? No, but it was politically incorrect:
.. because the league doesn't allow scores over 14 to be reported.
The league also objects to terms like "comprehensive trouncing", "thrashed" and "hammered". Member clubs who send real results to newspapers face "internal disciplinary procedures".

This is beyond parody. How on earth are the young players going to cope with the real world? I suppose that the answer is that they won't need to. The country will have self-destructed by the time these unfortunate children reach adulthood.