England are World Cup Finalists and Lots of Men are Desperate to Let You Know How Much They Don't Care
Should We Throw a Party? Shall We Invite Joey Barton?
England are World Cup finalists. On Sunday morning, they will take to the pitch at Stadium Australia in Sydney and try to claim the biggest prize in women's football. Of course, you already know that, since the English media has done nothing but ram it down our throats and force us all to watch. On the BBC Sport homepage, an interview with captain Mille Bright takes pride of place alongside stories on far more important matters such as live coverage of Horley Town vs Croydon Athletic in the preliminary round of the FA Cup and a liveblog providing updates on the first round of the "Viaplay Cup".
Fortunately for us, brave men are remaining vigilant. One columnist has attracted plenty of attention online after pushing back against this woke agenda – quite how he was afforded column inches for the third most popular newspaper in Britain is anyone's guess, but he has successfully infiltrated the MSM, despite the well-known assertion that people like him are destined to be silenced in the age of cancel culture.
Our man wastes no time in telling us that he hasn't watched a single minute of the Women's World Cup. You may think that this is counter-productive when writing a think piece about the tournament, but you have to remember that since no-one watches women's football, no one writes about it either, which means that no talented writers who are looking for a break and can offer genuine insight are being overlooked in favour of someone who by their own admission has "a limited appetite for watching sport on television". (He does go on to admit that he watches the men's World Cup and Euros, so maybe he could someday offer his pearls of wisdom when it comes to answering the question of how Gareth Southgate fits Trent Alexander-Arnold into his starting XI.)
He may be selective in his enjoyment of sports, but our Journalisté Extraordinaire's issue with calls for bank holiday should England be crowned world champions is in no way borne out of sexism. He simply doesn't like bank holidays (in much the same way that he doesn't like migrants boats crossing the Channel, book festivals and Gary Lineker, judging by his previous articles). "From my point of view you might as well give us a day off to celebrate Grimsby Town’s two-nil victory over Salford City on Tuesday", he says. This is really clever piece of writing, because he is implying that a run of the mill league two fixture (with all due respect to the 5,986 in attendance at Blundell Park on Tuesday) is of equivalent significance to the World Cup final because, remember, he doesn't care about sports! (Apart from men's football, sometimes). With wit as sharp as that, I just hope they're paying him the big-bucks before he is inevitably cancelled. Curiously enough, I couldn't find an article of his from July 2021, when Boris Johnson looked set to call a bank holiday had England beaten Italy in the Euro 2020 final, maybe he was too busy cooking up other zinging one-liners and simply ran out of time.
This definitely isn't pure misogyny poorly disguised as sincere concerns about what he coins "Workshy Britain" (I wonder which political party the Daily Telegraph has historically endorsed?), but he nevertheless goes on to explain why the Women's World Cup "isn't anywhere close" to the men's competition in terms of its impact on England's "national culture", citing Maradona's hand of God (1986) and England's semi-final shootout defeat to Germany (1990). That both of these events predate the first ever Women's World Cup is a minor detail. Latte-drinking Guardian readers will probably argue that the 50 year ban that was placed upon women's football from 1921 to 1971 combined with persistent underfunding ever since has put the sport at a disadvantage and that a lack of comprehensive coverage until recent years hasn't given the women's game a fair shot at creating iconic moments that resonate with the mainstream in the same way, but our sports-apathetic writer obviously knows better.
Finally, he doubles down on the fact that he doesn't want a day off on Monday (those anti-immigration articles won't write themselves!) to commemorate England winning a "minor sporting event". An event so minor that 43% of the Australian population chose to watch the semi-final against England. Sure, those are record viewing figures for any tv event in Australian history, but the eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that this leaves 57% who weren't watching. Nothing gets past us!
Others have taken to social media, presumably concerned that they will be subjected to a Clockwork Orange-style forced viewing of Sunday morning's final. I've even heard that BBC commentator Jonathan Pearce has been employed as women's football missionary, visiting homes up and down the country and telling anyone and everyone just how much the women's game has grown in the last few years. One Twitter/X user took issue with the statement "England reach their first World Cup final since 1966" by pointing out that the men's under 17's won the World Cup in 2017. The libs will tell you that the word "senior" was omitted because that goes without saying, just as "football" was omitted by the same logic, given that England reached the Netball World Cup final just last week, but Kurt on Twitter/X isn't falling for that.
Maybe, much like Gianni Infantino, Kurt is just a benevolent male guardian who simply wants the best for the women's game. That would be explain why he responded to the Lionesses historic win by expressing his oh-so genuine concerns. "It’s a weird one with the Lionesses for me. I want England to win everything, whatever sport/gender/level it is, I’m pleased we’re through to the final and I want England to win it, but I just can’t get into it in terms of actually watching the games." Frankly, I don't see how women's football will survive if it can't win over male allies like Kurt. Hopefully this sincere admission can find its way to Mr Infantino before the damage is irreversible. Maybe he can arrange an audience with Nadine Kessler to tell her that the goals should be made smaller and express concerns about the standard of goalkeeping.
At least he wants England to win regardless sport/gender/level – how patriotic. The same couldn't be said for "Ferg", who is having none of big-woso's bullshit: "Hope Spain absolutely batter them whenever that final is, be arsed with all the drips who don’t even watch football comparing it to the men’s game when me and my mates 10 pints deep could go and win that women’s World Cup." The 75,000 suckers who have bought tickets for the final are going to be in for one hell of a shock when Ferg and his pals rock up in Sydney ahead of kickoff. Of course, the sheeple will have you believe that the a Women's World Cup final is no place for pissed up men. In case you're wondering, Ferg is Watford fan, so the quality of football on display is evidently a huge deal for him!
What I would like to say to these men is thank you. Thank you for fighting the good fight against the scourge of our times that is women playing football. Thank you for preventing the irreversible damage to our economy that an extra bank holiday would have caused. Thank you for letting us know that you "just can't get into it" and thank you for reminding us that women do not possess the same physical and structural advantages as men. Millions will come together to watch the Lionesses attempt to win the greatest prize in sport and millions will remember where they were if the team finishes the job, just as they did when the Euros were clinched at Wembley last summer, but hey, I'm sure Norwich vs Millwall, which kicks off an hour after the final, will be just as memorable.
For the benefit of those who don't have the best grasp of sarcasm/my valued American reader(s), what I have written above should be taken as seriously as the people who go out of their way to proudly declare that they don't watch women's football. I do not think that Lionesses are at the forefront of a woke agenda, nor am I privy to any information to suggest that Jonathan Pearce has been making home visits to spread the good word of women's football.