United!

Towards the end of its 6.30pm bulletin on 28 May, ITV News put up a graphic to accompany its story on the return of Premier League football. The first matches to be played, it said, will be Manchester City v Arsenal and Aston Villa v Sheffield.

Anyone can make a mistake. But this one came barely two hours after a similar piece on Radio 5 Live’s Drive show, in which an over-excited reporter repeatedly referred to the Aston Villa/Sheffield Wednesday game restarting the league programme.

That’s less forgivable. What sort of an ear must a sports reporter have for the juxtaposition of Aston Villa, Sheffield Wednesday and Premier League not to sound wrong? How come nobody else involved in the programme noticed such a simple error – or, if they did, failed to correct him? Try to imagine the first line on the ITV caption reading ‘Manchester v Arsenal’. Or the radio presenter hearing his colleague say ‘Manchester United’ instead of ‘Manchester City’. Do you suppose the mistake would have gone uncorrected?

It’s improbable. Football is still three weeks away. But the condescension habitually shown by the media to ‘smaller’ clubs is roaring back.

The Emperor’s Green Clothes

floodlight, tokenism, BBC Sport, Sport Positive Summit

The BBC is making a big deal today of initiatives by Premier League clubs to do their bit for the environment. Research by BBC Sport and the ‘United Nations-backed’ Sport Positive Summit puts Arsenal and Manchester City at the top of its ‘sustainability rankings’.

Arsenal and Manchester City, you can’t help but notice, are both sponsored by airlines.

But long-haul pre-season tours did not feature in the research. Nor did the multiple strips the clubs change every season to sell anew to supporters. And yet the producer of the research claims it focuses “on categories that clubs control”.

If you accept the science of the climate crisis, as the BBC affects to, this all looks suspiciously like a form of tokenism known as ‘green-washing’.

* Towns of Two Halves concentrates mainly on Shank’s Pony and public transport in guiding you round the attractions of towns with football clubs, green or otherwise.

Eurotide

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What to make of the English dominance of this year’s European club competitions?

Two English clubs will contest the final of the Champions League, and two more meet in the Europa League final. It’s an unprecedented clean sweep – and not a Manchester team in sight!

But any talk of dominance would be premature. Although the tide may be turning, it’s clear where the dominant European football culture can be found, at least until the evidence of one or two more seasons is available.

In the past 10 years, only six countries have had teams in the last four of the Champions League:

There has been more variety in the Europa League, but when you strip out the one-offs the picture is similar:

Spain provided the winner of the Champions League for the past five seasons before this one, and both finalists twice since 2014. Spanish clubs also won the Europa League six times in the nine seasons from 2010.

Before them, German clubs were notably successful in the Champions League, 2009-2013, and at least one of the last four has been German in all but two of the past 10 years. Portugal has a similar record in the Europa League.