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.