BIRMINGHAM, England—Seeing my eyes widen in disbelief at the trashy tabloid paper tucked under his arm, my father-in-law invokes the classic sports excuse. “I’ve only got it for the cricket story,” he mutters, blushing as he casts it down with anticipation and distaste.
I giggle at the cliché. Many an Englishman is known to buy one of the nation’s several tabloids on the strength of its sports coverage. The sections of the paper filled with half-baked innuendo, half-dressed women, and half-truths, one can only assume, are cast aside together with the horoscopes.
In fact, the most gutter-worthy of the lot appears to celebrate this classic excuse. The aptly named Daily Sport also appears to remove any news from the paper and replace it with images of naked women.
The British tabloid industry is particularly rampant and dirty, surprisingly at odds with image of the buttoned-up, reserved Englishman embodied by my father-in-law.
But as I glance down at the headline, I can see that he is being genuine. It is an exclusive that would sway many a true-blooded gentleman into buying the paper. ‘Caught out!’ trumpets the headline, as the sub-header breathlessly draws us into the shadowy world of cricket match-fixing, exposed by a fearless undercover reporter.
The News of the World investigation would be the talking point of all the other papers and media for days to come, and saw three players questioned by police.
It is an odd collision of so many contradictory elements: a trashy Sunday tabloid, a gentleman’s game, a shocking scandal, and the best of mischief-making investigative journalism.
They don’t make easy bedfellows. As we would say of tabloid journalism: “it just isn’t cricket,” definitely not sportsmanlike.
There’s something inherently gentlemanly about cricket. It still embodies the sense of fair play, temperance, and order that was once so synonymous with the Brits. A cricket match is like a miniature of the days of honorable battle, when lines were carefully drawn, soldiers wore bright red tunics to help each other’s aim, and opposing general’s sipped tea together before battle.
The British don’t just like to play fair. They like to play at being fair.
Certainly for my father’s generation, there is almost a sense of distaste at winning easily, or even sometimes at winning at all—unless the odds are honorably stacked against you, and victory is snatched from the jaws of defeat.
It isn’t that the true Brit doesn’t want to show off, or that he doesn’t want to validate himself and his team on the field. It’s just that they don’t want to do it through winning. They want to do it through gracious acts of sportsmanship and through temperance in the face of loss and adversity.
The British reserve and sense of fair play might have taken a little punishment but they are by and large still alive and kicking. So how can one square this with the oddly rampant, untempered, and most ungentlemanly world of British tabloid journalism?
I have a pet theory: The underdog theory. Brits love the underdog. Behind this lies a once noble understanding that winning is not the point—winning with honor in the face of great adversity is most admirable.
But the flip side of the love of the underdog is a disdain for the top dog.
The British are a quietly subversive lot, with a bubbling irreverence for authority figures. The tabloid papers are like some grotesque manifestation of this tendency, hounding those deemed unworthy of being given a sporting chance—and just occasionally, their aim is true.
I giggle at the cliché. Many an Englishman is known to buy one of the nation’s several tabloids on the strength of its sports coverage. The sections of the paper filled with half-baked innuendo, half-dressed women, and half-truths, one can only assume, are cast aside together with the horoscopes.
In fact, the most gutter-worthy of the lot appears to celebrate this classic excuse. The aptly named Daily Sport also appears to remove any news from the paper and replace it with images of naked women.
The British tabloid industry is particularly rampant and dirty, surprisingly at odds with image of the buttoned-up, reserved Englishman embodied by my father-in-law.
But as I glance down at the headline, I can see that he is being genuine. It is an exclusive that would sway many a true-blooded gentleman into buying the paper. ‘Caught out!’ trumpets the headline, as the sub-header breathlessly draws us into the shadowy world of cricket match-fixing, exposed by a fearless undercover reporter.
The News of the World investigation would be the talking point of all the other papers and media for days to come, and saw three players questioned by police.
It is an odd collision of so many contradictory elements: a trashy Sunday tabloid, a gentleman’s game, a shocking scandal, and the best of mischief-making investigative journalism.
They don’t make easy bedfellows. As we would say of tabloid journalism: “it just isn’t cricket,” definitely not sportsmanlike.
There’s something inherently gentlemanly about cricket. It still embodies the sense of fair play, temperance, and order that was once so synonymous with the Brits. A cricket match is like a miniature of the days of honorable battle, when lines were carefully drawn, soldiers wore bright red tunics to help each other’s aim, and opposing general’s sipped tea together before battle.
The British don’t just like to play fair. They like to play at being fair.
Certainly for my father’s generation, there is almost a sense of distaste at winning easily, or even sometimes at winning at all—unless the odds are honorably stacked against you, and victory is snatched from the jaws of defeat.
It isn’t that the true Brit doesn’t want to show off, or that he doesn’t want to validate himself and his team on the field. It’s just that they don’t want to do it through winning. They want to do it through gracious acts of sportsmanship and through temperance in the face of loss and adversity.
The British reserve and sense of fair play might have taken a little punishment but they are by and large still alive and kicking. So how can one square this with the oddly rampant, untempered, and most ungentlemanly world of British tabloid journalism?
I have a pet theory: The underdog theory. Brits love the underdog. Behind this lies a once noble understanding that winning is not the point—winning with honor in the face of great adversity is most admirable.
But the flip side of the love of the underdog is a disdain for the top dog.
The British are a quietly subversive lot, with a bubbling irreverence for authority figures. The tabloid papers are like some grotesque manifestation of this tendency, hounding those deemed unworthy of being given a sporting chance—and just occasionally, their aim is true.
