Early on in my journalistic career, when I was covering sport for a weekly newspaper in South Wales, I went to the annual general meeting of the town’s rugby club. In his opening remarks, the club’s secretary gave a special mention to the man sitting next to me, the veteran correspondent of the local evening paper. “I’d like to thank him,” the secretary told the gathering, “for keeping all those things out of the paper.”
Even to my untutored eye, it seemed a peculiar thing to say out loud, but I came to realise it was a direct articulation of the difficulties that all journalists covering a particular beat must face. They need to establish relationships with those whose activities they cover on a daily basis – that’s how you get both understanding of the subject and exclusive stories – but there will come a time when a journalist realises that their main responsibility is to the reader, the viewer or the listener, and the sensitivities of a close contact must come second.
I say this to put into context England captain Harry Kane’s calling out of the pundits (almost all former players) who have criticised the national team’s performances at the Euros. Underpinning Kane’s temperate, well-mannered reproval of the likes of Gary Lineker was the belief that – rather than apply objective judgement to the question of England’s perceived under-achievement – the analysts’ principal job is to support and encourage the players, or as Kane put it, “being as helpful as they can and building the lads up with confidence”.
A long time ago, so partisan was the coverage of journalists who covered the Scotland football team they were known by their England counterparts as “fans with typewriters”, and clearly Kane would like those whose job it is to explain England’s curiously insipid form in Germany to adopt a similarly supportive stance.
Although he didn’t mention anyone by name, he was particularly upset by Lineker’s description of the England performance against Denmark as “shit”. (This was not during the BBC coverage, by the way, but on his podcast, where shock-jockery is more acceptable, and Lineker occasionally uses the language of the terraces.) It was probably the adjective most used by the watching millions, so why should Lineker, whose job is to interpret what happens on the pitch for us, feel in any way inhibited in his analysis?
I understand Kane’s frustration that the preponderance of media these days means there is no escape for him and his players. “What ex-players now have got to realise is, it is very hard not to listen to it,” he said, “especially for some players who are not used to it or some players who are new to the environment.”
That’s the game everyone has to play, Harry – politicians, business leaders, celebrities, public figures – and it’s not as if top football players don’t use the ubiquity of media, social or mainstream, for their own purposes when necessary.
“We haven’t won anything as a nation for a long, long time,” said Kane, “and a lot of these players [the TV pundits] were part of that as well and they know how tough it is.”
That is undoubtedly fair comment for the men’s team, and Lineker in particular is cognisant of that fact: he played 80 times for England, and despite winning the Golden Boot for the highest goalscorer in the 1986 World Cup, the furthest he went in any major tournament was the semi-final of the World Cup in 1990.
Maybe the England team of 2024 will yet surprise us all. And maybe Kane will emerge as Sir Harold, the man who led us to the promised land. But until that point, we should expect distance, objectivity and opinions not compromised by allegiance from those employed to examine their performances.
And Kane should quieten the noise by revealing himself as the supreme striker we know him to be.