It all kicked off in Bedford on Saturday night/Sunday morning. I know this because I saw it on two national news websites: the Mail online and the Telegraph.
According to my twitter and FB feeds – and my own actual ears and eyes – next to nothing actually did happen.
As a football follower for many years, I know you’ll always get a few idiots who spoil it for the rest of us (flag burning? Seriously??). However, the same could be said of a school disco, or a wedding reception or any sporting event where 12 hours of drinking has preceded kick off.
Unfortunately, because media attention is on Bedford at times like this, those idiots get press coverage and it tarnishes the national perception of Bedford.
According to two town-centre eyewitnesses I have spoken to, they didn’t see any aggression, violence or idiocy – or certainly no more than you would expect on any normal Saturday night. No one I’ve spoken to was woken up by marauding, victorious Italians brandishing whistles and vuvuzelas while screeching around town in their Fiats. Or disappointed England fans wanting to take out their disappointment on their rivals’ heads. In fact, it seems like most people had a bit of a post-match celebration/commiseration and then went to bed.
The Beds on Sunday website reported ‘Police keep calm in Bedford town centre’ and ‘The Embankment was almost empty bar people walking home and a small number of celebrating Italy fans’. Oooh.
And if you got beyond the Mail Online’s headline: ‘England Fans Scrap In The Street After Three Lions Defeat Against Italy In Opening Match’, or the Telegraph’s rather more incendiary ‘Angry England Fans Torch Flag In Street’ you’d read that something happened between two men in Devizes, two blokes brawled in Manchester and the alleged flag burning took place in Bedford.
This, at 1.30am on a Saturday night. Is this really national news, or isn’t it just what occasionally happens in town centres late at night when drink has been taken and national pride is at stake?
The problem as I see it is that people read the national press coverage and make a decision about how they perceive a town (in this case, Bedford) and make a decision about whether they would choose to visit our town centre. Elderly people or those that don’t visit the town frequently will begin to believe that Bedford town centre is a no-go-zone, full of football hooligans high on xenophobia and Polish lager (the irony) and choose not to come.
The Mail Online link was shared and retweeted yesterday with Bedfordians expressing their shame and disappointment that we had once again been tarnished by rival football fans’ behaviour.
But the truth is, we’ve been tarnished by a lazy national media who can’t be bothered to check and report the facts, who want to create something out of nothing and who have got entire websites to fill with content 24/7. If you want to find out about the reality of the rivalry between the English and Italians in Bedford, then read this piece in last week’s Independent. This is how the majority of people in Bedford feel, think and behave. But that’s a bit boring, isn’t it?
