World Cup coverage
The BBC’s pre- and post-match coverage of the World Cup is largely made up of second-rate correspondents bellowing over revellers in ‘fanzones’, and tiresome, overly-sentimental montages of previous footballing encounters.
However, it is refreshing to see genuinely interesting pieces which link the beautiful game to aspects of South Africa’s broader history. Recent pieces on the etymology of ‘the Kop’ (which dates back to a British defeat in the Boer), and Sir Stanley Matthews’s annual community work in Soweto, were particularly illuminating – welcome antidotes to inane punditry and slow-motion replays set to schmaltzy soundtracks.
