Lazy stereotyping in coverage of Leeds v Sheffield United match missed real story about Yorkshire culture - Anthony Clavane

Now that my beloved team are back in the Premier League, snoozing during the football highlights show has become a bit of a problem. It’s early doors, Jeff – we’re only a few weeks into the season – but for some reason I have found myself grabbing forty winks during Leeds United matches.

It’s not as if the team are boring. Far from it. Marcelo Bielsa’s newly-promoted side have been praised all round for the exciting, high-octane, highly entertaining way they approach the beautiful game.

It’s probably down to age. In the 16 years since the Whites were regulars on the iconic programme, I have become part of the demographic that likes to nap in front of the box. The napping nearly always takes place during shows that I like.

Take last Sunday’s Match of the Day 2 programme. Just as the presenter introduced “the Premier League’s first Yorkshire derby for 19 years” I began to drift off into the land of nod.

Before I knew it I was having a surreal dream which bizarrely mixed together several clichéd Yorkshire stereotypes in a style reminiscent of a cringeworthy 1970s sitcom. Or a parody

of a cringeworthy 1970s sitcom.

You know the sort of thing. The Hovis lad pushing his bike up a cobbled hill. Foggy, Clegg and Compo pushing a tin bath up a cobbled hill. Whippets. Then I woke up to discover it was not a dream. My daughter had texted me to say that her housemate, a Bradford City supporter, was angered by the coverage of the Leeds-Sheffield United clash.

So I watched it again on BBC iPlayer and, lo and behold, there indeed was the Hovis ad and the Last of the Summer Wine old codgers. No whippets, mind. The short film introducing the game was narrated by someone boasting – what sounded like to me anyway – a Manchester accent.

And the soundtrack to the film was the song Hit The North, a famous ditty recorded by The Fall – a post-punk beat combo from Salford. As the veteran broadcaster Derek Jameson used to say, back in the day: “Do they mean us? They surely do!” Is this what the Beeb thinks of as Yorkshire culture?

Out-dated clichés about a flat-capped, tea-drinking, somewhere-oop-north county that only exists in the patronising minds of its London-centric bosses? It surely is.

This is hardly a new tendency. After the London 2012 Olympics the Daily Mail headlined its story on our triumphant Yorkshire athletes: “Eh bah gum!”

When other sections of the media focus on the county, there are always the obligatory references to Yorkshire folk’s “sensible” approach to cash. And songs about wandering around Ilkley Moor without a hat. And, lest we forget, whippets. This lazy stereotyping is missing the real story about Yorkshire culture.

As readers of this paper all know, God’s Own County is one of the most vibrant, diverse and imaginative in the country. It has a long tradition of intellectual thought, with both Leeds and Sheffield producing serious universities as far back as the 19th century.

It has a population of more than 5.3 million, boasting extraordinary public libraries, amazing museums and world-renowned orchestras. The next time these heathens do a piece on a

Leeds-Sheffield United match, why not open with an aerial shot of the 200 hectares of the Bretton estate in Wakefield – also known as the Yorkshire Sculpture Park – which was the first open-air gallery of its kind in the United Kingdom.

And just before they introduce a Leeds-Sheffield United match with the words “the Premier League’s first Yorkshire derby for 19 years” they should have a quick word with the supporters of Hull City and Middlesbrough football clubs.

In April 2017, the former beat the latter 4-2. This game took place in the Premier League. And the last time I looked at a map of Yorkshire, the words “Hull” and “Middlesbrough” were clearly visible.

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Thank you

James Mitchinson