SO, THE World Cup’s first week is done and dusted and already England have already been kicked over the edge of the precipice, a Balotelli-sized boot print on one arse cheek and a Suarez-shaped one on the other.

A net might appear courtesy of the Italians but it seems unlikely. One thing that has helped lighten the mood has to be Jonathan Pearce’s mental implosion over goal-line technology.

Failing to grasp the simple concept that two separate incidents which happened in quick succession were being shown consecutively — first a Karim Benzema shot that hit the upright, second Noel Valladares fumbling the ball over the line — Pearce was moved to screech: “Oh goodness me. They’ve changed their minds!” (No, they hadn’t.) “Does goal-line technology work or not?” (Yes, it does.) “Which replay are we supposed to believe?” (Both of them.)

Pearce’s child-like bafflement predictably stirred Twitter into a frenzy of activity as did Phil Neville’s co-commentary during the England-Italy match.

Although it’s fair to say his delivery wasn’t the best — at one point #monotone was trending on Twitter, while one tweet suggested, a little harshly, that he sounded like a “Dignitas SatNav” — the insight he offered wasn’t the worst, suggesting there is hope.

After all, you can improve delivery but insight comes with experience and knowledge. One thing’s for sure and that’s the fact that the quality of punditry is overwhelmingly seen as poor with a recent survey by The Media Blog showing that 57.6 per cent of its readers thought punditry has got worse in recent years. However, this is not a modern phenomenon.

In his 1950s book Soccer Revolution, Willy Meisl identified much the same attitude in the English media. He was aghast when all but one English journalist headed home the moment the side was eliminated from the 1950 World Cup.

It meant hacks were blithely unaware how far down the global pecking order England had fallen as were the fans because “the sports press doesn’t tell them what is happening elsewhere — for the very good reason that the sports journalists themselves are hardly aware of it.”

It was just one of a list of criticisms he had, key among them the need to find “a story” and the continuing use of “overstatement.” In Meisl’s opinion this meant that the football writers — always writing “down to the lowest denominator” — were less concerned about the details of the game and more about finding a sensational angle.

It was an approach that was only magnified by the tabloid revolution kick-started in the mid-’60s by the launch of The Sun newspaper which targeted the working class with a reactionary but anti-Establishment tone.

It wasn’t just the press that was at fault with newsreel and later TV commentary employing stereotypes that bordered on thinly veiled racism. In 1933 a Universal News commentator labelled Italian fans “excitable” as they celebrated a goal against England, explaining: “When Italians go wild there’s no half-measures about them.”

Some 20 years later Pathe was still calling Italian footballers “athletes from Spaghetti land.” Fast forward to 2012 and Martin Keown referred to Italians as “emotional” — and the Germans, rather predictably, as a “machine.”

The advent of blogging and social media has meant the quality of punditry has come under increased and immediate scrutiny. Furthermore, a growing genre of books on the history and culture of the game coupled with deeply researched games such as Football Manager that scout real players and include them in their game mean that football fans have become more knowledgable

It is no-longer the case that the fans must wait to be spoon-fed information by the media. No longer is the ex-pro-turned-pundit the “expert.”

Equally significant is the growth in the size of the middle class and the increased commercialisation of football and in particular the Premier League, bringing with it skyrocketing ticket prices and merchandise.

It means the sport’s fan-base has become more middle class, a change not mirrored in the game itself. In their book Why England Lose, Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski argue the game itself overtly clings to certain aspects of its working class roots.

This leads to a wilful exclusion of the middle classes from the sport and an overt anti-intellectualism — such as a rejection of tactics and coaching qualifications — which in turn weakens the depth and quality of the talent pool available to the national team. As it’s from that small pool of players that most pundits are drawn, it’s little wonder that their analysis of the game is both limited and increasingly at odds with that demanded by the sports’ growing middle class audience.

The TV companies have made changes to their coverage to meet the demands of those viewers, for example inviting foreign players into the studio to provide a different perspective but in some respects this merely highlights the problems. For every Clarence Seedorf there’s still a Robbie Savage.

Conversely cricket which historically developed as a sport for the upper and middle classes began to see the division between “gentlemen” (unpaid, upper-class participants) and “players” (paid, working-class participants) begin to blur in 1952 when Len Hutton became the first professional captain of England (a move broadly approved by the press).

The divisions broke down completely in the late-Seventies when Kerry Packer established World Series Cricket, in part because it was perceived players were not paid a living wage.

The impact can be seen in the Sky commentary box where university-educated Nasser Hussain and Michael Atherton (alumni of Durham and Cambridge respectively) sit comfortably alongside David Gower (who dropped out of University College after six months), state-educated David Lloyd and Sir Ian Botham (who left school at 15).

There is a further reason for this easy integration, cricket is a more multi-cultural and open-minded game than football. International cricketers spend months touring abroad and while this can take a heavy personal toll, it also opens their outlook to other cultures in a way English footballers rarely, if ever, experience which means in the main the game lacks the fear of “the new” or “the foreign” — cricket commentary is not weighed down by the racial stereotyping found in football coverage.

The game in this country also has a long history and little problem of utilising foreign-born players including, among others, Basil D’Oliveira in the ’60s to Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen more recently. In fact, when England took to the field against New Zealand at Christchurch in January 1992 seven of the XI were born outside England.

It’s a selection policy employed by many other countries in football but which causes huge concern within the FA, the tabloid press and the commentary box. Perhaps, not for the first time, it is English football that needs to adjust its outlook.

It is also significant that cricket, at least at the highest level, requires a specialised set of skills and deep tactical understanding. On any given day the weather, the state of the pitch or even the state of the ball can influence the outcome.

This means ex-players are able to provide a level of informed, enlightening analysis which escapes their football counterparts — take for example the batting and bowling master-classes put on by Shane Warne and Kevin Petersen during The Ashes last summer.

The sad reality seems to be that if we want football punditry to change, then the game itself has to develop but for now we’re all going to have to keep watching with the sound off.

Roger Domeneghetti is the author of From the Back Page to the Front Room: Football’s Journey Through the English Media, available in August from www.ockleybooks.co.uk.