TWELVE months ago the national media was awash with reports covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many of them taking up

complete pages but, if my Sunday newspaper is a typical example, that is no longer the case.

Last week’s edition used those self-same pages to report not on a war but on a Match of the Day television programme which had been reduced to a shadow of its former self due to a row between a football presenter and the BBC.

Within its 100 plus pages it only managed to publish one article on the conflict, which was headed “Russia stalls in city siege", measured just two inches by six and a half inches and contained just 97 words.

Prime Minister Harold Wilson once said that “a week in politics is a long time”, meaning that a lot of change can happen in a short space of time.

It would now appear that "one year in warfare is a long time" because, if my newspaper was anything to go by, the time has now arrived when the battlefield has been relegated to minute, inside page articles and the football field promoted to front page banner headlines.

What a funny old world we now live in, a time when sport can take preference over shelling, football over fighting.

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