Props for my hometown

I saw a lot of media articles bashing Jacksonville as a hick, backwater town not worthy of hosting the Super Bowl. Leave it to a Brit to write the truth....

SUPER BOWL: Venue did not deserve criticism

I feel I have to put something in writing from a visiting journalist's standpoint to try to counterbalance many of the vicious and, frankly, ignorant comments being aired in various media about the venue for Super Bowl XXXIX.

Jacksonville did a great job in attracting the NFL here in the first place. While the city is a more small-scale venue than most, it certainly did not deserve the vitriol it has attracted from some quarters.

The bottom line is that the Super Bowl is not here for the benefit and entertainment of the visiting media; it is here for the fans, the local community and the country as a whole. It is charged with providing a fitting venue for the biggest annual sporting event in the world.

On those counts, there were plenty of positive signs, to the credit of the host committee, the thousands of volunteers and the city as a whole.

Of course, Jacksonville is not a city of the scope of New Orleans, Los Angeles or Miami, but it is different from all of those, and diversity is always healthy.

There was plenty going on. It was easy to get around, events ran on time and the visiting fans in town sure looked as if they were having fun.

Of course, the weather could have been kinder, but for some writers to criticize purely on the basis of being cold or damp is puerile in the extreme.

Having been to seven previous Super Bowls, I can attest to the fact the media are extremely well catered to (to the point of being spoon-fed), and Jacksonville was certainly no different. It seems those who criticized were doing it purely because they lacked the imagination to find a real story; it is far easier to damn than to praise, in journalistic terms.

Finally, for those members of the media who slammed Jacksonville before we even got to the weekend: Come on, people, surely you can't be that small-minded? The Super Bowl is all about having a party; and if you can't recognize a genuine party when you see one, you are on the wrong planet, let alone in the wrong job.

From my perspective, there was enough here to suggest Jacksonville is not out of place in the Super Bowl rotation, and the city fully deserves its chance to contend again in the future.

SIMON VENESS, London Sun, London, England