Football journalism

What do we like?

What do we hate?

What do we expect?

And other such conundrums.

I expect better.

The other day I read this in the Guardian. It's by Louise Taylor, who isn't a particularly great writer, but it is exactly what I want from football journalism: it's entertaining, it's informative, it's considered and it is considerate.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2011/mar/04/kenny-dalglish-sir-alex-ferguson

It isn't shrill, contentious, controversial, predictable, snide or moralistic, which seems to be what most football journalism is about.

i quite like old distinguished types eulogising in the times, good tactical analyses are always welcome though hard to come by, feverish transfer speculation often works as a quick fix

ILX works, when it's more than just quickfire posting like mine and sam's. There's a lot of people worth reading on varying subjects.

x-post

I don't expect amazing prose from football journalists and think some of the most lauded writers are massively over-rated (Glanville, McIlvanney), so that's not an issue. It's more one of tone. Of the heavyweight pundits (Barclay, Lawton, Collins, Des Kelly, Williams, Heyward) I think only Martin Samuel is worth reading. The rest write drivel.

Most of the correspondents (Winter, McCarra etc) are by-the-by, although Oliver Kay at The Time is quite decent, and rhwy too often found themselves caught in a trap of having to churn out reactive prose to non-stories (Rooney swearing, Club A winning/losing/drawing a game they weren't expected to win/lose/draw). I don't know what they are supposed to do in these circumstances.

There are some very good specialists like Jonathan Wilson. Ian Hawkey at the ST used to be good, but I haven't read him for yonks. David Conn's articles are IMPORTANT but I rarely read a whole one. I think Rob Smyth has a good feel for the game. There's a guy at the indie who is okay (corcoran?).

Then there's online. I find Run Of Play too overwritten, too lit-crit PPE clever, although I applaud the sentiment; Zonal Marking goes the other way, far too dry, an analysis of football as if it were played and then written about by robots. I'm sure there is better stuff out there on the web: thoughtful and intelligent, but much of it falls down the Football 365/Fiver route of taking cheap, snide, predictable (if occasionally OTM) shots at predictable targets, or are so pathetically club-biased they are almost unreadable. I swear fanzines were never this bad.

So that's what I think.

When I find pieces I like, I will post them here.

There is some good stuff on ILX and also in the comments in the Guardian, although you have to wade through some proper shit in the latter to find it.

Has anybody else downloaded Wilson's The Blizzard? I'm not as impressed as I'd like to be, but will persevere. Also, should I be reading 4-4-2 regularly?

442 is good, i think- particularly good feature pieces imo.

The Blizzard's good enough, but far too much filler - which only really became apparent when I got to the end and Wilson's own bits overshadowed the rest so thoroughly. The Verona piece was great though.

That Dalglish/Ferguson piece is excellent, yes - I feel I got a piece of the human beings behind all the rubbish for once. I'd like to see similar about Hodgson, in fact lots of managers might make interesting subjects if you caught them not-on-the-job.

The Guardian's strike rate is pretty high I'd say - maybe one-in-three features are worth reading and I enjoy the fiver. I don't really seek out much other stuff, though The Telegraph seems good when I happen upon it.

lol at ILX as a home of good writing - it's true though!

I'm sure I've said this before but Martin Samuel is a pious prick.

Generally don't mind broadsheet football journalism unless it's just mindbogglingly wrong, I will admit a sheepish enjoyment of the Graun's football comedy crew. I think David Conn's the only person I'll go out of my way to read though.

Glanville has written many novels! C+P the list on wiki:

* The Reluctant Dictator - London, Laurie, 1952.
* Henry Sows the Wind - London, Secker and Warburg, 1954.
* Along the Arno - London, Secker and Warburg, 1956; New York, Crowell, 1957.
* The Bankrupts - London, Secker and Warburg, and New York, Doubleday, 1958.
* After Rome, Africa - London, Secker and Warburg, 1959.
* Diamond - London, Secker and Warburg, and New York, FarrarStraus, 1962.
* The Rise of Gerry Logan - London, Secker and Warburg, 1963; NewYork, Delacorte Press, 1965.
* A Second Home - London, Secker and Warburg, 1965; New York, Delacorte Press, 1966.
* A Roman Marriage - London, Joseph, 1966; New York, CowardMcCann, 1967.
* The Artist Type - London, Cape, 1967; New York, Coward McCann, 1968.
* The Olympian - New York, Coward McCann, and London, Secker andWarburg, 1969.
* A Cry of Crickets - London, Secker and Warburg, and New York, Coward McCann, 1970.
* The Financiers - London, Secker and Warburg, 1972; as Money Is Love, New York, Doubleday, 1972.
* The Comic - London, Secker and Warburg, 1974; New York, Stein andDay, 1975.
* The Dying of the Light - London, Secker and Warburg, 1976.
* Never Look Back - London, Joseph, 1980.
* Kissing America - London, Blond, 1985.
* The Catacomb - London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1988.
* Dictators - London, Smaller Sky Books, 2001.

The first and last have the word 'dictator' on the title. I am not going to make a lot of this.

* Goalkeepers Are Different (for children), London, Hamish Hamilton, 1971; New York, Crown, 1972.

"for children" ffs. I picked up a copy recently and it's a decent occasional commuting read.

I find Run Of Play too overwritten, too lit-crit PPE clever, although I applaud the sentiment

― isn't house rubbish and Pete W mental (Pete W), Monday, 4 April 2011 15:36 (5 hours ago)

HALLELUJAH A MAN WITH SENSE

ur fiver caricaturing still weirdly ott as ever though

the main football correspondents, or 'chief football writers' as nult would say, neatly parallel their publications' shtick

mccarra - amiable, periphrastic, pathologically inoffensive
lawton - challops challops challops challops challops
kay (?) - lumpen crap
winter - bloviating little englande shite, incessant self regard

mccarra's general opinionating is more inane than i care to admit, but i (like the pinefox) enjoy pretending his match reports have an anachronistic flaubertian rigour to them

"there was a staleness about them that invited harm"

this is a mccarra phrase from a long-forgotten match report that has inexplicably forever lodged itself in my mind

yup, loved the taylor article

big fan of the bbc's chief football writer, forget his name. paul mcnally or something.

mccarra gets dissed a lot around here so i'm glad i'm not alone in liking him. he does at least try to capture the tenor of match day - what's at stake - in an original way and he sometimes succeeds. r|t|c's remembered phrase is exactly the kind of thing i hope to read when i read him and he very often delivers. then again, i don't read much besides the guardian so i'm interested to see what else pops up in this thread.

I enjoy Glenn Gibbons of the Scotsman and Tom English of the Scotsman on Scottish football, they often look deeper than the cliche and the received wisdom that surrounds much of Scottish football, and are all the better for it. Graham Spiers used to be an excellent thorn in the side of the establishment up here, but has turned into a cliche/challop-spouting merchant since going down south. I've all but given up on the Herald. Kevin McKenna and Ewan Murray of the Guardian are nothing outstanding.

Tabloid hacks are uniformly awful here, but Jim Traynor of the Record in particular has gotten increasingly mental over the years, culminating this weekend in a glorious on-air spat with BBC rentagob Chick Young* and perhaps the maddest editorial ever committed to print, complete with at least two factual inaccuracies that I can see (Neil Lennon's touchline ban has not been overturned and Dougie MacDonald [the referee referred to] resigned, he wasn't "binned"), some misplaced innuendo (Hugh Dallas' departure from the SFA was nothing to do with Celtic) and a ton of insane warblings that reads like a drunken idiot rambling on a messageboard rather than an opinion piece by one of the most prominent hacks in the Scottish game.

http://blogs.dailyrecord.co.uk/jimtraynor/2011/04/our-beautiful-games-gone-banan.html

* highlight was when Young accused Traynor of being a "Rangers puppet" as he tried for over 10 minutes to rubbish Young's reporting of Rangers being in danger of going to administration. Traynor's response was not to refute Young's arguments with fact, to present any journalistic research of his own to counter the claims, to deny any accusation of peddling the pro-Rangers line. His retort was "aw, are you jealous, Chick?".

I mourn the days when the useless Ian Ridley of the Observer would predict with utter certainty that Liverpool would win the Premiership, every single year.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/columnist-354/Ian-Ridley---Mail-on-Sunday-Sports-Reporter.html

Oh, I should give an honourable mention to internet journalist Phil Mac Ghiolla Bain who has done some useful research on the institutionalised bias within the SFA, but dripfeeds it from his blog via Twitter with loads of "guess what I've got up my sleeve, huh?" hints and then takes big huffs when a paper takes the cue, does some research, breaks what he thinks should be his story and then doesn't give him credit. IMO he'd be better off freelancing and selling his complete and fully-researched stories to papers to reach a wider audience - the only people I know who are interested enough to read his blog aren't the kind of people whose perspective on Scottish football wouldn't be changed by reading any of his stuff anyway, and hacks who want to take credit for stories they didn't uncover themselves, but he does deserve credit for the sterling work done on the SFA.

The only other internet opinion pieces I tend to read are by Paul Brennan on Celtic Quick News - he isn't a bad writer, he has access to the Celtic Board (was first on the internet to break Strachan resigning, Mowbray's appointment, Mowbray's sacking and probably Lennon's appointment as well), but he's getting kind of insufferably pompous and deserves a kick in the testicles for some of overwrought pish that he writes.

I should really investigate more general football internet journalism, I have Run of Play bookmarked but never get round to reading it unless a piece is linked to from here.

No relation of Phil Mac an Ultaigh I trust?

:-)

Oh, thanks to onimo I'm rather enjoying http://rangerstaxcase.com/ - again, the internet coming good where actual print journalism is failing.

i always liked dion fannings writing but i heard something recently that he had to make a donation to the Hillsborough Family Support Group following inappropriate references in the Sunday Independent about Jamie Carragher.

here it is;

"Carragher was vocal again last week. Torres' sale might have been for the best if "he didn't 100 per cent want to be here". Nobody can question Carragher's desire to be at the club but many now have to ask if he should be.

It was "time for a change" he said when Benitez was sacked, even if the change only made things worse. Then, like now, he made some conciliatory public noises, but his private view reportedly was different.

Most, if not all, of those who contributed to the psychodrama at Liverpool have left. Carragher is the issue that needs to be confronted by Dalglish who has the powerbase to do it, a powerbase that may have intimidated those who felt he shouldn't get the job last summer."

Don't let that put you off Fanning. Carragher in 'gets a bit touchy when someone has a go' shocker.

It's funny you should mention that by the way, as I've just been talking to someone about that very subject.

I don't think there's anything particularly inappropriate in that. Carragher's just a whiny bitch.

yeah i think so too. fanning had to shell out 5 grand. ouch!

Re: FourFourTwo

tbh it's only worth picking up once every six months or so. A huge amount of what they do is already covered elsewhere, rehashing cliches and already outdated by the time it hits stands. Too many of their interviews are just shilling or rehashing what press officers will allow.

Otoh, they occasionally do features that wow - last season they went into all the great derbies across the world, where and why they started, how fans and players and etc. got involved and what that means in the modern day environment. Every one of these articles was terrific to read. And their tactics writing can be tremendous - the Sneijder cover that had articles on the evolution of the #10 was worthy of Wilson.

how come when i type stuff it's much shorter than when u type stuff

only 6 characters needed for a darragh post, 7 if you include the space inbetween

tbf under ramos it went up to 9

I'm often put off 4-4-2 by the coverline and tone that makes it look like a teenage version of Match. The derbies thing sounds great - somebody wrote a book on that theme a while ago but it was dreadful, completely wrong tone, sub-Hornby crap about the author rather than the political and social importance of the games. Real wasted opportunity.

I used to work with Kevin McCarra and he's a good writer when he isn't being worked to the bone on these shitty reaction pieces that seem to be the job lot of the correspondent. I feel sorry for them - they have to write so much fluff that use 1,000 words when only 100 are needed. That's part of the problem - a lot of what is in the football pages isn't really needed.

the internet makes a mockery of the lot of them, especially in the guardian where they have to have a reaction or "5 things we learned" ten minutes after any remotely significant match or event...

richard williams is a total joke imo...wouldn't trust him remotely, different sport but he interviewed the irish rugby manager after we won the grand slam in 2009 and in the piece he'd written a completely factually incorrect summary of the game that won us that title, fabricating a last minute try that didn't exist, when it was a last minute drop goal in a massively publicised game.

if that sounds abstract it would be like writing about man u winning the cl against bayern with a beckham free kick or something. just utterly shit. i've read him talk about headed goals that were actually shots too, lots of errors.

can't really be doing with the contrarian side of the guardian guys, rob smyth or the generally just nasty scott murray. those joy of sixes are always so pretentious and omit the thing you want to read about under some spurious pretext, with that ultra annoying disclaimer about "not meant to rank things..."

i quite like tim vickery on bbc....can be tedious but at least he's writing with a specialism and informing you...too much of the writing is just raw opinion, sport should have more than that, there are winners and losers and stats, it's not like art.

There is a great story about Richard Williams when he was a music writer writing about Lennon's Weddings album and favourably reviewing the engineer's test recordings of white noise that he was sent by mistake.

I quite like the Joy of Six. I think Smyth is a real feel for the game, unlike many of the other Guardian people. I feel like he is caught in a tug of war between Wilson and Glendenning and hope he chooses right.

Couple of other good recent pieces that stick in the memory.

This excellent profile of John Terry came out in the middle of last year's witchhunt. It's sympathetic and, perhaps, much more damning because of it. No football writer would attempt to write such a thing. They either sneer without bothering to meet somebody, or they churn out a load of dull quotes. But Crampton is very good - his piece on Ruud Gullit was infamously lacerating.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/international/article7020356.ece

The Guardian's Secret Footballer is running out of steam very quickly, but this was good and is appropriate.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/jan/29/secret-footballer-andy-gray-pundits

Bought the new 442 for the article on Berlisconi's influence on Milan. It was very vague unfortunately. "He wanted to run it as a marketable business" = greaaaat, you got really in depth there. Also seemed more interested in Hateley leaving even though it seemingly had little to do with Silvio. All I got was basically he paid off their debts and was heavily involved in the booster tv deal that lead to serie a being dominant in the 90s... which i already knew.

Yes, the Terry piece was great. I've never seen the Gullit one.

I've been having a think about what I want/don't want since you put this thread up. I do want proper humanity in the articles, a look at the person behind the usually-dull image, which you won't get from identaquotes. That Terry piece is dead on. I want a fresh angle if possible, and if not (there's only so much footy can bear after all) I want old angles done well and straightforwardly.

I don't want spurious political angles because the game can rarely bear it (see Wilson's blizzard Red Star piece for how it should be done). I'm surprised you all speak highly of the fourfourtwo derby series, anything I've seen attempting similar has been way off imo.

I know what I want and what I don't want (alas these rules can be broken but rarely are):

Want:
Factual data (injuries, form, etc.) that will allow me to make my own decision on a game.
Sober understanding of off the field details (i.e. finances, fanbase size and opinion, etc.)
A basic understanding of tactics. You don't have to be Jonathon Wilson but fucking hell you'd think TOO MANY writers/talking heads etc. have only just been introduced to the game.
Try to avoid bias, especially when it comes to nationalism.
An appreciation of all that happens on the pitch - sometimes a great last gasp tackle is much more important than a goal, a right back can be MOTM over a striker etc.
An interesting perspective about something that is droppin' knowledge (in a normal tone and not a 'oh these kids know nothing these days' one).
An understanding of history or perspective of what made a team what they are. I know it was only a ilx thing but the chanting Where Were You When You Were Shit to Chelsea fans discussion is a good example of how journalists need this.
Genuine enthusiasm for the game.
Genuine enthusiasm to see more to the game than the goalscorer.

Don't want:
Predictions on games like I'm not supposed to think for myself.
Flowery or forced language. I know that if Havand & Waterlooville are playing at Anfield that it is a spectacle, you can only ruin it by telling me what I already know 4000times with stupid language.
Ridiculous loss of perpective: for example - only 5 clubs at most can win the highest level championships in this country (incl. Europa/CL) and it is not the end of the world when 90 teams a season don't win them.
Mispaced idolism (i.e. the Rooney media).
Writers/talking heads not knowing shit about who they talk about. If Utd get a team of plucky part-time plumbers and window washers from Moldova in the Champions League, it is ok to not know but if someone plays in the top 5 leagues and you are professional, I'd hope you'd do more than read a wikipedia article. Or at least know who fucking Ben Arfa or David Silva is.

There is a great story about Richard Williams when he was a music writer writing about Lennon's Weddings album and favourably reviewing the engineer's test recordings of white noise that he was sent by mistake.

Now that is what I call 70s music journalism!

There is a great story about Richard Williams when he was a music writer writing about Lennon's Weddings album and favourably reviewing the engineer's test recordings of white noise that he was sent by mistake.

lolol I thought you were just joking abt it actually being him

oh cmon can we not just get music its own board or something?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/paulhayward

look at this jawdropping litany of pointless filler. i hadn't actually realised it was this bad til now since it never occurred to me he could possibly be writing three separate identical pieces on each non-subject daily.

Carlo Ancelotti on the precipice as Chelsea prepare for Old Trafford
10 Apr 2011

Even Carlo Ancelotti the cool one has been consumed by this age of rage
7 Apr 2011

What Chelsea's Fernando Torres wouldn't give for a goal celebration
7 Apr 2011

Emotional baggage brought home from Moscow still weighs on Chelsea
6 Apr 2011

hayward is dire....

not football but check this quote, used as a link in the story on bbc sport about the augusta masters

"To McIlroy's generation, Woods is the icon, the man they watched as kids, the man who changed the sport. They could be about to get their own icon"

if woods is their icon then how could they be about to get their own one? it just defies belief how shit these people are.

I understand the need for LOTS of journalism each day but does that sort of stuff really bring in more hits than a well written piece about a club less talked about? Like if you regularly picked a club with lots of fans that aren't necc. written about often, like say, modern Leeds, couldn't you in theory be more interesting AND still get mad website hits?

there's too much opinion on everything

Ken is just great fun to listen to, yes even his baffling mancrush on David Luiz

especially his irrational enthusiasms or dislikes, his scathing takes on silva are great

i love ken early

Am I missing something or did the podcast stop six months ago? Last one on Spotify was 15th September.

Never mind found the website. I forgot people had websites for stuff.

keep forgetting that richie, who is brilliant while never in any way appearing ill at ease with his ladness or striving for a pose (contrast with ken who is the very model of a fella looking for the mot juste and the big statement) has his MA in pyschotherapy since he retired

such high quality regulars, such a great blend and so at ease inter alia

i sometimes think about whether it would be plausible that there could ever be scottish football/sports journalism that could even touch second captains and there's just no fucking way

but i mean why not!

Scoop: “It has set off a bomb. Fuck it’s tremendous” – The Athletic guts the football teams from the Guardian, the Daily Mail and the Times.

We can reveal latest to exit are BBC’s David Ornstein and Guardian’s chief football writer Daniel Taylor.https://t.co/pcuTr9uN9H

— Mark Di Stefano 🤙🏻 (@MarkDiStef) July 17, 2019

One person briefed on the Athletic's plans told BuzzFeed News the US site is hoping to get 100,000 paid subscribers to fund its ambitious expansion into English football coverage.

Two sources said one subscription price point put forward would see subscribers pay “about £4 a month … or some sort of package where a reader pays £50 a year”. One source described it as “Netflix-like” pricing.

“They’re banking on a passionate football supporter willing to fork out £4 a month for some scoops about their team, and quality feature and match day writing,” the source said.

they haven't tapped up nult 🤔

Harsh on the Nult. xp

I don't think I've ever read an article on the Athletic.

well, it is subscription only

Ah yes, I see. Wondering how many people will want to subscribe to read "soccer" articles tbf

I think you mean "how many people will have want to have been going to have read BBC an Nult"

"BBC man" fuck this fucking phone

the liverpudlian scribe will have watched with some consternation as his peers in the british football press were poached by the upstart american outfit. he will have felt that his career will have been going to the proverbial dogs

Yeah that's how you will have wanted to do it

he will have wondered to himself the significance if any of wait where is everyone

jonathon wilson comparing pep to darth vader via some torturous analogy today.https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2019/oct/07/pep-guardiola-manchester-city-darth-vader-death-star-dark-side

it's like there's no point beating Man City because somehow it's all down to them and fuck all to do with your own performance

love wilson obviously but that is a fucking torturous analogy

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2020/jul/11/why-tottenham-are-stagnating-under-jose-mourinho-who-has-yet-to-evolve?CMP

Jonathan Wilson really on peak metaphorical form this morning:

Back then, Mourinho’s outrages were mitigated by his charm. But now it is as though Richard III had suffered no Bosworth. This is him after almost two decades on the throne, worn down by tax planning, worrying about alum prices, dealing with uppity nobles, the French and Lancastrian pretenders and suffering the growing realisation that some of his past excesses – drowning his brother in a vat of malmsey, murdering his nephews in the Tower, ending Anders Frisk’s career – probably shouldn’t have been excused on the basis of a knowing glance and a quip that made a good headline.

God love 'im

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/aug/02/frank-lampard-resolve-chelsea-defensive-issues-arsenal-fa-cup-final

jonathon wilson raises the bar on himself

In July 1971, Apollo 15 approached the moon. After the lunar module detached bearing the mission’s other two astronauts, Al Worden was left alone in the command module. When he went behind the moon, breaking transmission with Houston, he entertained himself by playing the Beatles, Elton John and John Denver and the soundtrack to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Orbiting 2,235 miles from his companions on the moon’s surface and quarter of a million miles from Earth, Worden was for three days the most isolated human to have existed since Adam. Or at least he was until the 67th minute of the FA Cup final on Saturday.

lol at daniel harris's premier league likeability 11 including hamza choudhury, possibly the dirtiest player in the league.

BBC liveblog incapable of referring to 'Nicolas Pepe' without inserting '£72m' first

I've never encountered Melissa Reddy before but she makes me feel like my brain is broken

Enter the gushing over not the player who produced the decisive goal at a pivotal moment, nor the one who significantly prevented one with his first spot-kick save since 2016.

Lingard’s delicious drive on 89 minutes secured the precious points, a huge W, but as we keep being told they are title contenders, can we evaluate their credentials as such?

But the Hammers were without the talismanic Michail Antonio, such a puncture to their blueprint, and yet still, they threatened United until literally the last kick of the match.

Thats fucking horrible stuff

gah

give me nult

Wood’s perhaps surprisingly eclectic taste in music variously encompasses the Kings of Leon, Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra and Howe must trust his formidable aerial presence will bring similar breadth and diversity to a struggling, frequently one-dimensional, Newcastle XI.

nothing wrong with 1d.

Is that from The Nult?

louise taylor the guardian's goto newcastle correspondent i think

https://deadspin.com/marcelo-booted-from-lyon-locker-room-for-excessive-fart-1848906148

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhLfNdWBYhU

alfie potts harmer is by far my favourite football journalist

fuck a video, what's he say?

erudite challenging of stereotypes, detail-filled encomium to AFCON and why it's a good tournament that gets hideously misrepresented by a lot of media, etc

everything gets hideously misrepresented by the media tbh im kind of over cardigan journalists looking for pats on the head for this angle

"non-European football is good actually" feels like just another version of your bog standard pundit patronisation tbh

sorry imago not stamping on the video i havent clicked on or anything but the saminess of football journalism along guardian football weekly lines seems v forced to me lately is all 😕

awww he's so nice though

everything is well-written, acerbic, detail-focused. he's done some other great videos. guardian journalism it is not, it's got a lot more bite

Maybe I'll take a look, I am trying to cut down my internet browsing outside of work hours though lol

is that his voice or is it an ai generated read of a piece he wrote?

tbh honest I didn't get too far into it by the time I stopped it he hadn't mentioned football.

It's his voice!

i couldn't decide on the right thread but this'll do, fill your boots

End of week tally: 4285 fully scanned football programmes, annuals, specials and magazines (including nearly 70 full Shoot! magazines)

To access them all in a free online library, below is the link to click and share - #oldfootballprogrammeshttps://t.co/G42qCRaf5f pic.twitter.com/6bfU7eD14U

— Miles McClagan (@TheSkyStrikers) March 29, 2024

i guess i dont love henry winter but the times making their chief football writer redundant must be noteworthy

Is it cos football is too woke now?

post itt writers you think are bad