tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72245234497612605492011-04-21T18:15:43.181-07:00Scurrilous sports media rantGutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.comBlogger501100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-41899106154299754472008-03-09T08:40:00.000-07:002008-03-10T05:16:24.326-07:00

The specialist rugby writers are like the long-serving cast of Coro, Eastenders or Neighbours. They are the journalistic equivalents of the actor who plays Ken Barlow, smug and content in their own little world and without the ability, or the ambition, to move on to new challenges. Most of them have been around as long as William Webb Ellis.When someone like Stephen Jones of the Sunday Times

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-69602439599115880552008-03-09T08:23:00.000-07:002008-03-09T08:38:42.774-07:00

Can someone at the Independent - preferably with more than a couple of years in journalism - PLEASE take Angus Fraser to one side and demonstrate how to compose an intro? And while you are at it, Simon Kelner, can you also tell him that any half decent writer should be aware that adjectives are the curse of modern sportswriting?Here's the former England trundler on Ryan Sidebottom's Hamilton

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-69021271949343939082008-03-09T08:14:00.000-07:002008-03-09T08:23:48.021-07:00

Saturday's "guest predictor" in the Guardian (if you haven't caught this it's a bit of typical Guardian furniture in which notables are paid to make fools of themselves with some sporting soothsaying) was Krishnan Guru-Murthy who, as it turned out, was not a Guru at all.He had Chelsea to win 5-1 at Barnsley, Manchester United to beat Portsmouth 2-0, Liverpool to beat Newcastle 1-0 and Blackburn

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-81477067354817389322008-02-24T03:22:00.000-08:002008-02-24T04:01:40.433-08:00

Provincial newspapers have always had to struggle by on minimal editorial resources. It shows in the quality of their writing staff and it shows in the breadth of their coverage.A glance at the rugby pages in today's Scotland on Sunday is a microcosm (and the SoS microcosm is getting even more micro by the week) of the problems sports editors in the sticks face under the strictures of the bean

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-29633892262502138102008-02-23T15:27:00.000-08:002008-03-01T01:41:24.643-08:00

Who on earth needs Frank Gorshin, Mike Yarwood or Alistair McGowan when you can tune in to BBC Sport?"Super Saturday" kicked off with Football Focus and the great Garth Crooks, who does a Burt Lancaster (as Elmer Gantry) which has to be seen, and heard, to be believed. Elmer was succeeded by Sir Matthew Pinsent, impersonating an investigative reporter, and on the loose in Beijing at licence

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-13353044193090316722008-02-23T01:59:00.000-08:002008-02-23T15:16:47.372-08:00

Does the left hand know what the right hand is doing at the Daily Star? Does the sports desk ever converse with the news desk, or vice versa? Are editorial conferences spent on anything else apart from debating the size of the bazookas on page one?Like, for example, content?Page One today reveals that Cheryl Cole is set to spoil "love rat" husband Ashley's big Wembley day and shun the Carling Cup

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-21789252883494372902008-02-11T07:18:00.000-08:002008-02-11T07:58:22.174-08:00

When I started out in this daft business the first lesson hammered into me by my first sports editor was that when you wrote a headline the words had to be reflect what was in the intro. The second was that you always include a name.Whichever Sunday Times sub came up with England Can't Cut the Mustard to illustrate England's one-day cricket defeat by New Zealand got it right on the second point

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-58419170097878624152008-02-10T12:29:00.000-08:002008-02-10T12:43:41.659-08:00

I gave the England v Switzerland match two minutes on Wednesday having vowed that if anyone disturbed the minute's silence for the victims of Munich I'd switch off and never watch another football match again.Full marks to the Wembley fans, no bother at all.I still switched off, though, in protest at the antics of BBC commentator, John Motson, who was still going through the team line-ups 10

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-91868568201463582972008-02-07T01:07:00.000-08:002008-02-07T03:50:09.498-08:00

I thought I had read every conceivable variation of meaningless tosh written about Munich '58, but I'd forgotten we hadn't heard from Simon Barnes in the Times. Here's his latest session of verbal wanking: "Sport is life. It is the most vivid form of being alive, at any rate in public. Sport's triumphs and disasters, joys and sorrows, shame and glory have an intensity impossible to find elsewhere

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-86747588439316318592008-02-05T06:36:00.000-08:002008-02-05T07:26:12.089-08:00

There is not a lot new to say about Munich '58, but most newspapers have had a good try this week - and it has not made edifying reading.Survivors and families have been wheeled out for various anniversaries almost non-stop down the years, most of them with little complaint and with the infinite patience which has become their trademark. The occasion of the 50th anniversary, tomorrow, found them

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-2465560777229974502008-02-05T06:17:00.000-08:002008-02-05T06:36:03.497-08:00

From Nick Halling "in Phoenix" for the Independent comes more evidence that the reportage of indigenous sport should be left to the natives.We can laugh as long and as loud as we like at the efforts of the Yanks to trivialise the technicalities of football (sorry, soccer), but Halling and the rest of the Brits who are hanging on for dear life to the rear wheels of the NFL bandwagon sure do

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-6972183765691671152008-01-20T14:21:00.000-08:002008-01-21T02:47:54.549-08:00

Jeff Powell, the befrizzed Australian who, impossible as it may seem - given that he is not exactly Mr Popularity in the business - is still writing for the Daily Mail, reckons he can trace the decline of Liverpool back to a seminal moment 34 years ago.The day Bill Shankly retired, says Powell, was the day "Liverpool began selling their soul".If this writer would care to key the words "Bob

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-64008954064238838472008-01-20T11:41:00.000-08:002008-01-20T12:13:49.575-08:00

As if the Toon Army hadn't enough problems.Racing eccentric (nutter to you and me) John McCririck, it turns out, is a Newcastle fan and has been "most of my life". At least that what he told Sky Sports News today.Punctuated by cries of "Howay the Lads", the obligatory mention of the new Messiah and , tooled up in a black and white jersey, McCririck was in the sort of full tic-tac rant mode that

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-68409228396973089012008-01-18T02:44:00.000-08:002008-01-18T06:22:36.281-08:00

"It gives me enormous pressure to welcome Kevin Keegan."Well, yes, Chris Mort, chairman of Newcastle United, it sure does. Perhaps he meant pleasure, but there again maybe Mr Mort is a student of Freud.Or maybe like a lot of the Toon supporters looking on from the Shearer Bar, he'd had a few Newcy Broons.In vino veritas, and all that.

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-69206491157156356082008-01-17T00:59:00.001-08:002008-01-18T02:46:14.211-08:00

The return of Kevin Keegan to Tyneside certainly buried the bad news on Fabio Capello for the FA (I always wondered what happened to Jo Moore; she's alive and well and working in the next office to Brian Barwick in Soho Square).Unfortunately, for little Havant and Waterlooville, it also buried the good news about them.The greatest night in the history of the Conference South side was washed away

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-4400711249801396392008-01-14T06:03:00.001-08:002008-01-14T06:17:53.058-08:00

As an example of superficial sports writing technique this takes some beating - Paul Kimmage going all ga-ga in the Sunday Times over Russian tennis princess Maria Sharapova:"And that’s when it happens. Suddenly, inexplicably, I start to envy her dog. I want to be Dolce. I want to die and come back as that fluffy Pomeranian pooch and for the next five minutes I completely derail. It’s like that

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-79254289745847390682008-01-13T04:10:00.001-08:002008-01-13T04:53:22.195-08:00

Neither Steve Cram or Brendan Foster are journalists, but as Olympians they should be able to offer cogent comment and opinion on "their" sport. Don't hold your breath.Like many former participants, whose livelihoods depend on propagating the image of a particular branch of sport, they have mastered the art of fudge and tend to vanish whenever anything remotely controversial crops up. As has been

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-56524858491808806982008-01-11T01:50:00.000-08:002008-01-13T04:02:40.934-08:00

During his 13 years as the editor of the Sun, Kelvin MacKenzie showed little, or no, interest in sport - except on the occasions it became the news.Events like Heysel, bungs, the pants down activities of Premiership footballers or Gazza's various meltdowns would turn Macca into a temporary sports fan. But the whereabouts of Hillsborough - let alone the name of the team that plays there - would

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-57874167141154220962008-01-09T06:01:00.000-08:002008-01-09T06:29:56.328-08:00

This is the image chosen by Times online to illustrate the news that the Gloucester wing Lesley Vainikolo had been named in the England rugby union squad. Vainikolo was born in Tonga and used to play rugby league for Bradford Bulls. Does anyone else think that the Times online picture editor is either a) racist; b) a Twickenham debenture holder or c) both?

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-1488053002286549542008-01-08T07:36:00.000-08:002008-01-09T05:49:47.966-08:00

Like the sport they serve, specialist cricket writers work to a set of rules and codes unintelligible to much of the the rest of the world.As has been pointed by Peter Whiby in his excellent media critiques in the Guardian, the majority of them regard themselves as the equivalent of rather grand theatre critics. They are there to analyse and muse on what is going on in the field, but without the

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-62441751638068955762008-01-06T09:00:00.000-08:002008-01-08T06:17:12.512-08:00

As any author will tell you, it's next to impossible to earn a mention for your pride and joy in the review sections of a national newspaper.Unless you work for that newspaper, that is.No problems, then, for Jon Henderson of the Observer who was granted the best part of half a page - in the Observer - to plug his offering, Best of British: Hendo's Sporting Heroes.I may be alone in this, but I am

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-16940965784490245882008-01-05T03:20:00.000-08:002008-01-06T05:56:10.010-08:00

"STINGY KOP" cries the Sun in reporting that Liverpool have refused to donate their share of the gate money from tomorrow's third round FA Cup tie - around £200,000 - to "cash-strapped" opponents, Luton.A classic piece of Sun dissemination, this. Firstly, there is no precedent for bigger clubs gifting gate money to less fortunate brethren - Luton are currently in administration - and certainly no

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-5224387170059385832008-01-03T13:53:00.000-08:002008-01-03T14:11:09.379-08:00

In an extended rant against sports perceived as rich men's playthings, a Guardian Leninspart, Steven Wells, takes a swing at Tiger Woods' favoured game, telling us that "Golf is the quicksand at the end of the existentialist rainbow, sucking the unwary ageing hipster into a half-life of gin-pissed conversations about house prices, airport car parking and immigrants."Strange how writers who regard

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-70066360327915854492008-01-03T09:13:00.000-08:002008-01-03T14:20:11.902-08:00

In the gloating manner unique to The Sun, Anthony France (or rather the sub-editor who wrote the story for him) reports that "jailed soccer bad boy" Joey Barton nightly cries himself to sleep behind bars.The newspaper's back bench, with a strapline "All Together Now, AAh!" invites us to join in their gruesome sneeralong.The story has all the ingredients: a list of the player's misdemeanours, a

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-11969176139601030442008-01-03T03:55:00.000-08:002008-01-03T12:08:16.282-08:00

Foreign newspapers have always been a rich source for the sort of speculative sports story in which we specialise over here.Armed with Babel Fish and a few keywords (Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United, Capello or England for starters), UK-based hacks regularly raid the online pages of La Gazzetta dello Sport, L'Equipe or El Pais for titbits.This week, with the January transfer window imminent,

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-40481969921490853722008-01-01T07:29:00.000-08:002008-01-19T03:03:12.744-08:00

More candidates kept in the the sports desk database for the appropriate occasion:The goalkeeper got a big hand to it: Has anyone come across a goalkeeper with small hands?Pivot: Central midfielder, stand-off, basketball centre, take your pick.Braveheart: a Scottish loser.Rumbled over the line: Exclusive to prop forwards scoring a try.Burly: prop forwards in general (as if lanky ones exist).A

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-5751631885304593032007-12-31T03:02:00.000-08:002007-12-31T04:42:48.680-08:00

As anyone who has caught him on TV or radio will be aware, Portsmouth goalkeeper David James is one of the more cerebral of professional sportspeople. No brains in the boots here as his latest well-crafted article in The Guardian athttp://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2007/12/30/i_love_my_stats_but_you_need_h.html well illustrates.Pity the paper's sports production staff aren't in the same league.

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-61086902315535681812007-12-30T08:13:00.000-08:002007-12-31T03:02:05.747-08:00

"Joey Barton is one of those characters that cannot be saved from himself. I know because I was asked to help save him."The words are those of Harry Harris, the Daily Express's back page agony aunt and the latest to offer us an insight into the troubles life and times of the sinning Scouser.I have to confess I have spent the best part of the last 48 hours trying to work out exactly what Harris is

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-56462044966066677122007-12-29T14:21:00.000-08:002007-12-30T05:43:17.305-08:00

It's not every day a 35-year-old in the prime of his life dies at his work.It's even rarer when that man is a footballer who was capped by his country, played over 100 games for one half of Scotland's Old Firm, performed in the English Premiership and was the current captain of his club.Phil O'Donnell's death was significant in so many ways and yet, when I first wrote this, at about 7pm on

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-74903612841824691812007-12-29T07:46:00.000-08:002007-12-29T13:00:24.532-08:00

Here's a lofty new goal for young, sporting hopefuls.Who needs Olympic gold, a World Cup podium, MVPs, MoMs, Lance Todds, the PFA awards, even BBC's Sports Personality of the year when there's James Lawton of The Independent bending to bestow gifts from on high:"As always, the Lawton Awards duly acknowledge outstanding contributions to the sports life of the nation and so naturally eschew the

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-53762500400349452052007-12-29T03:39:00.000-08:002007-12-29T09:48:43.361-08:00

"Big Sam in Barton bust-up" cries the back page of the Daily Mirror today in revealing that Joey Barton and his Newcastle manager had a "massive bust-up" hours before the fight that landed the player in jail.The implication, made by Chief Sports Writer Oliver Holt, is that the row was the catalyst for Barton's Boxing Day thrash round Liverpool and subsequent arrest.No sources quoted, not even the

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-73245613684658120072007-12-24T06:50:00.000-08:002007-12-29T04:12:26.866-08:00

Here's some fantasy from fantasy reporter Tom Hutchison in today's Daily Star.Fabio Capello, instead of turning to Linguaphone, is apparently learning English from tapes of old Fawlty Towers episodes.That's about as plausible as the picture chosen to illustrate the story - Fabio in his Speedos holidaying on a beach in Sicily. In December.At least it proves he is a hard man. But not half as hard

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-64042165184456024452007-12-24T05:40:00.001-08:002007-12-28T02:26:12.669-08:00

Hats off, and three cheers, for the unnamed club official who, according to the back page of today's Sun, forcibly removed Sunderland manager Roy Keane from Steve Coppell's office after Reading's 2-1 win.Sounds like a man you would want alongside you in the trenches. Someone prepared to go above and beyond the call of duty. Possibly ex-SAS, or a part-time cage fighter. Or maybe he just has a

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-72698586249041718242007-12-24T05:40:00.000-08:002007-12-30T09:37:10.781-08:00

Brian Woolnough is a confused soul. Today's offering in the Daily Star (Wooly's World) manages a cumulative nine question marks on one page, mainly about the state of mind of Dimitar Berbatov of Spurs. Berbatov and his employers simply do not know where life is taking him - and neither does Woolly."So what does Tottenham do with Berbatov?" he asks (note to Star subs, please tell your star scribe

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-10539693606343815842007-12-24T03:35:00.000-08:002007-12-28T02:22:32.372-08:00

The Guardian is the latest media outlet to indulge Russell Brand. What is worse, they are indulging him in their sports section. If Frank Keating were dead, he'd be turning in his grave.Here's West Ham fan Russell on Saturday, comparing himself with another celebrated self-promoter:"I was titillated by Tony Montana's ascent through the Cocaine cartels of Florida and South America in the movie

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-62422056508156998722007-12-19T02:17:00.000-08:002007-12-19T07:35:58.259-08:00

Playing professional sport doesn't equip you for very much else when the time comes to retire. As any televised interview with the likes of Gerrard, Pietersen, Vickery or Kelly Holmes will tell you, the brains of most performers are embedded firmly in their boots (although I did catch David James using the word ambivalence on Radio Five over the weekend. Eamonn Holmes had to ask him what that

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-59758994940719880392007-12-18T01:44:00.000-08:002007-12-19T00:50:43.064-08:00

Given that teams in the Scottish Premier League play each other about 20 times a year, Inverness Caledonian Thistle's 3-2 win over Celtic at the weekend is not in the shock/horror category. Such is the narrow insularity of Scottish football that what goes around tends to come around.No surprises, either, that the Scottish Sun would raid its Mary Poppins cupboard again to resurrect a version of

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-2874366563555205502007-12-17T06:53:00.000-08:002007-12-18T04:47:27.124-08:00

Apologies for that one, but since every other sports hack in the universe is busy trawling through old DVDs of The Godfather, Goodfellas and The Sopranos for Mafiosi-type similes to apply to the new England manager I thought I would get in on the act. Or ottenga dentro sull'atto, as they say in Palermo. The Don, horse's heads, "it's only business", we've had the lot. And if we haven't, we soon

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-32645246033982248332007-12-17T04:01:00.000-08:002007-12-17T04:10:05.549-08:00

More dead as a doornail definitions from sporting scribedom:Shotstopper: Custodians begat goalkeepers who in their turn begat 'keepers who now, seemingly, have their own subdivisional description of their trade. Keepers now either command their areas or are specialist "shotstoppers". Like left-footed or right-footed players, they can't do both.Temperamental: Generic description of foreign-born

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-88950936059544905522007-12-17T01:37:00.000-08:002007-12-17T01:45:47.077-08:00

Two-ton Times man Martin Samuel ponders on one of the great mysteries of his life: where did Sven get that flower in his buttonhole when the two first met?"So the origin of Eriksson’s poppy was a puzzle. He certainly did not collect it in Rome, home of Benito Mussolini, while Sweden, his birthplace, was one of a handful of European nations that maintained neutrality throughout the Second World

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-49913930757789719412007-12-14T07:28:00.000-08:002007-12-14T07:34:01.039-08:00

Those among the Scottish rugby supporting public who buy The Herald (maybe 00000000000.1 per cent of the population) will be aware that Kevin Ferrie is the chronicler of their favourite game in their favourite newspaper.Or, as he likes to be known, Kevin Ferrie, Chief Rugby Writer, with the implication that there is a small army of rugby-writing subordinates backing up The Chief.In fact, god be

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-10115675713159774992007-12-14T01:24:00.000-08:002007-12-14T04:31:18.173-08:00

A sizeable proportion of baseball's glitterati have, according to a report published by former senator George Mitchell, been taking performance-enhancing drugs. America's national game is as bent as professional cycling. Say it ain't so, George.Mitchell's report fingers luminaries like Barry Bonds, Andy Pettitte and Miguel Tejada and, most damning of all, the iconic pitcher Roger Clemens, who is

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-82524603130619104602007-12-13T05:54:00.000-08:002007-12-13T06:14:10.490-08:00

Thanks to Frank Malley, the chief sportswriter for the Press Association, for his carefully crafted verdict on the next England manager. No sitting on the fence for Frank, the master of inescapeable logic:"The fact is I do not know whether Capello, for all his medals, would make a good England manager. Neither does Barwick. In fact, nobody does for sure."

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-37932719710055824182007-12-11T12:38:00.001-08:002007-12-13T01:38:21.302-08:00

Scottish sport may be in what may be charitably termed the doldrums (charitable in that the word implies a fresh wind may get up some time in the future) but does it really deserve the Scottish Press?Of the indigenous newspapers, The Herald is laughably racist, Scotland on Sunday riddled with error (I once counted 36 literals in the sports section before giving up on the fifth page) and the

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-41923629574567351462007-12-11T11:03:00.002-08:002007-12-11T11:44:48.783-08:00

This is a random list of the worst, and by definition the most widely used, in sports writing. The cliche, of course, being the last resort of hacks who can't write. This should also serve as a guide for anyone wishing to read between the lines in a sports report.The Beautiful Game: a non-sequitur, given that it contains the likes of Nicolas Anelka, Joey Barton and Harry Redknapp.Hitting the

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Congratulations to Simon Barnes of The Times, inaugural winner of this prestigious award. The prize is a boxed set of two books - a Roget's Thesaurus and the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. He may have trouble disappearing up his own arse with these, but he will no doubt try. As this snippet illustrates too well:"He (Giggs) has just scored his 100th league goal for Manchester United, so it’s a

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Try this for size:"Alternatively, of course, some may feel it isn’t necessary to possess the skills of a Bletchley Park code-breaker to discern that when newspapers say the Special One is overwhelmingly the people’s choice, what they might mean is that he was voted in by a landslide at an editorial conference."The words, correct in substance but stylishly corrupt, are those of the Sunday

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-28373001226842568852007-12-10T09:01:00.000-08:002007-12-13T01:41:51.127-08:00

For over a decade now The Sun has persisted in calling Severiano Ballesteros Sevvy, rather than Seve. This despite entreaties from Seve himself via his agent, and evidence everywhere else (see pictures) that Sevvy is, in fact, Seve. The Sun, being The Sun, has blissfully ignored them.I have my own theory about how this came about.Most tabloids, given the restraint of word counts in headlines

Gutter Snipehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02136579985257028657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7224523449761260549.post-88129441371049571492007-12-10T08:59:00.000-08:002007-12-13T01:44:48.007-08:00

After an appropriate period of disassociation by his newspaper, David Walsh, the loquacious Limerick leprechaun (yes, I once worked as a sub on The Sun) is back at the Sunday Times. Walsh had to take an enforced Sabbatical from the ST after he got his arse kicked by Lance Armstrong over false doping allegations. In the meantime, Walsh rattled off Lawrence Dallaglio's "autobiography" before

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It's a requirement of any sports expert's pre-write to any major sporting event to offer a forecast. In other words, Woods will win the Open, Federer will win Wimbledon, South Africa the Rugby World Cup and Ricky Hatton will ... well, we'll leave that one for now.Sports hacks are still sports hacks because they couldn't tip the sun to rise in the east. If they could get things right

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