I emailed the following to the author of this regrettable piece of "journalism" or "opinion" or whatever it was supposed to be: >>Wow, what a smear job on young Bobby Convey. I've followed him pretty closely for 3-4 years, and you took a lot of innuendo and speculation, with no attribution, and made it into a case for a deeply disturbed young soccer player. You may not like his game, but that is no excuse for slamming a hard-working, ambitious player who leaves it all out on the field. Where are the quotes from teammates, the actual documented facts? The only facts you presented were game situations that can be interpreted and misinterpreted many ways. I'm very disappointed that you can print such slander for all of the US soccer community & for the Reading FC fans to see. If you're going to spend time writing, let's see something real. Don't waste your time & ours with such garbage.<<
If you listen to the show tomorrow night, you will see that he more than has the ability to take any shots from anyone on these boards.. I saw him yesterday in the press box and we just broke out laughing.. He knows full well the position he put himself in and I can tell you he doesn't care in the least because he feels secure in knowing that he told his side of the story and if others feel differently about it (and obviously they do), so be it..
Everyone needs to calm down... Like Bobby or hate him it's yesterday's news. I honestly would like to defend some of Snear's comments but frankly what's the point? Bobby no longer plays here and we all wish him luck in England. At the sametime let's not revise history. Bobby's time here was unproductive and a let down. This excuse about traditional 10's is really annoying and just an excuse. Amado Guevara looks pretty damned close to ideal and certainly hasn't had any trouble producing on any level as a playmaking mid. Metrostar or not I would take him over Bob in a New York (or Jersey) second.
I'm not surpsised that you both broke out laughing in the press box. You have a lot in common. You're both frat brothers. You both have passes to get into RFK's press box. And both of you are about as qualified to get paid to write about soccer as I am. FWIW, I get a laugh out of the fact that I get to have a pass that lets me take pictures on the field. Then again, I've never claimed to be an expert on the game.
Whoa, there!! Never!?! After 10,000 plus posts you expect us to go for this bit of hubris? Puhleeze! Should have told people sooner, they could have skipped reading a lot (and I mean a whole lot) of useless opinions.
"Convey, 21, is very highly-rated in the USA and his pace and trickery down the left flank will be a useful outlet for the Royals in The Championship. Convey has already been capped 26 times by his country and is widely considered to be the brightest star of a promising young set of players over the Atlantic. Convey can score goals too so defences will have to be on their guard." The Yin to the Frat dude's yang
press pass envy? not that guy's best work, and I'm sure he's realized it by now. but sometimes I can't tell if some posters are jealous because they don't get to write about soccer or actually care that much about contractions and pronouns
Actually, I DO have a press pass. I have nothing to be envious of. I've had several offers to write articles for soccer web sites and I've turned them all down. I think I'm qualified to take pictures, because some of my shots are actually pretty good. However, I've chosen to not write articles about soccer because I realize that I don't know enough about the game to be remotely qualified. Other writers on some sites haven't come to that realization about themselves, and probably never will.
What criteria would you suggest would 'qualify' someone to write for a soccer web site ? Personally I don't agree with everything Chris Snear said, but I liked what he was trying to do - write something that was pointed and opinionated, to get peoples attention and generate discussion. Sure, it was probably a little harsh on Convey, but so what - the British tabloids sports pages are full of this kind of stuff. Given that soccer has a negligible presence in print media and radio in this country, we depend on the Internet for much of our soccer news and discussion. We need more of this kind of article,and the considered rebuttal that Snear's colleague wrote, not less. So you don't agree with him, fine - write a rebuttal here in this thread, start your own soccer website, phone into the Soccer Show - do something other than trash the guy and cast aspersions on his journalistic ability. I find it slightly odd that so few people are prepared even to admit that Convey has been less impressive for his club than he has for his country. Fundamentally what Snear's article is saying is that yes, Convey is a talented player but this talent never really made itself felt in his play for DC, and for that reason, his departure is not really that great of a loss. I happen to agree with that view, I've heard it expressed by people I watch the games with and I've seen it expressed on these boards. Maybe its a minority view, but its hardly one which is so off base as to justify the reactions expressed by some in this thread.
my apologies, then well, I'll be sure not to ask you to write next time I'm in the box! good luck with the photo-journalism
Actually, if Mr. Snear had used your statement above, I doubt there would have been much of a thread here. Instead he chose the "low route" and instead of making statements about the lack of production, Mr. Snear stated the problems with Bobby were that Convey had no respect for coaches, was a team pariah, was petulant both on and off the field, and other disparaging comments about Convey personally. While that type of speculating and extrapolation is ok for BS.com's DC United message board, people expect more when it comes to actual soccer news web sites, even if those sites are little more than fanzines. That is why so many people got on Mr. Snear in this thread.
The fundamental flaw is that he wrote an OP-ED piece with such venom and lack of objectivity. Of course opinions are welcome- that's why we're here on BS- but Cybersoccernews should be above such a biased attack full of conjecture. So he visits the practice fields and the press box- that makes him qualified to psychoanalyze not only Bobby Convey but his teamates and coaches. Get real. This guy's a hack and an embarrasment to DC United. Yank his credentials and get him down in the cheap seats with the rest of us BS hacks. That's where we belong.
Thats a fair point. Unfortunately, very few posters acknowledged that there is more to the article than a personal attack, or said that they disagreed with the tone in which it was made rather than its central premise. In fact, the author does address Convey's lack of production in the first part of the article. On re-reading the article in the light of your post I'd say the first 3/4 of the article is a legitimate attempt to analyse Convey's play for DC United. Once we get to the quote about Convey having no respect for his team coaches, I'll agree that Snear goes off the rails a bit at that point, and probably undermines the case he makes earlier by getting into areas which are difficult to substantiate and overly personal. But I still think that the article as a whole raises some legitimate points, some of which were addressed in the counterpoint article on the same site. You'll notice that in that article Chris Long addresses the substantive issues brought up in Snear's article, rather than focusing on the personal attacks. I guess that is another example of the difference between Bigsoccer and internet news sites.
I agree with his basic points, but it was written poorly. Far to accusatory, such an article is probably best written making the basic charge of Convey having an attitude problem as an unanswered question, instead of a statement of fact. But the basic point that Convey's tenure at DC produced nothing of signifigance is sound. The accusation of an "attitude problem" is supportable to a degreee, simply not with the surety that he made it.