Is it just me, or is the sporting press in England pretty much on the level of tabloids at all times? Even "respected" outfits like Sky and BBC usually sound like Weekly World News: outlandish headlines, horrible writing, sensationalism, etc. It might be interesting to do a cultural history of the sporting press in the US vs. England. Perhaps in England they've never forgotten the underlying trivial nature of these games, so they don't tend to produce self-important sports "journalists" in the way the US does? One of the key features of English soccer journalism that cracks me up is how they so obviously fabricate stories out of nothing. For instance, after Beattie went top of the table for the Premierhship, BBC seemed to run about 4 or 5 different articles with the topics being various people's opinion of whether Beattie should be called in to England. It was hysterical. "Robson Backs Beattie" would be followed the next day by "Shearer Puts Halt On Beattie." Quite comical. In fact, a generally odd tendency I've noticed is how the British sports press likes to run "stories" totally about offhand comments by famous sports pesonalities. And the comments are often totally lame. In an interview after a game, Viera might pass on the cliche: "I thought we looked good, and we're gaining confidence." Such a quote would then be turned into all kinds of major stories. "Viera Predicts Victory at Stamford Bridge" or "Viera Claims Arsenal Are Unbeatable". You just don't see the US press do that kind of stuff when say, Allen Iverson makes similar comments. Anyway, maybe it's just because the British papers need to fill up as much space with soccer "news" as our papers do with 4 major sports combined. So the usual "hard" sports news (match reports, statistics, players committing major crimes, etc.) mixed with sappy human interest stories (Player X gives kidney to sick brother) simply aren't enough when people are obsessed with only a single major sport? Or maybe the Brits just have a more pronounced distinction between print and online journalism? Oh well, just some musings on a funny cultural difference I've noticed in a place where you wouldn't necessarily expect one.
When England crashed out of the Euro 92 tournament after being beaten by sweden, the headline was... Swedes 2 Turnips 1 The (then) England manager's face was then superimposed onto a picture of a turnip. That pretty much sums up the English sports press. There are several sports journalists who see themselves as important journalists even though the general public don't seem to care who writes the match reports. Personally I like the way John Sadler of The Sun never fails to comment on a sporting failure without including the word DAMMIT! in bold print to show just how angry he is. The "out of context quote" routine is a favourite of sports journalists. The classic being i) journo get talking to Manager A ii) brings up subject of top Player B iii) makes a comment about whether he'd like to see Player B in a City (or whoever) shirt iv) Manager A agrees that he'd like to have a player like Player B, probably adding that he couldn't afford him v) journo writes "Manager A wants Player B to play for City" exclusive. The worst excesses are often carried out on weekends when there is no premiership programme (often due to internations in the week). Rather than risk covering something from the nationwide league in the back 3 pages, they'll dig out some interview with a monosyllabic player, normally in the "My drink/drugs/embarrassingly stuck fish paste jar hell" mould. Don't know much about the Scottish press, accept their hatred of all things English, and that they produced one of the best football headlines ever after Celtic were knocked out of the Scottish cup at home to part-timers Inverness Caledonian.... Super Caley Go Ballistic Celtic are Atrocious
Blah! Worst night of my life and that headline has haunted me ever since. I think the swedes 2 turnips 1 headline was after a euro 2000 qualifier at wembley by the way, both celtic players that scored the sweden goals that day.
There's a special circle in hell for anyone who'd write a headline like that. Don't know about over there, but here you usually have somebody different to blame for headlines than for the story itself.
http://football.guardian.co.uk/ i think the guardian sports section is great! funny stuff "Real Madrid's centenary ends - and the world is happy again " lol true!
Would you let this stupid "topic" die already? YOu always respond with this whenever the word Britain is used...zzzzzzz Some sort of nationalistic-penile-envy complex you have there Prenn typical BRIT
Funny stuff there lad. You know, when i was a younger fella myself and still going to games i had a couple of mates that i always went into the North stand with.Amongst others two were from Belfast and one was from Glasgow..the blue side...good scrapers every one of them and there was many a time i was glad they had my back as we mashed it out with the likes of the scum from Upton park, the Den or the Park end lot. One thing that was sure to rile them up though was to call them a Brit, especially the gers lad.
Don't show your ignorance then, If you know it's England then say it. It's probably hard for you being a latino, all of you Spaniard Brazillians think the same.
Typical prat I suppose you see nothing wrong with thinking Britain = England? Apart form the fact that it's stupid and just plain wrong. Do you know the difference between Britain and England? I bet you wouldn't bat an eyelid if a Scot or Welshman kept pointing out the difference. I bet you don't even consider them 'Brits'. Why have I brought his up? Well the British and English press are different. For instance the English press get all wanky over England when we're doing well, and scathing when we're doing bad. The Scottish press are scathing all the time. They are both the British press, do you understand now? The BBC (British Press) are anti-English in everyway except for football. Anyway back to the topic: Another point not brought up is that the English press tends to be the London press and displays the appropriate bias.
Is there much influential English football press outside of London or is big time coverage pretty much dominated by media outlets in the capitol?
The simple answer is no, our national media is pretty much London based. There's regional media which has a local bias but you expect that.
Well, better than American sports press to make stupid puns and allusions out of things like "State Displayed Wright Stuff Against Flyers" or "Terps Shellshock Devils" etc...
Typical tit I dont consider myself british either, however it is just plain annoying when someone refers to Britain when they clearly mean England.
Or even worse, from an English point of view, when someone refers to England when they clearly mean Britain.
I'd say that the standard varies more than in the US, with the best far better than the US and the worst far worse. You rarely see such well-written game reports in the US as you do in the "quality" dailys in England. Too often US reports are merely factual renditions of what's happened rather than describing the ebbs and flows of a game. This is particularly true of soccer where there are still too few journalists who have a clue. As for the BBC, there seems to be little connection between what passes for journalism on the website, and what gets produced for TV and radio. The latter coverage is excellent, imo, particuarly their radio coverage which simply wipes the floor with anything I've ever heard in the US.
Lot of generalisations here. For a start, a good deal of the broadsheet coverage of sport is excellent. No one can tel me that the likes of Henry Winter, Brian Glanville, James Lawton, Simon Kuiper, Jim Wilson, Simon Barnes or Matt Dickinson are not excellent writers and profoundly knowledgeable observers of their sports. Secondly, a lot of the coverage that people will be talking about here is web-based. The Beeb, for instance, publishes something like 35 football stories a day, so quite necessarily they are a bit low-rent and quite sensibly they are often packaged into “runs”, or stories that evolve as new perspectives come to light (even when the substance may be nothing more than “A says this, B denies it, A denies having even been there, B concurs”. It’s sensible use of the web, in that the medium allows for an immediacy that printed, daily publications cannot hope to match. As for the tabloids, or TV-based tabloid reporting a la Sky Sports News, what do you expect? This is a ratings war. And the same rationale by which page 3 features a pair of tits underpins the appearance on page 61 of those salacious “Giggs to Inter Milan Shocker” headlines. Sensationalism sells, end of story. That is the case in Britain, in England and in every other corner of this crazy planet of ours.
Not in the US, the home of sober reflection, preferrably while smoking a pipe and wearing a cardigan. Well, the home of that, and Marilyn Manson.
No! How could a Scot forget that it was Graham Taylor who had his face superimposed on a turnip? After Sweden knocked us out of Euro something-or-other, and he subbed Lineker (in his last England game) for Alan Smith. Genius. Also, Howard Wilkinson was 'The Vulcan'. Why I don't know, because there has never been anything logical about his twatty tactics. Keegan was just a pathetic, crybaby lunatic. Hoddle was/is completely mad (and I'm a Spurs fan.) Venables is a dodgy used car salesman, only worse. And Sven is 'Mr. Burns'. Although he did hump the rather fine Ulrika. Excellent!
I think I remember something about one particular tabloid being held most responsible for spreading and attempting to make ligit, the rumor that the Liverpool fans themselves were to blame for the disaster at Hillsborough in '89 where 96 of them died.. Was that "The Sun"? I know there was a "boycott" but I can't remember the name of the paper.
I know .. Thanks.. I only look for news at the Times or BBC.. I guess they're a shade above The Sun..
I'm not sure about England, but this is definitely true in Scotland. There is more press in Scotland, because there is the Scottish national papers (Daily Record, Herald, Scotsman), as well as the Scottish editions of the UK national papers. And all these papers have to find "stories" from basically two sports clubs (Rangers and Celtic), since they are the only ones which sell substantially. So you get absolutely ridiculous stuff in our press. A recent classic was the "story" in the Daily Record about a photograph of the Celtic CEO (Ian McLeod) wearing a Rangers shirt. The standard rarely rises above this, hence sales of almost all newspapers are falling.