Bolton Wanderers Forum The-Wanderer.co.uk

This is a thread for one to vent one's spleen over the incompetency and ignorance displayed by the vast majority of football scribes and television analysts in this country. I could personally write a vast tome on this subject if I had the time, but as it is, I shall start with my least favourite journalist of the moment, and let others contribute as they wish.

My current number one hate figure (and there are many contenders) is the BBC's chief football writer, Phil McNulty. This joker is responsible for the most banal, irrelevant and uninteresting articles that I have ever had the displeasure to read. He offers no interesting analysis, no insight and virtually no opinion that could be considered even slightly controversial. His analysis invariably boils down to making the most obvious observations possible i.e. "Chelsea prove they are better than Arsenal by beating Arsenal" or suchlike.

His latest blog post typifies the man's ineptitude. It's basically a whole piece devoted to the entirely irrelevant point of whether James Milner is "great" or not, after a post-match statement made by Martin O'Neill. Firstly, all managers overrate their players and make hyperbolic comments regarding them, everyone is aware of this. Secondly, McNulty offers no kind of explanation as to what he defines as the characteristics of a "great" player, rendering the whole debate invalid. Finally, the wanker actually says "Milner is not yet a great player, but he is unquestionably an outstanding one". What?! He's not "great" but he's "outstanding"? In mine, and I would suspect most other people's book outstanding comes ahead of great.

In summary: dickhead.


Also I hate his face.

Football pundits are usually thick, they have to be, they were players after all.

If you compare ‘little’ Bolton to Fulham, for example, you’ll see that when they first got promoted to the PL they were pulling in crowds under 18k (that’s Wigan territory) but no real mention or moaning about it from the fleet street boys or the BBC/Sky Sports mob. While Wigan/Bolton/Blackburn/Burnley are constantly told they’re not big enough for the top-flight and their attendances are ‘lower than the big clubs in the Championship’. Now, of course, Fulham have a steady stream of day-trippers and averaging a healthy (but still small) 24/25k, funnily enough smaller than we averaged under Big Sam……

They also made it into Europe, again we got slated during our campaigns ‘they don’t belong in Europe’, but plucky Fulham were being praised all round. We took thousands to those away trips, but no mention of the great support we gave the lads in Munich and the like. And why would there be – we’re Bolton after all.

We’re an unfashionable Northern club – we can’t pull in glory-hunting fans from all over the country (and I wouldn’t want too, they can stick to kissing Stevie G’s rectum for all I care) and the media, whether it be on telly or in the press, don’t want us in the top flight. Sadly for them it’s the football club that dictates where we are in the league, and for almost a decade we’ve been winding up the Spurs/West Haaaaaaaam lovers to the point that installing a new manager from a rival had them foaming at the mouth. Just imagine if our manager had been done for fraud, like a certain twitchy barrow boy recently, we’d get it even more, they’d organise a petition to rid the PL of us.

It’s not just the media either, read any blog on the internet regarding the whole Owen Coyle appointment, and the embarrassing ‘we watch all our games on Sky and believe everything the red tops tell us’ fans, who usually support one of the big four, have all got something to say about ‘little Bolton’. Usually it’s bile about Coyle never getting us to change from the so-called long ball that we’ve been playing since 2001, or that we don’t deserve to be in the top-flight, at the expense of the toon army, dirty Leeds or Wednesday.

Instead of letting any of that bother me, it actually makes me want to back the club even more, there’s nowt better than being hated, whether it be from Martin Samuel in his little rag or Tarquin & his chums interviewed on SSN while traveling to the Spurs game.

F**k them all – we are Bolton – we are Premier League and we’ve appointed one of the best young managers in the country to keep us there. Nobody ‘belongs’ in the top flight, your team has to earn that place, and the media muppets can spend the next 10 years slating us, but if the team performs then we’ll still be here.

THEY ALL LAUGH AT US
THEY ALL MOCK AT US
THEY ALL SAY OUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED
BORN TO BE A WANDERER
VICTORIOUS ARE WE

I hope as feels better after that. And I thought I could rant!

I do agree though that there are too many opinions in football journalism, to the point that each 'expert' has to outdo the other and raise the controversy bar to higher levels. This inevitably results in pure drivel without any basis in fact. Jimmy Hill started all this verbal vomit and pundits have been compelled to follow his lead ever since. At least Jimmy played football and ran a club; the Samuels, Greens, Woolnoughs of this world never kicked a football in their lives... and are clearly bitter because of it. Not that not playing bans them from an opinion - you only have to look at Collymore and Savage's columns to see how moronic players-turned-writers can be - but when match reporting and analysis becomes more about the writer than the issue, as is frequently the case these days, you have to be concerned.

Oh, and my least favourite sports writer is James Lawton in the Independent. A man who takes hyperbole and fawning to new dizzying heights.

How about this idiot? Why do people think that playing nice football equates to a ropey defence. Not all teams are Newcastle United.

The reason there are so many opinions in football journalism these days is the rise of the internet and the vast number of games on TV. We no longer need sports journalists to tell us results and provide match reports but they still have to fill space. This results in a) made up stories b) blowing quotes out of all proportion and c) drivel of the worst kind. This seems to have cross infected TV and the BBC/Sky seem to think people are more intrested in what ex-pros have to say rather than the game itself. (Have you tried watching the football league show?!) The only honourable exception in all of this is the Soccer Saturday bunch. Not always right, but always entertaining and they nearly always have something interesting to say.

Worst offenders for me - Alan Green, anyone at ITV and the two Alans on MOTD.

I don't think we get any less fairer coverage than the likes of Blackburn and Wigan, or the rest of the smaller clubs in the league. It's just often the pieces slagging us off are the most memorable, where as fair and balanced opinions go by the wayside. Maybe this attitude is what leads to what ratbert said, journos outdoing each other in the controversy stakes.

And to echo something DSB said the other day, bad journalism and journalism you disagree with are two different things.

Both can be contained in the same article though.

I had the misfortune to listen to Alan Green on the Stoke v Liverpool match, it was disgusting crap and I switched off.

In fact its hard to pick one that is not biased, boring or a pillock

Andy Grey has to be around top of the list, sucking up to certain clubs, growling and being a nice person!

Quick edit........Garth Crookes.........how bad is he

In the interest of being fair, I thought the usually useless and banal Jamie Redknapp was actually quite good yesterday, decent analysis and kept probing Speedo for answers and moving the debate on.

Prufrock wrote:In the interest of being fair, I thought the usually useless and banal Jamie Redknapp was actually quite good yesterday, decent analysis and kept probing Speedo for answers and moving the debate on.

Thought for a moment you'd finally fallen for the betfair links

Abdoulaye's Twin wrote:

Prufrock wrote:In the interest of being fair, I thought the usually useless and banal Jamie Redknapp was actually quite good yesterday, decent analysis and kept probing Speedo for answers and moving the debate on.

Thought for a moment you'd finally fallen for the betfair links

Oh I click on those all the time. I play rockthereebokroulette. If it's betfair, I do some work, if it's not, I nip to the bathroom for a reward It's done wonders for my degree.

Two words: Steve Claridge.

McNulty is a bellend, so is Green. I concur.

TKIZ! wrote:Two words: Steve Claridge.

Spot on

As for Redknapp as soon as he opens his mouth I want to smash the telly or at least turn the sound off!

TKIZ! wrote:Two words: Steve Claridge.

Two more: Jim Beglin.

The Pope wrote:My current number one hate figure (and there are many contenders) is the BBC's chief football writer, Phil McNulty. This joker is responsible for the most banal, irrelevant and uninteresting articles that I have ever had the displeasure to read. He offers no interesting analysis, no insight and virtually no opinion that could be considered even slightly controversial. His analysis invariably boils down to making the most obvious observations possible i.e. "Chelsea prove they are better than Arsenal by beating Arsenal" or suchlike.

This is a common feature of BBC blogs apparently. Take this one from Phil Minshull . . . is anything actually said here?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/philminshull ... ation.html

Charlie Sale. Tit.

http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/opinion ... 18745.html

I don't even need to comment further.

Son of Jardel wrote:http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/opinion ... 18745.html

I don't even need to comment further.

It's a bit of a nothing article, but I'm not sure how you can get wound up about it. I have been surprised at how little coverage the fans death has got, and I think it is a good point when Cahill's injury was main story BBC Sport, there wasn't an article about this to be seen (on the football homepage).

Prufrock wrote:

Son of Jardel wrote:http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/opinion ... 18745.html

I don't even need to comment further.

It's a bit of a nothing article, but I'm not sure how you can get wound up about it. I have been surprised at how little coverage the fans death has got, and I think it is a good point when Cahill's injury was main story BBC Sport, there wasn't an article about this to be seen (on the football homepage).

I'm not.. He doesn't support Liverpool or somesuch.. It's happened many times all over the world, tragic yes, but not front page.. Not even back page

Son of Jardel wrote:http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/opinion ... 18745.html

I don't even need to comment further.

It isn't really the content that annoys me but the fact it is just rubbish journalism. Taking two unrelated events and trying to make a point out of it. Badly.