The Terrible Journalism & Tom English Thread

[Boo Khaki]

On 03/04/2022 at 10:32, Dunning1874 said:

Not Scottish football related, maybe there should be an international edition of this thread in the Misc football forum, but I digress.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/60970706

"Manager with experience of several tight title races will find needing to win tough games frequently an alien concept because all other leagues are shite"

The Managerial equivalent of 'yes, but could he do it on a wet Tuesday night in Stoke?' 

[Ludo*1]

Near enough time for @Monkey Tennis and I's annual argument on the Co-efficient thread so good to see he's keeping himself sharp.

[AmericanFan]

On 28/03/2022 at 07:21, Albus Bulbasaur said:

Touch some grass man you're seriously wound up right now it can't be healthy. 

As Ziggy Marley once said coming out on stage when I saw him live, "Smoke 'em if you got 'em."

[AmericanFan]

On 28/03/2022 at 03:36, Rugster said:

I remember years ago when Rangers tried to make a buck by banning press photographers from the games and issuing their own photos to be paid for and used. The tabloids got together and printed match reports with blank spaces where the pictures would be. It lasted for one game. 
 

That's outstanding.

[AmericanFan]

13 hours ago, invergowrie arab said:

Monkey Tennis not taking Ric coming for his belts lying down 

[LIVIFOREVER]

17 hours ago, Cptn Hooch said:

They've also not allowed certain BT Sports pundits access to the stadium and even prevented a journalist from the West Lothian Courier from entering to perform his job

Should be held up as a benchmark for football reporters imo, If you haven't been banned by Sevco, you aren't doing your job properly.

[DieDee]

From BBC - Even if Tam Courts' side lose, it would need Hibernian and Ross County to win - and there to be a winner in the Livingston v Motherwell game - along with a goal difference swing, to deny them a top-six place.

Only thing is, for a goal difference swing to be a factor Utd would need to score at least 5 and lose by one goal. They must be thinking it will be some game, either that or they aren't thinking at all

[Mark Connolly]

16 hours ago, DieDee said:

From BBC - Even if Tam Courts' side lose, it would need Hibernian and Ross County to win - and there to be a winner in the Livingston v Motherwell game - along with a goal difference swing, to deny them a top-six place.

Only thing is, for a goal difference swing to be a factor Utd would need to score at least 5 and lose by one goal. They must be thinking it will be some game, either that or they aren't thinking at all

I might be totally misunderstanding you, but I can't see what is wrong with what the BBC have said.

If you beat us by 1 goal, we remain on 40 points and our GD goes to -7.

If Hibs and Motherwell win, they both go above us on points. If County win by 2 goals, they go level on points with us, and onto -6 GD, putting them above us.

A 2 goal win for Livi against Motherwell would put them in exactly the same situation as County, meaning Hibs, County and Livi are all above us.

[craigkillie]

Barring a ridiculous result in your game, whoever wins Motherwell v Livi would be above United if you lose. Likewise with County if they win. They've both scored far more goals than you. Therefore a goal difference swing is irrelevant, there's not really a scenario where it comes down to a tight GD situation with United.

[Mark Connolly]

Fair enough, it would come down to goals scored rather than goal difference if it's 1-0s everywhere

I'd say it's an oversimplification rather than outright bad journalism though. Technically, us losing by one and rivals winning by one is a 2 goal swing on GD

[Jacksgranda]

BBC - Reaction as "Ibrox side narrow gap at the top." They're the same amount of points behind Celtic as they were on Friday.

[gannonball]

21 minutes ago, Jacksgranda said:

BBC - Reaction as "Ibrox side narrow gap at the top." They're the same amount of points behind Celtic as they were on Friday.

The goal difference is even greater now too as well.

[TheScarf]

Where to start with this. 
 

 

[Clown Job]

 

[Flybhoy]

3 minutes ago, Clown Job said:

 

Bill Leckie has a fucking nerve trying to take a moral highground and lecture on rights and wrongs in any scenario given he writes a column for, and takes a wage from that fucking scum rag. 

[parsforlife]

I didn’t realise winning games of football made you less racist tbh.

[TheScarf]

So that’s 2 journalists in the last 24 hours saying 

a. All clubs in the Premiership should be trying to win the title.

b. A fat, racist should be let off with what he said because he managed to get some millionaire with more money than sense’s play thing into the top 6.

[Hammer Jag]

I liked Bill Leckie in his ‘Penthouse & Pavement’ days. His rapid decline into a tragic, angry, reactionary grifter has been tragic to watch.

[Clown Job]

30 minutes ago, Clown Job said:

 

To save anyone a click

MALKY MACKAY didn’t quite go to the ends of the earth to rebuild a tattered reputation.

But in British footballing terms, Dingwall is about as near as it gets.

Eight years on from being left without a name — never mind a job — by Cardiff’s owner, seven after being welcomed as Wigan’s new manager as if they’d hired Jimmy Savile and five since his appointment as SFA performance director went down like a cup of cold Bovril, he walked into Ross County last summer knowing it was his last-chance saloon.

And even then, there were plenty who wanted him barred before the doors had stopped swinging.

It takes a man with minerals to survive that kind of psychological pummelling.

It takes a boss with backbone to hold it together when the first ten league games of his final crack at redemption fly by without a win.

Had County’s sugar daddy Roy MacGregor panicked and pulled the trigger there and then, not many would have batted an eyelid.

MacGregor didn’t panic, though. He’d wanted Mackay ever since — and in spite of — the Cardiff City scandal over private texts sent to a pal which became public and he wasn’t for caving.

The chairman’s tears of joy in the away dressing room at Pittodrie on Saturday tell the story of what a gamble he took in standing by his man and how magnificently it has paid off.

On October 23, after a 95th-minute goal gave Livingston a 3-2 win at Victoria Park, the Staggies had just three points to their name.

On April 9, after an 86th-minute penalty gave them a 1-0 win away to Aberdeen, they had 40.

In the 23 games in between, only the Old Firm put more on the board. If the season had started on October 24, County would this morning be neck and neck with Hearts for third spot.

Fifth will do, though, fifth will more than do.

It won’t stop the holier-than-thou brigade caning Mackay, of course.

He could invent a sumptuous pie that guaranteed you’d lose weight and contained a sure-fire antidote to Covid and some people would still see him as something stinky on their shoe.

Whether those same people would survive a multi-millionaire like Cardiff owner Vincent Tan ordering a team of private eyes to scour their every text and email to find something iffy?

That’s another story. But if so, then you only hope they have thick curtains for those glass houses.

Back in the real world, though, I’ll repeat what I wrote in 2014 when Crystal Palace bottled out of making Mackay their manager after Tan revealed the results of his smear campaign.

The abuse this guy has taken is the most two-faced rot imaginable.

He’s spent nine years trying to shake off the stigma of two one-line messages, when every week at every ground you’ll hear ten times worse a hundred times over.

As this column put it back then: “If there was no homophobia in football, all the gay players would have come out by now.

"If there was no racism in football, crowds in grounds wouldn’t be so overwhelmingly white.

“If there was no sexism in football, we wouldn’t get pretty young women to model new kits, we’d put them on the fat, ugly guys who’ll end up buying them.

“That’s the bottom line. It’s ALL there and a whole lot more besides — in boardrooms, in managers’ offices, in dressing rooms, in stands, in press boxes.

“Just as it’s there, whether we like to admit it or not, in every nook and cranny of society.

“Yet suddenly millions of moral compasses are fixed on one guy with a previously-unblemished character who’s been caught out doing what he admits is offensive.”

People have come out of jail for rape and manslaughter and been allowed to carry on their careers in football.

England went to a World Cup captained by a man who called an opponent “a black ****” live on telly. We forgive when it suits, we forget when it’s convenient.

Yet for whatever reason, Mackay isn’t allowed this forgiveness? His offences can’t be forgotten?

He’s meant to somehow wear his mistakes forever like some sort of ten-ton medallion?

Give me a break — or rather, more pertinently, give HIM a break. Once and for all, let it go.

He didn’t have to put himself back in the spotlight again, especially not at a club which was a strong favourite for relegation before a ball was kicked.

That he was prepared to do so, no matter the backlash, was a punt many would have ran a mile from.

 

That he’s taken them from rock bottom to top six in six months?

For me, that says way more about who he is than a couple of stupid jokes made a lifetime ago.

[Clown Job]

Malky Mackay, the real victim 

It was just a joke.

Something dodgy though about that guy who was the target of the racism. 

They allows racist and rapist in England to play the game, so why not up here? 

Edited April 10, 2022 by Clown Job