England Player's Silence

I totally disagree.

The press will have a field day over this.

The players are professionals who were playing an important game for their country, in what is the UK's most popular sport.

Why shouldn't they be held accountable?

They get paid huge sums of money for what they do. If they clam up because they got hurt by a little criticism from the tabloids, let's get the violins out now, shall we?

A lot of the problem with Sven (Brazil was a mulligan, but after Portugal I think he should have been sacked) is that he seems incapable of criticsing his players and is far too beholden to Owen and Beckham in particular. Both have not had any form for months but appear not only undroppable but also beyond any criticism at all. Beckham's post-Euro hogwash about accidentally putting on a stone and a half of muscle was the last straw for me regarding the players an dI have exactly zero sympathy for them over this press thing.

As regards the Austria game, the manager accidentally subtituted our best player, the team had a shocking second half and James gave away the 3pts with an absolute clanger. They deserve a complete slagging.

Matthew

Couldn't agree less with John.

Looked petulant and petty to me. Part of being a highly paid professional sportsman is to present yourslves for post-match interviews IMHO. Modern players are hardly unskilled at media manipulation themselves. If you feel hard done by then put your case, on the field and in the interview room.

Bruce

Hmm, the thing with a media debate is that they'll have one whether anyone else wishes to participate or not. I agree with most of the foregoing but I am not so sure how loyal Sven is. James was dropped pronto and others have been cast by the wayside fairly ruthlessly. Beckham is totally out of sorts but who is better? Owen is a different case. His injuries have robbed him of the pace that was ultimately his biggest asset and he really doesn't justify a place.

I was at the Wales game and I have to say I am fed up with the brave NI nonsense. The Savage red was a disgrace. An intent to retaliate is not quite the same as grabbing a players shorts and then being flattened before even standing up by two Irish players.

Healy was not unlucky at all. It's a clear yellow for interfering with the pitch or related equipment and so drop kicking a corner flag in front of about 55,000 Welsh people probably qualifies on that and provocation. The gesture which earned a straight red (not a second yellow) was offensive to any Italian but was a clear incitement to the Welsh dug out and treated as ungentlemanly conduct by the ref. and should therefore be a second yellow (not a straight red I'll grant you. I believe that's a red card by any definition!

The tackle that put Bellamy down for three minutes in the second half was a potential career ender and got nothing by way of a card when it should have been another straight red and I thought that a Welsh team without Giggs, Davies, Melville, Weston, Page and Pembridge and with Koumas again playing out of position did very well to avoid conceding a third by overcommiting to attack. We went for the draw and got it. We're unbeaten in 7 and 2 pts. off the top of the table with 8 games to go. I think I can live with that.

On the other hand Sanchez, not known for tactical knowledge whilst at Wycombe, managed to throw the game away by immediately playing 4-3-1 at 0-2 instead of the obvious 4-4 and ends up a hero.

Strange times.

Mike

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Originally posted by John Channing:
...The balance of power between the British media and our sporting teams has been wrong for a long time, let's hope more people take the initiative to even things up.

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To me, the media's attitude to sportspeople seems symptomatic both of the "Klingon society" (in which failure is unacceptable and success is envied) and a broader trend towards the vulgarisation of society.

I welcome the team's decision not to talk to the media but I have little hope that it will do much good...

The media and the England Team are as bad as Each other, both acting like spoilt 7 years olds who've had their ball confiscated, well boo hoo!!.

Some criticism of the England team in the past (Beckhams vilification after France '98 etc) have been completely irresponsible, vindictive and inaccurate. However when journalists give their opinions on how the team has played then that's fair game to me. I disagree with much of the media coverage of the Austria game, (without James's mistake the coverage would have been mostly positive), however I don't think the team could have expected to get no criticism. So now refusing to talk the press is just being childish. However the journalists reaction to this has shown them to be even worse, Mummy Mummy, it's not fair, they wont talk to me, boo hoo. It they treated them with a bit more consistency we might all be a bit better off.

Just look at the treatment of Sven w.r.t the Faria Alum affair, this non story was a complete media creation, and It's the media who are responsible for getting the FA in such a faff.

You can see how much bottle most of the press have by the embarrassing press conference in Euro2004 when a journalist suggested to Beckham that 'Some people' thought he wasn't playing well, was unfit and lacking energy, When Beckham faced up to the journo with 'Well do you think this?' the journo could only cower in the corner, the big girl.

"Just look at the treatment of Sven w.r.t the Faria Alum affair, this non story was a complete media creation"

It was a non-story until the FA denied it without due diligence and then tried to stitch up their own manager via a very dodgy deal with the NotW.

"You can see how much bottle most of the press have by the embarrassing press conference in Euro2004 when a journalist suggested to Beckham ..."

FWIW The entire press corp stood up to Beckham when he tried to single out the football hack from the newspaper that was doing the Rebecca Loos story even though their football hack had nothing to do it with that story. Beckham refused to do any press conferences if that reporter was present which the press quite rightly refused to go along with. So they said no conference until you let us all in and Beckham backed down shortly afterwards.

Matthew

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It was a non-story until the FA denied it without due diligence and then tried to stitch up their own manager via a very dodgy deal with the NotW

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Indeed. I wonder who first suggested the NotW deal, you can just see the scenario now. The NotW completely stitched up the rather Naive FA Press spokesman.

quote:

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FWIW The entire press corp stood up to Beckham when he tried to single out the football hack from the newspaper that was doing the Rebecca Loos story even though their football hack had nothing to do it with that story. Beckham refused to do any press conferences if that reporter was present which the press quite rightly refused to go along with. So they said no conference until you let us all in and Beckham backed down shortly afterwards

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It's good that they did, it's a shame that some of them individually haven't got the collective bottle of the masses.



I also find it quite amusing that when a player plays well or scores a goal after a period of poor play (Beckham against ukraine, Owen against Portrugal etc) then they come out and say 'that will silence the critics', implying that the critisisms were wrong simply because said player has subsequently played well!!

Also Sven made an amusing statement a couple of days ago in effect saying he wasn't going to drop Beckham just because he wasn't playing well. Humm, when exactly would he drop him then? When he has an affair with Faria Alum perhaps!

One things for sure the players will never win with our press. They will make the stories up wether they talk to them or not(more so if they don't I suspect). The main reason I don't buy any newspaper is I really don't believe anything I read. (apart from the Daily Heil of course ).

Howard

I was silent once !


Graham George Of Best

"I wonder who first suggested the NotW deal, you can just see the scenario now. The NotW completely stitched up the rather Naive FA Press spokesman"

It was first suggested by Colin Gibson who is -- or rather was -- the FA's Director of Communications. The Screws have a tape of him offering the deal and there is little room for doubt that it was all his own work.

Matthew

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Originally posted by Berlin Fritz:
I was silent once !
Graham George Of Best

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During your appendix operation?

I've refused to talk to the media for years about my football career

As for the England team - after that display of petulance I really don't care one way or the other now for their success or otherwise. Something about taking the rough with the smooth.

Mike

quote:

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It was first suggested by Colin Gibson who is -- or rather was -- the FA's Director of Communications. The Screws have a tape of him offering the deal and there is little room for doubt that it was all his own work.

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I think this is being a tad naive! I suspect days of badgering by the hacks, probably preceded by details of what they were going to print anyway, which nodoubt Gibson thought minimising the damage by keeping Palios out of thye equation was a good idea. He should have known that the offer would in fact become the story, 'cos there sure as hell was little else of substance.

Well you lot have certainly made up for it innit !

Greeny,

A number of my best friends are journalists, both tabloid and broadsheet, including a couple of the tabloid football press pack and rather than naive I think I understand how these things work better than most.

In this case I can tell you that the deal proposed by Gibson was his idea. And a remarkably stupid one at that which is why he ended up losing his job. Also in these situations it's geneally PR people like Gibson who badger the hacks not the other way around.

Matthew

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A number of my best friends are journalists

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Yeh, that's maybe biasing your opinion.

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Also in these situations it's geneally PR people like Gibson who badger the hacks not the other way around

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yeh, I can just see it now.

'Psst, Want a good story? I know someone high up in the FA having an affair with an attractive secretary, how much for the story mate?'

Seems somewhat unlikely to me.

"Yeh, that's maybe biasing your opinion"

No, what's biasing my opinion is that I asked them what happened and discussed the story at length with them at the time it happened.

"Seems somewhat unlikely to me"

Your preposterous suggestion is indeed very unlikely.

Matthew

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Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:
Your preposterous suggestion is indeed very unlikely.

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Perhaps, but....

What if Mr Gibson subsequently decided to write a book about his experiences in the FA, and he needed some nice juicy story to promote his book...and..and...what then?

Regards,

JonR

JonR,

You ain't going to win with Mathew and his journalist friends.

I too have such friends and Mathew refused to accept that a BNP riot took place on the steps of Manchester Town Hall on the night of the Euro election count simply because it wasn't reported despite many people seeing it and the various police cars and ambulances. The entire story, including footage, turned up on Panorama many weeks later and my journalist friends admitted that they had lied through their teeth to me about not knowing what the score was at the time and how the story had been suppressed and steered by a combination of key players in Manchester and the local/national media.

Apparently, Mathews' friends never lie. Mine work for the MEN and The Guardian and, friends or not, I have long since learnt that anyone inside or outside the profession is not going to get a straight story from a journalist so I take what I hear with a pinch of salt unless it also comes from a source that isn't a journalist.

The more interesting side of this sorry tale of woe in the FA is the way the plot to oust Palios has been obscured by other tittle tattle. Journos could never admit that they fell for the Sven stuff as a smoke screen to hide politicos at the FA using it to oust Palios. T'would appear one national is researching a story on this as I write.

Mike

Mikke,

*sigh* I didn't refuse to accept that said events took place. I said I beleived it was more likely that the events either didn't take place or were not as newsworthy as you implied, than that there was a conspiracy by the government and/or multiple media organisations to cover up this fact becuase of governmental fears about fascist uprisings or somesuch.

And like I said before, if you have evidence that the BBC arranged some kind of cover-up and/or suppression of a story in order to protect the commercial interest of it's Panorama story then you should have taken your story to the Daily Mail who would have been delighted to run the story.

"Apparently, Mathews' friends never lie"

No they don't. My friends are fine, upstanding people who would not lie to me and for you to suggest that they might because some of your friends habitually lie to you is frankly disgraceful.

Matthew

quote:

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Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:

"Apparently, Mathews' friends never lie"

No they don't. My friends are fine, upstanding people who would not lie to me and for you to suggest that they might because some of your friends habitually lie to you is frankly disgraceful.

Matthew

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Matthew,

I agree that Mike's remark about your friends was sarcastic and insensitive, but perhaps he was suggesting that they, and his own friends who work on the Guardian and the Manchester Evening News, all come under the same journalistic umbrella and, as such, are deemed by him as people he simply cannot trust.

Mike,

As to this issue of the BNP riot at Manchester Town Hall, I cannot believe such an event would not be considered newsworthy enough by anyone for it not to be reported on the night that it happened. Are you really suggesting that the BBC spiked it in their own interests so that it could be shown subsequently on Panorama a few weeks later? And even so, surely other media organisations would have reported it, even the Beeb's local news service?

Even so, the implications are serious. In this scenario what we are faced with IMO is a situation where no-one can trust the reporting of events because the journo's involved are operating some hidden agenda. Then why should we bother buying newspapers, or watching the news at all?

Regards,

JonR

Yer gettin there slowly gels.

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Originally posted by JonR:

quote:

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Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:

"Apparently, Mathews' friends never lie"

No they don't. My friends are fine, upstanding people who would not lie to me and for you to suggest that they might because some of your friends habitually lie to you is frankly disgraceful.

Matthew

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Matthew,

I agree that Mike's remark about your friends was sarcastic and insensitive, but perhaps he was suggesting that they, and his own friends who work on the Guardian and the Manchester Evening News, all come under the same journalistic umbrella and, as such, are deemed by him as people he simply cannot trust.

Mike,

As to this issue of the BNP riot at Manchester Town Hall, I cannot believe such an event would not be considered newsworthy enough by anyone for it not to be reported on the night that it happened. Are you really suggesting that the BBC spiked it in their own interests so that it could be shown subsequently on Panorama a few weeks later? And even so, surely other media organisations would have reported it, even the Beeb's local news service?

Even so, the implications are serious. In this scenario what we are faced with IMO is a situation where no-one can trust the reporting of events because the journo's involved are operating some hidden agenda. Then why should we bother buying newspapers, or watching the news at all?

Regards,

JonR

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PRIORITISE NOW

I love your designer memories I really do, so very safe and non-commital about
just everything under the sun, no willingness to allow an iota of imagination or
possibility of being seen pubically wrong, irrespective of the importance of the
subject/theme and its implications.
Yes men to the core, remember the BBC's ex
Beloved Boss, remember Gilligan's Island, remember ex-journo Campbel's rise to
power and fame ?, you're really all barking in the wrong direction here, and I
don't mean Politically, I mean Constitutionally, wake up for God's sake.


Graham George Of Thehonourablememberforhaifashouldbeapplauded

Graham old bean,

I suppose I could ask you to explain your last post, but I imagine I'd be wasting my time, besides which, right now I care more about the fact that I can finally use my car again, having had two new keys cut for me this morning after I carelessly lost my hose & car keys on the train last week.

Cost me over two hundred quid, mind