Daily Telegraph kicking football: But why?
What are News Limited afraid of? Some very strange articles are appearing out of that newspaper regarding football.
They, clearly, are deliberately running the game down, using non-football language and generally abusing anything non-Australia.
Pim is un-Australian, the Bahrainians players names are mocked...what is going on..and why?
Yesterday we had an article criticising the crowd predicted for last nights game despite it being bigger than League Centenary Test, Union Baa Baas game and all AFL games played in Sydney this year.
And today we have an article basically taking the mick out of the Socceroos, Bahrain and the game of football. Nick Wilkshire might be a writer but his language suggests he hates the game and knows little about it. And of course lets all laugh at the names of the Bahrainians, shades of the Footy Shows Nick!
Nick eloquent and on top of the language of his subject says:
Learn to love these Aussies the hard way, by going some 53 minutes without a point being scored at ANZ Stadium last night.
And, sure, it's painful. Because drawing nudes is intriguing . . . drawing soccer matches is not.
But what about the joy when Australia finally goaled - twice?
Apparently his namesake Luke Wilkshire missed a penalty...he meant a free-kick. And you're a Sports Editor Nick..ha ha pure gold mate.
And then we've got Phil Rothfield telling us how Pim is holding the game back. Phil clearly doesn't understand the game, International football or indeed the depth of the Australian squad...or lack of. How many players play Champions League football?
Poor old Phil says
this man (Pim) is destroying soccer’s one golden opportunity to challenge rugby league and AFL.
Just quietly Phil you are probably more likely to do that than Pim or anyone involved in the game. You and your paper's continued attacks on the game. News Limited must be terrified of the games potential.
The achievements should be acknowledged for what they are. We're going to the World Cup and we have a chance to improve along the way.
But why don't one of Australia's biggest selling papers support the game, in anyway?
What other Aussie sport has to take this sort of journalistic rubbish from Sydney's major paper. One wonders why?
16 comments:
because of the fear that soccer could displace, or lessen, the attention paid to the writers` favourite football code ...
because some people distrust the "foreignness" of soccer ... and all those ethnics
some people will never give soccer a fair go. i saw this article from an american soccer blog about a city council banning soccer in that town`s biggest park.
its not paranoia when they really are out to get you.
clayton
It is completely unprofessional but no surprise.
The Tele or `The Terror' is a tabloid paper running their own agenda led by key editorial staff who bemoan the world game drawing attention away from their own football codes of choice since 2006 in particular.
The editor Garry Linnell openly dislikes the game so things have got even worse at the tabloid since he took just over six months ago - see some opinion pieces he wrote in recent years attacking A-League in particular and compare that to the incredibly favourable treatment the paper now gives AFL - no surprise to find Garry's a long-time Geelong fan.
Reporting accurately has no place in the Tele agenda and various media operators of similar ilk.
I was at the game last game and the atmosphere was upbeat amongst a friendly and supportive crowd - same with Uzbek game.
Socceroo fan camaraderie on the train trip last night with families, students and city workers all heading to the game was again a warming experience on the coldest night of the year.
Maybe Nick Walshaw might have cheered up if he caught the train direct to the stadium along with most of the crowd but doubtful for another Tele non-football writer sent on a mission.
The joke is that the Tele claims to target Western Sydney readers but the voice of the area's massive football base continues to be ignored.
New wave of football literate journos and editors cannot come soon enough - especially to replace the many `football-refusers` in the tabloid media.
Interesting Brendan that we are still facing this backlash especially when you see the various corporate backers of football these days
Als alienating the Western Sydney fan base...seems strange.
Maybe there aren't as many Australian fans in the West as people think..but I reckon there are..last World Cup showed that....
but why the need for this tone in this day and age...are they really so in bed with NRL that they are worried about their investments? maybe they need to hedge their bets and time to have some investment in football.
Hopefully all changes with the next TV rights cycle, with some of the commercial TV networks getting on board
Regarding News Ltd, there is always going to be tension when they are part owner of what they consider to be a rival code, but considering both share the same generalist sports fans with some hard cores on each side this is not so clear cut anymore
Issue is that change is occuring, change is always frightening. I read some comments at the top of this Rothchilds article, he is still trying to claim Football is a minority sport in Australia which is an undefendable argument, She says it can't get on FTA which is not true considering WC games will be on SBS and FTA networks would love to get it (channel 9 tried apparently), but Fox Sports played hard ball as Football means new subscribers. He also tries to make a claim about State of Origin figures, but these are more than matched by World Cup viewership figures which are also on an FTA platform. A League is lower than NRL figures on Fox Sports, but not ridiculously so and this is balanced out by the fact that Socceroo are the highest viewed programs on Fox Sports, certainly higher then NRL games
Have to say attacks on Pim are bizarre, but dissapointing regarding the xenophobic "he's a foreigner", and pretty stupid to claim he is holding football back when he expertly managed our stable qualification through to the world cup. These people have no real expertise or understanding of how Pim is "holding the game back" so they have no place to make such a claim
All this rubbish can't change the simple fact that the new generation has come through with an openness towards football, and people enjoy it all (experience) in terms of going to the game and the camraderie etc and none of the rubbish they will be able to write will change that
A nice point regarding the crowd comparisons as well, relatively speaking we hold up quite well. Considering we used to just get a handful thousand fans to Paraguay just under 10 years ago, to be getting 40k to a dead rubber match against Bahrain which to many Australians is an obscure country they haven't heard of (as well as two 50k crowds in two different cities against Qatar) actually is a sign of just how far football has come in this country, regardless of the fact that if the match was still "alive" there would have been more, that is hypothetical, the rise in attendances is something tangible
Ultimately these people will phase out, the best we can do is just keep on making a success of it, keep getting good crowds and developing the domestic league to a flourish and leave them to squirm
NUFCMVFC
NUFCMVFC
Wonder what FFA media arm make of the Telegraph's stance. They are pretty savvy, pretty aggressive and imagine they will be doing their utmost to change the stance of what is unfortunately Sydneys major paper.
Has the same dross being posted in Melbourne? Presumably Herald Sun take some articles from their Telly mates.
Seems we are in the fight of our lives, and we are clearly at a turning point.
That said can they really slag the Australian national team as they head to the World Cup...would be a hard one to see that one through.
Eamonn
c'mon brendan, don't go dissing the geelong cats - be they afl... ; ) we can't help the fact that bogan idiots as well as upstanding football fans as i might follow them.
but the issue here is that our football is to the tele as climate change is to the australian... and as the paper's owners have a stake in a rival code, as was anonymously noted, things are going to remain difficult, evidence or not. sad. but then, who reads the tele anyway??
and eamonn, do you know if sunday's launch of australia's wc bid at the big house is a closed affair, or can anyone turn up and cheer?
can i also add that, technically, this was far from a dead rubber as bahrain had a lot riding on the match, putting possible qualification hopes in their own hands with a win, so to call this match 'dead' is also somewhat disingenuous... just to be picky, y'understand. ; )
Astro: Launch..won't even let me in..Community Radio not as worthy as....hmm the Telegraph supporters!
And yeah no Dead Rubber with Bahrain needing points to qualify for the WC...Aussie media...pathetic..as often.
Not to mention verging on the racist when taking the piss out of Bahranian player names...with the Indian students stuff going on when will the nations media learn.
Reap what we sow I guess
Agreed, never was a dead rubber and bahrain played their best accordingly - so did the much improved qatar - amazing to see the way they played when they drew level to 1-1 with japan and needing one more goal to keep final WC hope alive.
Astro - no intention to dish your Cats - I know plenty, myself included, who take a healthy interest in all football codes - unfortunately Tele editors are not respecting this pattern as evident in the wider community.
yeah, i was very [pleasantly, i must say] surprised by qatar's quality and persistence!
and was being gently sarcastic with the cats - sorry, was born this way ; )
no problem astro - good luck to the the Cats AND the socceroos downing japan to win the group - i know people going to the game from sydney - more than I thought are going- a little swine flu won't deter them!
For what it's worth Eamonn, the Melbourne Press seems to be taking a little bit of a different appraoch. The Age has a feelgood piece about melbourne boy Bresciano by "Craig Johnston" who I don't recognise as a football writer (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2009/06/12/1244664851060.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1), Michael Lynch wrote a properly thoughtful piece explaining how teams can rarely play with their full line-up at World Cups as there is a need to experiment but should nonetheless be a strong line-up (http://www.theage.com.au/news/sport/soccer/hopes-for-a-huge-crowd-at-cup-party/2009/06/12/1244664851063.html)
Importantly in the Herlad Sun, local News Ltd rag, they seem to be pusing a more positive line at the moment at least
(http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25627240-11088,00.html)
"It's been a huge week for soccer, marred only by a puzzling propensity in some parts of the media -- the Sydney parts, mostly -- to carp about the Socceroos' supposedly boring style.
Hey, we're in the World Cup finals -- again.
This was fantasyland as little as five years ago, and it's the outcome that matters, not the aesthetics.
Coach Pim Verbeek is to be congratulated, not accused -- as he has been -- of damaging the game.
Two matches on home soil; an inaugural awards night; the awarding of retrospective caps to some of the stars of yesteryear; tonight's launch of the bid to host the World Cup; and, yesterday, confirmation that Melbourne will have a second A-League team -- the code is certainly getting on the front foot.
World Cup fever comes to Melbourne on Wednesday night"
- There seems to be an atmosphere that Melbourne has a real opportunity to stick it to Sydney, getting a crowd more than double that of Sydney's in what actually is a dead rubber and with the advertised fact that both teams will be missing players, but explaining that is part of good practice and being a bit more sophisticated about the game. Perhaps it's because they know here that Melburnians wouldn't take kindly to Socceroos (or Melbourne Victory bashing for that matter - this was tried by Sheahan after MVFC last gasp winner over AUFC in the SF in sason 2, impossible angle to take and there was another article in the HS a few days later taking a different view) bashing and the "melbourne" focus seems to have over-riden the "News Ltd" focus if you like which regardless of the "Melbourne vs Sydney" dynamic, this is good for football as it isn't being bashed
NUFCMVFC
don't recognise craig johnston as a football writer, anonymous?
what about as a goal scorer at wembley in a winning fa cup final for liverpool, etc..?? i thought his piece on brescia was excellent. had a beer with him and his da very late one night in a kings x club, engaging i some playful banter with some then-stars in league - but that's another story. he was very sweet and he also proves himself nicely erudite against stereotypes for footballers!
i was a bit sorry at the reinforcing negative stereotyped pieces in the smh today - i genuinely don't find the socceroos 'boring as batshit', which seems to have become the only way anyone in the media seems allowed to speak of their play. sure, we don't have kaka, messi or ronaldo, but neither do many nations! and none in asia...
i hope scotty mcdonald gets it into the net this week - especially a beautiful lob like his ecl goal against manure this season - and gets this behind him. and yeah, let's hope it is a justifiably massive crowd...
now, the big questions arise as to who we try to line up for the half dozen or so friendlies we'll need in the next twelve months... anyone?
nufc
Good to see some positive spin from Melbourne, I mean it's a huge achievement and the Telegraph just seem to have their nose out of joint.
Should be a great occasion on Wed night.
Astro:
We have lined up Ireland and Holland and South Korea and trying to get Italy. Also a number of Asian Cup Qualifiers to be completed.
Astrojax,
That Craig Johnston! I know who that is and recognised the name but didn't figure him as a writer in the Age.
Well anice piece either way.
I read the SMH article, was dissapointed with that as well, for me some of the challenges we have faced on this first Asian WCQ campaign and the nature we have faced them are as equally as heoric as 4 years ago. Believe me it is not worht wishing for things to go down to the wire just for some cheap bloody thrill, I would take stable qualification with semi regular matches over a playoff every single time. Having matches in a semi regular basis and semi regularly continuous coverage is much better than coverage every 4 years in a sudden death playoff as before.
Not to mention, if the Australian players were as "colourful" off the park as the NRL players so they aren't "boring" that would be used to slag the game off, not be seen as a positive. The Socceroos are so likeable because they don't get up to those stupid kind of antics all the time like AFL and NRL players
The big moment for mein this qualifying campaign was proably the China away game, they perpared for weeks, delayed the start of their national league, put the game at high altitude, we came in within 3 days of the game, had a stomach bug sweep the camp, had Jade North come in and do well, but conceded a penalty with 3 games to go that would have psychologically rocked us and stunted qualification momentum started with 3-0 win over Qatar. Schwarzer stepped up and made a save as big as any in the penalty shootout IMO and we continued with some good momentum. And you have these short sighted jerks in the Sydney media in particular who are saying we are boring etc when they don't pay proper attention to anything that is happening outside of Australia.
Disciplined football is what qualification campaigns required and Pim has done this perfectly. Naturally we do need to change tack a bit and become more creative with the sudden death nature of World Cup group stages and knockout rounds, but we have a year with which to do that
One almost gets the impressions that they are trying to curtail the excitement of the World Cup lead-in period by mischeviously fermenting this "boring" notion, not to mention irresponsibly trying to make us out like we should accept Brazil type performances. The squad is weaker than 4 years ago as the newcomers aren't up to the quality of the 2006 retirees yet IMO, we only just made it through with the golden generation at top notch under Hiddink, this time it will be a harder task and bigger achievement IMO, as we aren't the unknown we were 4 years ago
NUFCMVFC
excellent account, nufcmvfc - also thought china was a critical point in our campaign's psyche. and of course concur wholeheartedly at the long campaign vs shoot-out thriller issue.
it is sad to see such a poor level of informedness in the media of what is such a massively huge game in pretty much the rest of the world and we are such a multicultural country - it doesn't seem to make sense. sigh.
as for talent in the squad, this is why i raised the issue of friendlies from here in - if we can get italy, that would be fantastic, but i also rekkun we should seek out costa rica, egypt, turkey, cote d'ivoire, paraguay, ecuador - teams like these that will give us a view at all styles of the game and give the players a chance to develop skills to adapt so broadly, which is what they need. but talent like mcdonald, kennedy, grella, culina, valeri, carle, i rekkun all have what it takes if it can be harnessed and deployed. s'what i rekkun, anyway ; )
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