The Terrible Journalism & Tom English Thread

[forfarton]

6 hours ago, Ray Patterson said:

Am I missing something here?

That looks pretty accurate.

18.20

FT: Celtic 1-0 Inverness CT

It was only half time

[Ray Patterson]

10 hours ago, forfarton said:

18.20

FT: Celtic 1-0 Inverness CT

It was only half time

Ah thanks.

[rainbowrising]

23 hours ago, forfarton said:

18.20

FT: Celtic 1-0 Inverness CT

It was only half time

Oddly enough I think they did the same with title match the previous week with the Don's. Listed for some time as a 2-0 win (half time score)

[Arch Stanton]

[Sherrif John Bunnell]

There is going be plenty of unhinged behaviour from Celtic fans over the next few days, but Kevin McKenna has set the bar high early doors.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/23569181.god-needs-word-big-ange/

 

Why God needs to have a word with big Ange

WE actually allowed ourselves to believe that Ange Postecoglou was different. That this Celtic manager moved and had his being on a plane far above that on which the rest of us exist. That he was impervious to the false glamour of money and ambition and that instead he was possessed of a value system characterised by loyalty, self-denial and a desire daily to perform small acts of mercy for the sick and the dying.

We Celtic supporters have made a graven image of our Greek/Australian football coach. In doing so, we have imprisoned him in a cage that doesn’t permit of the human desires and urges by which the rest of us negotiate our own paths through life. All over the world, football supporters do something similar with their own fleeting and capricious saviours.

Those who have no emotional investment in this game are disdainful of it all: the unquestioning adulation; the excesses of time and money we spend on it; the psychological extremes that it induces.

But then they’ll never really know what football clubs mean to the communities that support them. They wonder how people can be invested in players earning enough money to wipe out Third World debt when their own families and neighbours are just glad to see the morning again.

And so, they’ll never get it: that just by existing and perhaps winning now and then many of these football clubs provide solace and a release from society’s inequalities and injustices.

Nor will you ever find a football supporter begrudging of the colossal wages earned by modern players. We live in a world that rewards corruption and class privilege with money and power. And so we actually rejoice that football can make poor children and their families rich.

On BBC I-player right now you can watch a documentary about Argentina’s journey to World Cup glory last year. And how this was imbued with the quasi-spiritual dimension of delivering this trophy for the richest player on the planet, Lionel Messi. One journalist described in awe-struck tones how tens of thousands of his compatriots – from a country with 140% inflation – had found the means to make the 8000-mile trip to support their millionaire heroes in Qatar.

On a trip to Naples last year I saw a city stalked by poverty and crime united in the act of making Diego Armando Maradona the Catholic Church’s first secular saint. For a few glorious years this flawed, wee gonzo football genius had contributed more to the happiness and sense of wellbeing of poor Neapolitans than the Catholic Church had in the 2000 years of its solemn existence.

Celtic supporters take this to another level of course. We like to think of Celtic as being more than just a football club because it was established to feed poor Irish immigrants escaping the Great Famine. At the end of a week when these people suffered discrimination and being treated like animals something as simple as a Celtic victory made them feel a little better about themselves.

Celtic are now the dominant sporting force in Scotland, and through the work of their charitable foundation are involved in dozens of social outreaches across Scotland worth millions of pounds. But in pure footballing terms I, like many other Celtic supporters who proclaim Socialism and equality, must park my political and social values somewhere out of sight when I watch this team play.

The paucity of resources that afflict many of our opponents are of no concern to me. They are there only to be beaten and occasionally to be denuded of their best talent if we deem them to be up to scratch. And if they’re not, we throw them to the winds with little more than a tweet of appreciation for their trouble.

The concept of sharing out the honours and “giving the wee teams a turn” is a sign of weakness. When we’re three goals up against these wretches from football’s third world it can never be enough. We always want more. We are 90-minute capitalists of the most reactionary and acquisitive strain.

Our executive management is comprised of men and women who talk of their fiduciary duties to corporate shareholders. It’s headed by a billionaire property magnate who, while not actually owning the club outright, wields the absolute power of a medieval potentate.

Under no circumstances do these people want the hundreds of thousands of rank and file supporters to have any influence over the direction of the club. They know that any outbreaks of dissent in the ranks are soon silenced by a few victories over Rangers. And we grant them that power.

One of my friends, a builder to trade, who deals in the cold transactions that govern tangible assets told me last week that he felt Ange Postecoglou would resist the blandishments of Tottenham Hotspur in the cash-rich English Premier League. He was certain that he had been chosen by God to be Celtic manager: that the Almighty had marked him out for this.

I asked him how this might have been manifest in the early years of the lad, Postecoglou. Did this little Greek immigrant boy begin receiving visions in the middle of the night featuring a large shamrock with thousands of starving infants singing You’ll Never Walk alone and a signpost shimmering in the background saying ‘Lisboa’?

He reprimanded me for being sacrilegious, while insisting that the appointment of Ange Postecoglou was part of God’s divine plan for his favourite football club on earth.

Nor was it merely the fact of Ange winning all these cups that had persuaded him of the sanctity of his calling. It was also the fact that he was possessed of a wit and intelligence capable of turning all those demonic football writers into pillars of salt where they sat.

Occasionally, I wonder what it might be like to walk for a season in the shoes of an Albion Rovers supporter where your loyalty is tested in ordeals never experienced by a Celtic aficionado.

I suppose, what we Celtic fans are enduring right now is to glimpse briefly what it’s like to follow a small club whose success is measured out in tombola prizes.

Our manager is being courted by a club with resources far beyond ours and there’s little we can do to prevent it happening. If Ange chooses to do what he thinks is right for him and his young family then he’ll simply be doing as the rest of us would.

But I’m still hoping that the Good Lord might appear to him once more in a vision tonight to remind him of their covenant. 

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

That is going to be hard to top.

[Dons_1988]

6 hours ago, Sherrif John Bunnell said:

There is going be plenty of unhinged behaviour from Celtic fans over the next few days, but Kevin McKenna has set the bar high early doors.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/23569181.god-needs-word-big-ange/

 

 

 

The paucity of resources that afflict many of our opponents are of no concern to me. They are there only to be beaten and occasionally to be denuded of their best talent if we deem them to be up to scratch. And if they’re not, we throw them to the winds with little more than a tweet of appreciation for their trouble.

The concept of sharing out the honours and “giving the wee teams a turn” is a sign of weakness. When we’re three goals up against these wretches from football’s third world it can never be enough. We always want more. We are 90-minute capitalists of the most reactionary and acquisitive strain.

Ah, a rare moment of honesty. There we have it. 

GIRFUY 

[Leith Green]

7 hours ago, Sherrif John Bunnell said:

There is going be plenty of unhinged behaviour from Celtic fans over the next few days, but Kevin McKenna has set the bar high early doors.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/23569181.god-needs-word-big-ange/

 

 

 

McKenna used to be a decent writer, but his bitterness and petty hatreds have turned him inside out.

It's like someone asked Chat gpt to do 1000 tearstained bombastic, entitled words about Celtic losing their manager.

[resk]

That is epic.  What an absolute fucking bellend.

 

[forkboy]

1 hour ago, Leith Green said:

McKenna used to be a decent writer, but his bitterness and petty hatreds have turned him inside out.

It's like someone asked Chat gpt to do 1000 tearstained bombastic, entitled words about Celtic losing their manager.

He really has gotten unpleasant to read.

[Ranaldo Bairn]

Imagine publishing that though.

Imagine reading that and going "yep, that represents my newspaper in the best light. Roll the presses!"

Instead of ringing him up and asking "Kev, are you all right big chap? Do you want to talk?" 

[KnightswoodBear]

I remember when The Herald was a serious newspaper.

[Bairnardo]

At least we have it from the bitter wee horses mouth that Celtic fans are every bit the Tories they occasionally try to claim to hate.

[Stu]

I saw bits of that doing the rounds on Twitter last night and assumed it was from Kerrydale Street, not an actual newspaper 

[Grangemouth Bairn]

2 hours ago, forkboy said:

He really has gotten unpleasant to read.

Calling Postecoglu ‘this little Greek immigrant boy’ is so disrespectful - it’s absolutely disgusting in fact. 
 

McKenna is vile.

[Saint Paddy]

Genuinely assumed that was satire as I was reading it...

Did someone commission someone to write that for a serious newspaper, and thought it was OK to publish?

[The Master]

Surely this thread can be closed now?

Nothing will top that. 

[Wee-Bey]

Incredible stuff from McKenna. Almost makes me want to cheer on Rangers in the next OF derby.

[Self-raising Lazarus]

14 hours ago, Sherrif John Bunnell said:

There is going be plenty of unhinged behaviour from Celtic fans over the next few days, but Kevin McKenna has set the bar high early doors.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/23569181.god-needs-word-big-ange/

 

 

 

What an absolute roaster

[Jacksgranda]

On 02/06/2023 at 13:36, Raidernation said:

More lickspittle, fawning garbage than terrible journalism but......

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/65783685

I threw up a little reading this

I saw the headline, so didn't bother reading the article.