The Sun, Harry Redknapp, and an article about all the wrong issues

Mediawatch has already covered some of this story, but the sheer patronising lack of respect for its readers bares mentioning here.

It has all the hallmarks of the very worst, cretinous journalism that this awful publication specialises in:

1. Claimed as a " WORLD EXCLUSIVE" despite it being published as a story 8 days ago in another paper
2. Each sentence is formatted as a paragraph, making the whole article like a visual assault. In fact I feel like I have mild snow-blindness, as the palsied universe lies before us a leper.
3. Zero quotes attributed to any players, and at least two attributed to unnamed sources.
4. Unnamed sources blatantly being made up to represent the views of what the author of the piece thinks they would say so as to back up his article

I quite liked these two statements:

It was an audacious plot planned with military precision

Skipper Robbie Keane - the mastermind behind the plan - had been on reconnaissance many times to Ireland's capital city

Has Robbie Keane ever masterminded anything? I doubt he could mastermind walking the dog frankly. Also, I can't help thinking that audacious isn't really the right word in this case. I know it's easy to revert to Irish stereotypes here but who could seriously consider that they would get away with this? I would perhaps replace "audacious" with "really fucking stupid".
In a slight on the modern armed forces, military precision seems to consist of collecting money, booking flights and a staying in a hotel. Never since the days of Monty and the desert rats has such an operation been put into place.
Robbie Keane was fucking BORN in Dublin. I wonder when he got the reconnaissance in? Perhaps throughout his whole fucking life because that's where he lived?

I really think that this whole debacle is worthy of a serious article about how the players have seriously undermined the authority of their manager by doing this 3 days before a Premier League game and then losing that match at home to Wolves. Of course that would require some kind of thought and intellect on the part of (let me just check back to see who wrote this bollocks) Shawn Custis.

More interestingly they may have to criticise Sun columnist, and all round highley affable and quotable Deputy Dawg himself. A massive no no for the manager who gets away with more crap than any other. This is thanks, I can only surmise, to the fact he is nice to the journos and give them good copy more often than not.

Welcome...

to firejohnmotson.

For our first ever post a few details of the purpose of this blog:

The title would seem to imply that this blog will be about BBC football commentator John Motson. Well it will be at times but the main reason behind starting the blog is for me to address what I feel are the low standards of sports commentating and writing in the UK. Motson is a figurehead as he is the worst commentator out there and the highest profile.

Most of the posts will probably consist of me ranting and raving about shocking sports journalism.

Yes this is unashamedly inspired by the original FJM: firejoemorgan.com as well as football365's great Mediawatch column. Unlike the authors there I am not a writer by trade although I do work within the sports industry in the UK.

Enjoy