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Championship play-off final: Blackpool vs Cardiff City

phildwyer said:
The Guardian is the worst. They've got a huge pro-Blackpool article today: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/may/22/blackpool-championship-play-off

I remember a couple of years ago there was a letter complaining about the lack of coverage given to Cardiff, and the editor replied saying "we're an English newspaper so what do you expect?"
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Here's how shit they can be:

28.01.98 Racism slur

Sadly, after I'd posted up the match report, news came through about some of the trouble at Reading, which the tabloids seized on with predictable gusto.

Worst of all was the ill-informed sensationalist report in the Guardian by one of their most respected writers, Martin Thorpe.

Now I'm already familiar with this guy - he's the one who wouldn't post up details of my Football Fans Against the Criminal Justice Act campaign, despite there being 100 arrests at the time and widespread coverage in several other broadsheets.

In his match report he rightly condemned the behaviour of a violent minority of Cardiff's fans, but then continued to post up some of the sloppiest, ill-informed rubbish I've ever read in a broadsheet when he accused the Cardiff fans of shouting racist abuse throughout the game.

In his match report, he claimed that "A large number of the 3,000 or so Cardiff contingent massed behind one goal also betrayed their prejudices with frequent chants of 'You black bastard' directed at the Reading striker Carl Asaba".

It seems that for all his years in the game, Thorpe hadn't worked out that Cardiff fans traditionally taunt any ex-Swansea player as a 'Jack Bastard' and had cluelessly jumped to the conclusion that they were racially abusing one of Reading's black players. Interestingly, the ex-Swansea player, Bowen, isn't even black, so even Thorpe must have thought it rather odd that the racist taunts only happened when Bowen had the ball.

This kind of inaccurate, sensationalist reporting does nothing to further the cause of football, and flagging such headlines across a newspaper will only give people the chance to trot out all the old cliches about football hooligans and racism.

urban75 rang up the Guardian and spoke to Nick Mason on the sports desk. He told me that there had been many complaints about the report and apparently Thorpe was not aware of the tradition of calling Swansea players 'Jacks'.
However, he then tried to excuse the comments by suggesting that they somehow were justified " in context of the behaviour or the supporters".

Quite how he can justify falsely accusing Cardiff fans of racism just because a minority of them caused trouble is anyone's guess.

The Guardian have stated that they will be posting a retraction tomorrow (5.02.98).

No doubt it'll be about one tenth of the headlines today, and the damage already done.

Update: the Guardian's web site was still running the original, inaccurate report as of 5.2.98

http://www.urban75.org/cardiff/reports2.html
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:facepalm:
 
Hmm ... who do I want in the Premiership ...


Blackpool sounds booring, Cardiff City would be fun, so come on Cardiff ! :D
 
The PL isn't that great. Honestly.

The big clubs get all the decisions. They buy any of your players that show the slightest bit of promise, and yeah, you might get the odd great freak result but most of the time you turn up, get your inevitable beating and then go home again.

Meanwhile the shiny antiseptic new grounds are full of arrivistes who all buy their watered down lager for £4 a pint and sit down to moan because some mercenary bulgarian doesn't care as much about "their" club as they do (despite them only being supporters for 5 years.) The clubs put clap boards out on the seats to drum up some desultory kind of atmosphere, they sack your manager because he can't work miracles and keep you in a division where most clubs are spending 20 times your transfer budget in a vain attempt to get to be 4th - and everything is coated in a thick layer of Sky.

I mean, sorry to put a downer on it. Nice day out and all that, I'm sure.

oh, and I forgot the ticket prices, needed to pay some blinged up twat £50k a week.
 
Help! I'm in a train full of Tangerine people!

We're off to Harrow to hook up with the Cardiff boys.

Nervous? You betcha!

Come on City!
 
all the flags out in Canton and smiley sick nervousness all around, heading off for big screen in bay v soon! COME ON CARDIFF!
 
am with Cardiff today. Would be good to have a Welsh club in the prem. Plus, however well they've done this season, having been to Blackpool a couple of times and enjoyed the experience, I can't say it's a club that's prepared for that level.

Is there someone putting money in up there, btw? I mean they've done incredibly well to get themselves placed above a lot of clubs that are twice their size (not least us, you useless fucker Keane)
 
It's been a weird pre-match build up -we were drinking in Harrow and I had to pass loads of young Cameron toffs in flannels and blazers.

Class war!
 
My nephew (with my ticket) left Cardiff in a City minibus at 8am. He's still not here!

*mild panic sets in
 
I'm sat on Wembley Way waiting for my ticket to arrive and my snap poll from watching the fans go by says Cardiff have - by far - the drunkest mob.
 
So glad i've had enough rest that i'm able to watch this despite this goddamn virus, can't miss out on today with the cl final on later too! Hope you get your ticket in time, editor. :cool:
 
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