I attended a rather entertaining game of football yesterday, a 3 - 2 home win that saw Forest take the lead 3 times. Not exactly an end to end game, it saw Barnsley equalise though a soft penalty & a Worldy of a free kick, but it was one of the most one sided 5 goal thrillers I've ever seen that was won by the odd goal & it maintained our 100% home record while seeing us move up the third place in the table.
All is good, or so I thought. I woke expecting to see jubilant messages of delighted fans, but no, once again the clubs beef with the media has taken centre stage & another good weekend of football has been overshadowed by negative reporting in the press, this time from Daniel Taylor of the Guardian/Observer (a journalist & Forest fan I have to say I have a lot of time for)
The story (Curious case of being banned for going to a game) can be found here (2nd article down) http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2013/sep/14/roy-hodgson-england
It contains a complaint about not being access to the press box for a game last season that he had no intention of writing about & the story gets more mentions in relating to Brian Clough than our good start to the season, with the latter being to the power of zero, zip, nada, not a word.
Reading through Daniels piece, it's easy to see why the club are taking umbrage at the treatment by the press, though there may be a chicken & egg situation in place, if those within power at Nottingham Forest feel they are being reported in a negative light then the issue is hardly going to resolved by yet another media article pointing out that a man who isn't a director of Forest would fail a directors test he doesn't have to take because of a technicality over a defunct Scottish law firms demise from which no charges have been brought & there doesn't seem to be any indication there actually ever will be.
While the final paragraph relating to Jim Price referring to a fan on twitter as 'babe' may well show a certain lack of professionalism, it's largely irrelevant & just comes across as a cheap shot, more or less showing the club are right & that the negative is being sought out over the positive. At no point does he mention the dozens & dozens of fans who have been invited via twitter to meet Billy at the club for signed photos & such like, cheap publicity for the club of course, but positive news stories coming from twitter that are being ignored by the media in favour of reporting a minor negative.
The whole article in my opinion reads as Mr Taylor closing the journalistic ranks & putting the boot in to defend his mates, the media equivalent of getting your big brother to beat up the bully. Not that I blame Daniel for sticking up for his mates, I suppose it shows a certain kind of quaint loyalty you have to respect, but this kind of kicking only goes to highlight the battle the club are fighting.
The club of course will now be every bit as childish & will probably ban another journalist from the City Ground, probably one of Daniels friends too, just for extra impact. I don't for one moment think the club are blameless in all this, their spat with the media is both childish & frustrating for fans, all we want to do is enjoy the game, hear our managers post match thoughts, open the paper in the morning to read glowing match reports & natter on twitter with each other about the positive future ahead of our great club. Things most fans take for granted, but which this loyal fan base that has stuck by the club through some disastrous recent times are now being refused because grown men are too self absorbed to see past their own bitter agendas.
Whole lot of them need their heads banging together to be honest.
Contrary to there being "zero, zip, nada, not a word" of mention of our great start to the season in the article I'm pretty sure that Taylor explicitly refers to it as part of the reason that the media blackout is so bizarre.
ReplyDelete"A media blackout is effectively in place and it is odd, to say the least, that the club do not want good publicity when they have started the season so well."
I'd guess that it is standard practice for footie journos to get to watch matches for free that they are not working at, and banning Taylor - one of the few national journalists with an interest in Forest - and his paper's group - which is home, in Richard Williams, to possibly the only other Forest fan on Fleet Street - seems downright odd.
I don't really care about the blackout, it does seem petty, but more than anything the siege mentality at the City Ground is just part of piss funny Trentside soap opera - remember Boyd and the failed eye test?
Taylor is simply casting some well deserved light on the strange rumblings at the City Ground. Far from being a bloke "sticking up for his mates," this is just a Forest fan who is aggrieved with how his club have treated him.
I dare say I'd be pissed off too.