Mike Whalley explains a bizarre Cup tie of multiple postponents and managerial intrigue
Glaswegian striker Alex Williams’s career has taken in ten clubs over the last decade, mostly in Scotland’s lower leagues, but also including teams in Australia and Ireland. But, even if he stays only briefly in the Scottish Second Division with Stenhousemuir, he will be remembered for sparking one of the oddest Cup sagas in recent memory.
Paul Buller attended a fiery discussion about the responsibilities of UK sports reporting, and left with some questions of his own
The question “What’s wrong with sports reporting?” might elicit the immediate response “Where do you start?”, but on a chilly January night in London the great and the good of sports journalism gathered at a Royal Television Society event to debate just that. Many familiar faces from the back pages filled the audience alongside broadcasters, students and inquisitive fans. A fiery encounter ensued, with football being the main catalyst for the arguments made by a heavyweight panel.
The Beckham to Spurs saga was covered in huge detail this winter. But, as Georgina Turner argues, it’s not all the player’s fault
I manage to pour my breakfast cereal each morning without a plastic model of a member of the Beckham family dropping uninvited into my bowl. I’ve never found one of them sitting outside my building, holding a piece of cardboard upon which is scrawled “Will dance a jig for attention”. I’ve yet to have a particularly tense episode of Spooks interrupted by a pirate broadcast from Beckingham Palace in which David, sporting oversized trousers and shoes, invites Victoria to smell a flower. Which has me confused, because Cirque du Beckham was supposed to be taking over the world. It said so in the papers.
The British press has widely turned on Andy Gray and Richard Keys for the sexist “banter” which now sees them out of their jobs at Sky Sports
Following the leak of videos that showed some archaic opinions being expressed in the Sky Sports studio, Richard Keys may have hoped that a generous sprinkling one of the most overused buzzwords of recent times would aid his acquittal. In a now notorious interview with Talk Sport, Keys claimed to have “enjoyed some banter together” with assistant referee Sian Massey, apologised for his “prehistoric banter” and, using attack as the best form of defence, pointed out that one of his most vocal critics Rio Ferdinand was guilty of similar “dressing room banter”.
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