Here lies A More Splendid Life, dead at just under five years of age. I owe all my successes to
you. Thanks to the hangers on. I am now mired in my full-time gig with theScore, which you can find
here.
"It turned you into a member of a new community, all brothers together for an hour and a half, for
not only had you escaped the clanking machinery of this lesser life, from work, from wages, rent,
doles, sick pay, insurance cards, nagging wives, ailing children, bad bosses, idle workmen, but you
had escaped with most of your mates and your neighbours, with half the town, cheering together,
thumping one another on the shoulders, swapping judgments like Lords of the Earth, having pushed
your way through a turnstile into another and altogether more splendid life.
A year ago last month, I wrote a six part series for Pitch Invasion called "Football, blogs and
newspapers unite?" in which I pushed for a newspaper/blog network as the future of digital sports
journalism. Here's me:
Moreover, many papers are mulling over switching their hard news content over to
paid-for smart phone, or iPad-like apps.
BOOF! So I know I'm here as often but you can come see me there daily. I'm going to work in at
least one post a week here to let off personal steam, so this blog will get a lot more annoying for
those of you who hate that sort of thing. Catfish?
The question comes up time and again: "Is there still such a thing as mainstream football
media?"
I'll leave the question aside in a North American context, but there clearly is in some parts of
the world, namely England, where the football league's tussle with the mainstream press over the
latter's reluctance to be monetarily extorted has resulted in some interesting apologetics, most
notably from the Telegraph's Henry Winter.
The Canadian soccer writing landscape has exploded over the last few years. It almost feels
redundant to write this, but the number of Canadian soccer sources now available on the web is
truly remarkable.
I don't want to get in a long-winded breakdown of the "history" of online soccer coverage in
Canada, but suffice it to say, before the internet there were one or two newspaper reporters who
owned the soccer beat, and even then, coverage was sparse.
In honour of the royal visitors Kate and whoseewotsits, this has been an annus horribilis
for Canadian soccer.
Our two MLS franchises are stumbling through their respective league seasons. The Canadian national
teams crashed in out in the group stages of the U17 World Cup, the Gold Cup, and after today's 4-0
loss to France, almost certainly the Women's World Cup in Germany.
I have this vision of reporters sitting around sports desks in the UK, drawing straws for who has
to go cover the Febregas to Barcelona story. Sympathetic colleagues offer the unlucky reporter
promises of after-work pints, and the editor reminds everyone there that if you get this beat for
one day, you won't have to cover it again for at least a month.
Grant Wahl's tweet of the Gold Cup television numbers has been making the rounds:
Wahl smartly wonders why the game wasn't shown on the main Fox network, and relegated to FSC.
Univision made up the vast majority of those viewing numbers.
In any case, this is further evidence that soccer's American identity is solidly Hispanic, which,
in a perfect world, would make it no less American, but America being America of course it does.
Rollins over at CDN has an interesting round-up of some of the (perceived) criticisms of the
Canadian national men's team in light of the women's success (which so far amounts to an honourable
loss to Germany).
I have to say though, it would have been a little more convincing if Rollins had provided concrete
links.
Great news for Kara Lang, who only six months ago announced her unfortunate early retirement from
football. She'll be joining the Sportsnet crew for the FWWC. Just two wishes please:
1) Let her speak. She's whip smart on the game and the present state of Canadian soccer, and she'd
be a good candidate for a De Vos-esque column on the Sportsnet site.
Reading Jamie Cutteridge's fascinating EFW interview with Mirror soccer scribe Oliver Holt, you're
reminded how the Internet is slowly ebbing away at the authoritative "aura" of the full-time print
journalist.
Holt you'll remember received a lot of attention for the way he dealt with Rio Ferdinand's direct
Twitter message, in which the Manchester United defender called him a "fat prick" in making
reference to the latter's famous missed drugs test in the 03-04 season.
From a Left Wing's Jennifer Doyle makes a good case against Tim Howard's rant following the Gold
Cup medal ceremony, in which the American keeper remarked: "I think it was a f***ing disgrace that
the entire post-match ceremony was in Spanish. You can bet your ass if we were in Mexico City it
wouldn't be all in English":
For the record: the United States does not have an official language.
It's the Christine Sinclair show within Canadian sports media circles today. The star Canadian
forward, who scored her country's only goal in their 2-1 loss to Germany in the Women's World Cup,
made it easy for Canadian journalists in search of a story this morning (including yours truly,
although I'm not a journalist).
That's by far the highest-rated comment on John Ashdown's Women's World Cup round-up for the
Guardian, a round-up which proceeded to (mostly) ignore the fact Germany v. Canada was great
entertainment, and focus on the incredibly subjective question of whether women goalkeepers aren't
as technically adept as their male equivalents.
From the Daily Mail (but of course): "Manchester City and Carlos Tevez dragged into match-fixing
scandal."
Followed by the lede paragraph:
Manchester City and star striker Carlos Tevez have inadvertently found themselves
embroiled in a match-fixing scandal, although it is clear that neither the club nor player are
guilty of any wrongdoing.
