Bud, Clarky, Screacher et al,

Help me out. Just been reading two reports in the Torygraph, )a paper which , despite my political leanings, I have subscribed to for many years,) the most biased suammaries one could wish to come across. Chelsea won with ease at SJP and Manure outplayed the Premiers upstarts.

Well I have spoken to Celsea fans who saw the game somehow and they all said that we were a tad unlucky, their goalie was inspirational, and they took their chancs superbly. The other game just watched it again and I thought Fulham at times played quite sublimely and if they had any finishing skills they would have been the comfortable winners. What I really dislike is the smugness surrounding this hype. So what is the Times like these days?? Cant go for the Xpress Fascist tabloid, and the Mail is for girls (allegedly!!) TOrygraph xword good and their cricket reports have always been excellent. Guardian v good for politics and arts crap at football.

Advice plese for ancient ex-pat

-- Anonymous, December 31, 2001

Answers

I'm an expat too, Del Boy, although maybe not yet in your 'vintage' (wine terminology. do not fret). I'm also a Torygraph man (totally against my upbringing) again, primarily for the crossword and cricket (I'm a Barmy Army member after all) and some work-related sections.

Our UK based correspondents will enlighten us no doubt, it appears to me that almost all of the newspapers ADORE Manure (surely you are aware of the "Home Counties" scenario?!) and that London clubs (esp. Ar$enal and Chewsea) are not far behind, with Spurs being heavily 'courted'.

-- Anonymous, December 31, 2001

Yeah you could be right bud.

Scuse my ignorance who is TSM?? Must have appeared b4 I did

Tired (and emotional) Scots Manager??

Please enlighten me

-- Anonymous, December 31, 2001

Spot on, with a "The" in front, not a very popular animal in this particular arena - for fairly obvious reasons. Please don't use his real name, you've been warned...

...similarly with that Dutch fella :-(

-- Anonymous, December 31, 2001

Derek, in the same way as it is not acceptable to call The Scottish Play by it's real name, it is equally damnable to name The Scottish Manager on this BBS.

As for the meejah, well, they're all pretty much alike in my book. Hardly ever read them myself, 'cept for Ronnie Gill and his little bro Journal. Geordie Beano on Sundays but all really just for local footy coverage.

I was at the game on Saturday and thought Chewsee played well, but not much different from us. We had a couple of lapses which they scored from. Cudcicni played well but I've seen Given play far better many times this season. In all honesty, the game could have gone either way.

As for the match at the Cottage yesterday, I didn't think ManUre looked anything special, apart from the Welsh Wizard. As you say, Fulham could won. ManUre could have been kicking off 1-0 down when Van Der Saar made the booboo to let Giggs in for the first. But that's football :-(

-- Anonymous, December 31, 2001

Derek
The rags are obviously having the desired effect if you're looking for journalistic garbage having a different slant. You won't find it. Like Screacher, I don't take a blind bit of notice of any of the opinionated rubbish that is published purely and simply to sell papers. In fact, most of it isn't even worthy of comment.

Even the factual stuff has to be taken with a pinch of salt most of the time. 'Believe it when I see it' is the philosophy that puts the rags in perfect perspective as far as I'm concerned. I'd say ignore the football as a criterion of choice, it's too close to home. Go for the rag that has the most other sections of particular interest to you.

Not much help to ex-pats but I reckon it's only local rags like the Chronic, Journal and S.Sun that will give anything remotely like an appealing slant to the lies speculation,

-- Anonymous, December 31, 2001

The Torygraph has always been an interesting one for the main news since they actually give you all of the facts but filter it through their own political standpoint. You could often learn a great deal despite getting pissed off with the way it was presented.

The only way football can be fairly covered is to take a diehard fan of each team to give an account of what they saw. The reader then has both sides to pick the bones from. A "neutral" simply cannot understand what they have seen and the bias of the partisan writer covering a rival's game makes it unreadable (as we have just seen).

-- Anonymous, December 31, 2001

Bit of a two edged sword Softie. If you keep an open mind and try to strike a balance somewhere between the extremes of the diehards, you'll end up sort of neutral anyway.

Any hint of partisanship one way or the other and you'll end up favouring the extreme most in line with your leanings.

In truth, even diehards of the same team can come to different conclusions - I have yet to be aware of the frailties that Distin has reportedly shown since he's been on for longer than 15 minutes. That's a different topic though.

-- Anonymous, December 31, 2001