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Monday Morning Introspection
Birmingham City drew 0-0 with Rotherham this weekend with Neil Warnock’s new charges finishing with just nine men. However, following defeats for Derby County and Ipswich Town Blues very much remain in the playoff hunt in seventh place, three points behind Sheffield Wednesday.
I think I should warn you before you read any further this post isn’t actually much about the game. As I didn’t go up to Rotherham I can’t and won’t comment on the game – and in some ways I’m kinda sad that I can’t because it doesn’t appear many websites have.
From reading through NewsNow this morning it seems to me that analysis of the game is really thin on the ground with two of the top three most-read stories in the last 24 hours being online reactions from Blues fans towards news and events rather than reporting news and on actual events.
I’m not sure if this is me being old and cynical but reporting on football has changed – and not for the better. For example, HITC (who I have written for myself briefly once upon a time) have a story with Blues fans tweeting their “frustrations” with the draw – yet I’d say at least a few of those tweets are people being slightly facetious or acting the “wind-up merchant” about Blues.
I can’t even tell you what the top story from the Birmingham Mail was about as I’m now physically unable to access their website now due to their policy of site-destroying ads, autoplaying videos and a refusal to allow adblock on their site. It’s a shame in many ways as despite the editorial line he’s forced to follow I think Brian Dick does a good job – from speaking to him he’s definitely a man who is passionate about reporting about the club properly and I suspect he’s somewhat taken the club and the fans into his heart a little bit.
It’s funny, but the only real “news” about the club actually seems to come from the club itself – which while being a good thing as it is news directly from the source also has it’s downside as I guess we have to understand that there will always be a little bit of “spin” involved – the club is hardly likely to say anything negative about itself after all.
Before anyone says it, I do see the irony about me complaining about this as I write a website which carries opinion and speculation too – however I would say in my own defence I have never pretended that this website is anything but my opinion and I have always asked people to treat any speculation with scepticism – including what I say.
I’m curious however as to whether it’s just me who feels this way – or if I should just shut up and embrace this new style of journalism which reflects reaction from fans and produces bite-sized chunks of information rather than true in-depth analysis and thought. Maybe it’s just me being defensive because I’ve been accused of writing “clickbait” myself – something I would hotly contest as I’ve tried to stay clear of “five things we learned” style articles and rehashing news from elsewhere.
Tags: Media
90 Responses to “Monday Morning Introspection”
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Birmingham Mail = clickbait and adverts and Villa bias. Brian Dick is a rugby correspondent. There is no longer any decent football analysis. Your site is alright when you compare it to bcfcfollowers for example
There are a couple of reasons for this i think:
1) with highlights of the game so readily available (3min reel in Sky sports 20 mins after the game) is the need to “report” on the action is probably not as needed or as interesting compared to you having nothing like in the days of the sports argus
2) with access to the Internet comes things like Twitter & message boards where people can get first hand opinions of the game from other supporters
There is no doubt the local media definitely appear to like the quick click bait articles like “5 things we have learned” or “transfer gossip”
I think it will go full circle though over time and the access to stuff like blogs (like this one) will allow aspiring journos to actually write opinion rather than to what the editor wants
The Sunday Mail didn’t even mention us in its report of our game!
I miss ‘Tatts’ at the Birmingham Mail
I think you are and have been very generous in your praise of Brian Dick. He may be passionate about Blues reporting but I have found him quite irritating and sarcastic in his past coverage of the Tennis tournaments held in edgbaston. However moving on -there is a player at Kiddy.Harriers who has been recruited by Colin Gordon by the name of Fane. Senegalese midfielder very much in the mould of Leicester’s Kante. Maxwell and Fane imo could occupy next seasons pairing at Blues. GR will have to move quick as this talent will be gone.Blues have always had an excellent relationship with Kiddy.so I would expect GR is aware of Fane.
We don’t need second hand reports from people who plagiarise most of what they write, when we have local correspondents like Dave Mann. Come on Dave, how was the experience from a Blue Army perspective? As for some of the negativity following the match, at the start of the season, I would have bitten your arm off to be where we are at this stage! KRO!!
Going away is always a great experience and wouldn’t miss it for the world , the support , the comradeship , the great friends you make is absolutely majic and win lose or draw or premiership or league two it still wouldn’t stop me going and it’s a way of life for me and my family so I like to think travelling with the blue army is an experience that I will do until I can’t do it anymore and hopefully that’s a while yet , Bluenosesol, were 7th not 17th so the negativity of some fans is bewildering concidering the plight we are in financially and the fact that our squad is not good enough according to some fans , are well as long as we’re happy that’s all that matters hey mate . KRO
Brilliant – Thanks Dave!
I wish Brian dick would speak up as on my tablet he tends to fade away , which causes me to repeat listening to the comments in case I have missed something , which isn’t often, annoying ..
As someone who was at the game, there isn’t much to report.
We were awful.
I agree. We didn’t create one single worthwhile chance in the first half and had three half chances in the second half. We were actually hanging on against ten then nine men when they got a succession of corners in the last few minutes. I don’t even bother looking at the Birmingham Mail any more.
The contrast in our 0-0 draw at middlesboro and our 0-0 draw at Rotherham is chalk and cheese , just shows you how results don’t always dictate performance , as for the vile mail it will be in total mourning after the humiliation of the St Valentine’s Day massacre at vile park .. Oh the tears are falling from my eyes as we post , what a tragedy !! :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) .. that’s for the six goals , my heart is breaking . KRO
I was surprised Liverpool were allowed to field 22 players on the pitch at once
i say stick to your guns and keep it real like you have been doing. us “old-school” are a dying breed and common sense and wisdom is sparse in today´s journalism. i too use newsnow, but like most of the websites i tend to only read what i consider news-worthy . it appears a lot of websites have managed to suss out who has adblock installed, hence forcing us to read the crappy adverts etc. on a good note we are indeed only 3 points off 6th spot and still have it all to play for. even if we need other results to help us occasionally. K.R.O
Reporting on games has become a matter of opinion, and as we know from just reading OP that opinions can vary greatly, for instance my opinion is that we dropped another 2 points on saturday, my opinion also is we’ve now dropped 7 points in 3 games & we’ve only scored 1 goal in that time, which for a team hoping for a play off place is unacceptable. My opinion is I don’t care that Derby & possibly Ipswich are in freefall, I don’t support them so why should I? My opinion is GR will never find a way to beat the crap teams of this league as long as i’ve got a hole in my arse cos he’s afraid to try a different system. He now has 9-10 days to come up with a way to beat lowly Bolton a week tomorrow, but chances are he’ll play the same way with the same players & personally i’d like to see him try something different & really go for it, but I won’t hold my breath. That’s my opinion but I imagine other people think differenty & accuse my of being negative when in my opinion I just stating the bleeding obvious
Chris if I was GR and read this I would be off to Derby!!
And that’s your opinion!! See how it works??!!
its not rocket science. When you play the top teams they are after 3 points and commit men forward and we have space to play in. When you play the bottom teams they are happy with 0-0 so get 9 men behind the ball and its a lot bloody harder whatever tactics the manager tries. in the home game against Rotherham we pushed hard for the win and lost. Saturday we didn’t and got a what could end up being a very important point. it wasn’t great to watch believe me but its all about accumulating points now not entertaining.
And once again that’s YOUR opinion. I’m sure all the teams at the bottom would be glad you pointed out that they only need to play for a draw to avoid relegation, obviously playing for 3 points is a total waste of time for them. Glad I don’t support a team with you as manager.
I agree with a lot of what Chris says. I feel we’re not adventurous enough, especially against teams we really should be beating, if we have any pretentions of reaching the play-offs. If we can get an early goal or two against Bolton, their heads will probably drop and we can improve our goal difference whilst we’re at it.
As for Rowett, if he can’t stand a little bit of criticism, I’m afraid he’s in the wrong job. But I’m sure he has a thicker skin than that and a sense of humour.
Cheers staffs, i’m really frustrated at the moment cos GR keeps saying in his press conferences how they’re working on a way to beat the lower teams & how determined the players are also, but come the day it’s the same old same old & it’s depressing. No one can deny what a fantastic job he’s done but this is where a manager is tested & sadly atm he’s failing miserably.
I would say judge him at the end of the season. If we make the play-offs then he has performed a miracle from where we were when he took over. Nobody would have expected Derby to lose at home to MK Dons – that’s just the way it goes sometimes with football. I went to Rotherham and I was disappointed but then again I didn’t expect us to stuff Derby and Ipswich 3-0 or get a point at Boro. There does need to be a bit of balance when you write stuff on here – yours is just a rant.
Read it again Shirley & you’ll see it’s no where near a rant, it’s more constructive criticism & to repeat myself all about opinions, your opinion is you didn’t think we would beat Derby & Ipswich whereas I thought we would, I also thought we would win our last 3 games, we didn’t I was wrong. The fact is we can’t all be right. My point about GR was that he keeps saying they’re trying different things to beat the lower teams when is obvious even to a blind man, at night & wearing dark glasses that he isn’t, but that’s just my opinion ;)
Actually Chris if you look through history Blues have always had a dodgy record against bottom of the table teams. I remember a Tuesday night many years ago we were playing Crewe, we had a reasonable record and Crewe were bottom without a single win all season. The landlord of the pub I drank in offered me a bet on the game. I have a thing about betting on Blues…..I never do but this seemed as much of a dead cert as you can possibly get…..even the bookies hugely thought so. We lost 1-0!!! My point is there is no point in blaming Gary Rowett, I don’t know what it is…it’s a Blues thing but I do know that most Blues fans are far from confident when we play teams near the foot of the table even long before this season!
I did go to the game and when I do I write a report not only about the game but attempt to describe the whole experience of the day which includes the journey to the match, the sights, smell of the burger vans, the banter in the pub, the people I meet along the way and their take on football, the universe and everything. I also analyse the game as best I can and most of all try to be fair to both sides. My writing style may not to be everyone’s taste but if you are looking for something different, go across to Joys & Sorrows. I write regularly under the banner ‘View from the South’ Reporting on football has undoubtedly changed but I would point out that for those that do it, whatever their methods and styles, it is hard work that takes commitment and so we should be careful not to get too disparaging about the efforts of others. My latest article is at this link: http://www.joysandsorrows.co.uk/2016/02/view-from-the-south-rotherham-united-v-birmingham-city/ For what it is worth, the game was a shocker.
Always enjoy your reports Bazz. The travel and the football. Think you were generous with Maghoma’s rating on Saturday but bang on with Buckley . Think we need more consistency out of these two , as with others.
Good report Bazza, sorry your day wasn’t worthwhile. I have mentioned before on here I have some software on my laptop which covers the season so far & calculates the final league tables based on predicted remaining results. These predictions take current form in to consideration. You will be pleased to know the latest prediction after this weekends games, Rotherham’s tactics of everyone behind the ball only serves to bore everyone to death as they still finish bottom of the table. Meanwhile Blues are still looking at a sixth place finish at the moment!!
With “heat maps” and Opta stats all the rage, one realises just how limited a written match report is. It’s just a summary of key events and doesn’t necessarily give you the full picture. Fan reactions on social media are even less meaningful; I can be as grumpy as hell when we lose but that’s just me being a miserable git and has no bearing on how the club’s functioning. I say keep up your in-depth coverage; in the online world, it’s the effort that goes into anything that really matters.
The other thing that the Birmingham Mail do that is so annoying is the “Brian Dick reporting live”. The top line shows a clock and the scores, substitutes etc. The clock updates every second but the text showing the update arrives every 10 to 15 minutes. Sandwiched between the two is a “Brian Dick is at the ground reporting live and allsorts of other crap and blah titty blah which remains on the screen so you cannot see the top line and more than one match match update simultaneously. I always look on newsnow to see if the opposition are doing a “llive update”. Is so, watch that as the updates come evey minute and is vastly superior to the Evening Mail. If virtually all of the opposing teams can do a proper “live update” why cant the Birmingham Mail
If you want to read the BM articles, use a proxy like pr0web.work. It takes away the blocks and you can read all the articles, but you can’t interact, say in rating the players, etc and the videos don’t play (personally, I can do without listening to the stuttering Mr Dick) but at least you can read what’s there.
The BM app was better than the site….at least it loaded better than the site because of all the ads but then lately it seemed to go a day or two without updating when the site was updated.
We are 3 points from the play-offs, which, in truth, is a magnificent effort from all concerned, considering what we’ve spent. Realistically, none of us could have asked for more at the start of the season. But, we really do need to start winning consecutive games very soon. It would be a huge disappointment for the season to fizzle out now because we can’t beat the basement teams. We still have the top 4 to play, so it’s definitely still in our own hands.
Wasn’t at the game so can’t comment specifically, but I’ve been saying for a while now that we start too sluggish and let the opposition play themselves in. I don’t know if it’s a conscious thing as earlier in the season we were tailing off after 65-70 ,minutes, but I would like to see us a bit more tenacious in the first 20 minutes. If we can get an early goal the other team have to come at us which plays in to our hands anyway. I get the counter argument that if we get caught out they will sit back and we will struggle, but at this stage and position, we should take the bull by the horns and have no regrets come May.
Exactly Dan! It is very noticable that the games we have lost, struggled in, scraped a draw in, call it what you want, we have always started slowly & allowed the opposition to dicatate the pace of the game. The games we have took the bull by the horns so to speak we have had more success with. This even includes the games where we have countered because we have looked on the ball when we have had the ball instead of punting it slopply back to the opposition!
Personally I have not read the BM for 10 years, its standard of journalism has been shocking and not just in Football. Tatts was poor as is this guy Dick, I’m curious as to how they get these jobs face fits I guess.
Absolutely right Tony. Could not agree with you more.
You’ve not read it for ten years but you know the standard of journalism is shocking? How does that work?
Touche
Presumably Tony’s definition of “read” is “When I do look at the Mail it’s not very good” and “I’ve seen lots of click-bait headlines that I have occasionally clicked but found to be a huge waste of time”. What we’d ideally like is for the BM to be the number-one stop for Blues news. And it isn’t.
I`ve not seen t he vile play for years but i know the standard of football is shocking.
Iv not bought it Dan, I have not time for safe journos told you before if Watergate had dropped into Tatts inbox he would have sat on it.
But how do you know it’s crap if you’ve not read it?
Or you have read it and you’re just being hyperbolic?
Tatts was so bad?, of course, that’s how he got the job at BCFC cos we only employ rubbish people. Give me a break
They employ safe reliable people who will not rock the boat people who will write what they are told to write Tatta is useless.
I agree that it’s hard to find reports that tell you what happened in a game and explain the things I didn’t understand when I watched it. And there are loads of things I don’t understand because I don’t read games well and am often looking in the opposite direction when something significant happens. That’s why I never write match reports on my blog.
Well that’s simple Margaret your a woman.
Tony
I’m not even going to be polite about this – if you’re going to be a misogynistic dick don’t comment on my site.
lol by her own admission she cant read a game
I left Brum in 2004 and can honestly say that the BM is the single worst means of keeping in touch with what’s going on imaginable. OP and mates are the best way for me. Unfortunately up here in the north of Scotland i cant even get the English national newspapers! The sheer volume of bloggers/independent reviewers, as well as being able to receive world satellite feeds in the UK means that Joe Bloggs can report on half a dozen games without leaving his living room. Some of them are very good and some of them are very poor, but the newspapers and traditional media outlets seem to want to ‘water down’ their product to compete with them, and I don’t see the need. There are some blogs that I find useful and informative, but I don’t see them as replacements for the press.
That’s the point – blogs SHOULDN’T be a replacement to the press, they should be an addition. I don’t report, I post opinion – it’s a very fine distinction but it’s one that is important.
Unfortunately the BM seem to want to compete with HITC or Buzzfeed and it’s dumbing down what’s available.
Mate I am 100% with you. THe service provided by a blog and the press is a different one. For a start the blogger is, at the outset at least, not paid and has no party line that he is forced to toe. I have said many times before that OP is a credible source of information and opinion that also builds a community with it. That I think is the biggest difference, blogs should invite discussion, journalism should report facts. It’s not to say that Brian Dick or any other reporter knows more about football than a blogger, (Brian clearly doesn’t) but he is paid to provide a professional output, which should be a different tone to someone doing it as a hobby. Sometimes I feel that there is less sense of ownership or accountability for things published online compared to physical print.
You can’t beat the Commentary on the Blues Player in my opinion. Broads tells it as it is, he won’t cover it up, if we’re good he says so, if we’re bad you will know about it :)
I don’t go to games (I live overseas) but I do listen to the commentary and from that I try to make some sort of assessment of how the Blues are performing.
Often there are comments from Boardhurst (is it him?) that I find to be helpful and constructive BUT these are mostly suggesting that several of our players need to learn the basics of the game.
These are professional footballers earning very good money and fans expect them to go out on the pitch and play the game with every bit of energy and determination that they can.
So……why is it that in almost every game that energy and determination only comes into action with 20 minutes left to play and we are usually goalless?
Is GR incapable of sending his players out at the start of the game with all the gusto, aggression and ooomph that the fans expect in order to get that first goal?
There seemed to be much disappointment after the match but I dont think we should necessarily be going to Rotherham and just expect to turn them over, it was disappointing as we were the more likely team to score in the 2nd half (in fact Rotherham seem content to just sit back) after a very poor first half performance. A point away from home is never a bad result and maybe we have become victims of our own success, still much to play for though and although I personally think the top 6 will just elude us, after the trials and tribulations of the past few seasons its nice just to be in the chasing pack.
That is what I don’t get Captain Blues! I have heard from a few quarters we looked the more likely to score but how have people reached that conclusion when we had a total of 3 shots in the whole of the game? I know for a fact that Rotherham had more so how did we look more likely to score? I doubt we would have scored if we were still there now the way we approach scoring at times and yet we can score goals like we have done of late like Toral’s & Kieftenbeld’s. We need to shoot more. Football seems to be changing I notice more and more teams trying to walk the ball in the goal….forget that crap….SHOOT! You cannot score if you don’t shoot and as Broadie says on the commentary on the Blues Player if we shoot more & the Don/Vaughan are following up to pick up spills from the keeper we might & probably will have more success.
As someone who cannot get to any games and havent for a long time, all the reporting is very important. I get a lot of insight from blogs and official reporting. The OP opinion is a cut above and sparks the best all round information in the Replies, the first hand analysis and comments from blues supporters. Often Partisan (even though it should be, off to parties and) is successful because it is serious analysis and the responses are far more serious than “We wus robbed”, Only drifting into the “s**t on thev**la” rants occasionally. Looking at the pregame and postgame volumes for the Rotherham game shows that followers of OP see it as the place to voice opinion & communicate with other serious fans. I get so much from them that sports argus type never could, which is the “releasing statements” approach compared to having a “round table”.
Of course the background research of OP is oustanding in range of subject and in depth info. I have learned so much about the club as well as the team.
Just wish i could see the games on TV.
Btw someone said Brian Dick’s podcast voice fades out and that is it in a nutshell. Perhaps if he had confidence and enthusiasm in what he was saying, we might be glued to his every word.
I think some of these comments about Brian Dick and Tatts are completely unfair and unwarranted.It all depends on what you expect from the Mail these days.When I was a kid I used to wait in the Newsagents for the Mail/Argos to be delivered so I could catch up on the latest but the world has changed since then and if you want to know what’s happening you just look at your phone thus making it one of hundreds of places where you can get information.I like reading Brian’s reports and it’s clear he and Tatts are fans and have the club in their blood and that’s good enough for me.
It’s all about the Premier League these days, Hillfield Blues. Nobody gives a damn about the Football League from a media aspect. Sad but a fact these days. I wonder whether there will even be four leagues in the not too distant future. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was wittled down to two.
I think there has been a lack of objective journalism across local newspapers and radio media for years now. To be honest they can only go so far with objective comment or indeed criticism as they as so called experts – pundits,commentators and journos have to protect their relationships with the clubs (particularly the managers) and they have to look after their vested financial interests be it employment or own business. That’s why this site is so refreshing with an unbiased opinion and such a variety of views
I like the BBC. They report on every Blues game almost in real time and they publish the views of the managers pretty quickly too – if the BBC report is somewhere in between the extremes of the managers views, which it usually is, then you can have confidence in it.
I think when we first started with the 4+2+3+1 system we found that it was great with teams that came at us , with us countering on the break , but since we have rose up the table the lower teams are not confident coming at us home or away , and only the higher teams come at us home and away , we started with plan B ,4+3+3 ,but we seem to be over the top defensively what ever we do , for the first 60 minutes , I think we need to come forward throughout the match and not rely on the counter attack as much , we need to play as if we are not near the bottom of the table still , No fear true grit..KRO
Maybe we should ask permission to start the game 45 minutes early.. then by the time the other team come out of the tunnel, we should be into our stride. :)
Speaking of the BM, I’ve just looked at the player ratings for the Vile for the first time ever..every single player got a rating of 3. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before. I think maybe Gregg Evans was a bit generous. :))
I thought it was the fans that were 3 staffsblue
No, that’s their IQ.
To my nephew sorry Gary
I wish Lee Clark every success with Kilmarnock.
The job at Blues was too big for him, but I defy any bluenose to fault his commitment and dedication to making Blues successful.
Unfortunately hard work was not enough and his various other shortcomings found him out.
Seconded.
Clark contributed to where we are now. Forget that result against Bournemouth, forget the home record that was, I’m talking about the players he brought in. He brought in a squad of players 3 seasons ago was it with no money when it looked like we wouldn’t even have enough players to start the season. Rowett can get the best out of players, he can motivate them and gets players to play to their strengths rather than attempt the impossible.
Disagree Clark was a charlatan who knew he couldn’t do the jo,b just as he will not be able to do this job .If he had had any pride at all he would have walked away twelve months before he was sacked..
Its incredible to think this club have offered him a managers job.
Tony your obsessed with the Clark thing and it’s boring mate.He wasn’t completely to blame for our predicament at the time and it wouldn’t have been any different if Bob Paisley was in charge,let it go!
He will be a better manager for being here..
why all the bashing of Brian Dick he is average at best but compared to Franksie and Hale at Radio Wolverhampton commonly known as radio WM Dicks is a saint-that station is disgusting anti Blues- it is supposed to support equally with same bias over all the teams it covers, that is absolute crap- if you broke down the time spent on each team Wolves would get over 50 per cent reporting by Franksie on his weekly programme and about the same on a Saturday by Hales- they simply do not give us enough credit and go over the top about Wolves then the Vile all the time, unfortunately based in Shropshire and a season ticket holder at St. Andrews it is about all the live regular reporting I can pick up- however I no longer do so as it is that bad-when Franksie was challenged on this recently he simply lambasted the person complaining and rubbished him-typical of Franksie idea of open radio forum and constructiveness anyone else thing the same ?
Agree Gerard. During our dark days Franks was always ‘expecting Administration’ for Blues which became very depressing.Only Tom Ross tried to give us hope and always tried to give fans an honest appraisal of what he knew at the time.He never entered the doom and gloom mode even though he was hurting like most of us. He got Pannu on his show and tried his utmost to get answers but to no avail. One reporter I have time for is Richard Wilford who gave a great commentary on the Bolton survival game and afterwards made an passionate plea for the owners to repay the wonderful supporters of BCFC with not letting the club sink any further.
Tom Ross is very close to all that happens. He has the Blues and understandingly his own interests at heart. He goes not like criticism of his own view which rarely offers objective comment. In his early days he was fantastic. Wish there was someone or something new coming through on the radio.
KC I like Tom Ross but he is a little gullible and fails to do his due diligence.
Geez I so dislike the Mail website for all the reasons you say plus monetising of all of it so ‘stories’ are to earn clicks not praise. I do however like the ‘five things we learned’ because at least it’s about the game.
I thought Colin was good but Brian is better
It’s funny how many blues fans write in from outside brum , in 1960 the population was about the same as it is now , but we went from the motorcycle Mecca of the world to a large memory , and with the car industry suffering many workers went outside brum for work , we was known as the city of a million trades ,but I think with the motor industries a lot of those trades were lost , but I think the ethnic minorities moved to bring back those many trades in silver clothes ,ect , so really I wonder how many blues fans do we really have around the Midlands , I bet we could fill Stan’s twice over with the right bus service ..KRO
The Birmingham Mail I am afraid to say is a poor newspaper, I only read if someone leaves it on the train , or sometimes they give it out free.
With regards to results against the so called poorer teams, they are obviously going to try not to lose, all men behind the ball , unfortunately so far Blues have found it difficult to break these teams down. As someone was has already stated Rowett has to come up with plan to regularly beat these teams, the question is of course have we the players to do this. If we are unable to achieve this then in my opinion too many points will be lost against these sides to maintain a sustained play off position. We have some tough games coming up against leading contenders in this league and it will be difficult to get anything out of these games. Rowett has done remarkably well and even if we do not get into the play offs , our achievements this season have exceeded all expectations, the problem being, if the off field saga regarding ownership drags on and Rowett does not get continued financial support to improve our chances of promotion , then no doubt he will walk away. It is so frustrating , so near and yet so far away.
My support and faith in the BM quickly disappeared when it became obvious they were not prepared to take on PP or CY.I thought they were gutless and toothless .
Very good point Art! Toothless, the Local Media has a duty to defend local causes-the Mail failed in this role.
For God sake we need somebody like Barry fry on the mail podcasts , football is an entertainment and although I wouldn’t like to go as far as the yanks they don’t need to be like a funeral director at his own funeral , let’s put a bit of life into football and the rest will follow
BM’s content is pretty awful, jumped on the clickbait bandwagon and there’s no balance between ad’s and user experience.
Brian Dick just posted a really good article about blues and the forthcoming run in to the playoffs. In a nutshell it says we have as good a chance as anyone else and a run in as easy or difficult as anyone else. It is exactly the analysis i was looking for. Thank you Brian. We can look forward full of hope.
[…] Often Partisan laments the lack of game coverage from Saturday’s tilt and the state of journalism (writing?) in general. There’s a validity in getting people’s thoughts and reactions but I can certainly agree that there’s no news at all — or much interesting for that matter — in pulling some tweets together and writing an article saying “fans are mad.” Well, If I go on Twitter at any point in the day I can find a dozen mad fans, a dozen happy, and six who don’t know what the hell to think about anything. Twitter is great, and useful, but it’s also very easy to selectively pull together tweets that fit your particular narrative. All that said, the great thing about everyone participating in journalism/blogging and social media is that we get a lot more content, and a lot more opinions, thoughts and facts than we ever had before. You take the good with the bad. The tactical analysis with the clickbait. There’s no longer the need to be spoon fed from only a few outlets that hold the cards. […]
I used to deliver the Evening Mail (crap job on Thursdays with the job adverts in it) and would always read Tatts articles on the way round. He was good then and the paper was, to my memory, balanced between us and the other lot. As people have said there were less places to get info then and papers seemed to have more substance. I don’t mind the job he does for the club either, at least he engages with fans, which is a rarity these days, but I just can’t warm to Brian Dick, I can’t watch his reports without thinking I’m in a weird dream where Ed Milliband decided he wanted to be a journalist instead of a politician.
You have mirrored my feelings exactly Dan. He gives me weird vibes just like the Ed Milliband era. Great similarity.
I hear that GR is seriously considering playing Fabbrini and Toral against Bolton as he wants ‘more creativity’ . Goodness me how managers exasperate fans. Has the penny finally dropped? We as fans have been screaming this out since Fabbrini was signed. This move is not a brave one more of an obvious one. If Fab.was signed up then he should have gone into the team two games ago for starting. Instead we were made to look at the Gary Hooper show and then the return of saviour Warnock. As I said exasperating.
Ronan Hale, 9 goals in 2 games for the U18s? Could be one to look at in the pre-season along with Mbende at the back.
Have to say that as an expat I rely on the rubbish that is the BM to stay in touch with Blues news (such as it is). A lot of other sites that I try to access are only concerned with the Premier league or I cant access the content as I am not in the UK.
I have found some of the forums and blogs the better source of information and opinions. Did reminisce a few weeks ago of how much I missed the old Pink Sports Argus. Always looked forward to that Saturday evening wait in the newsagents waiting for the delivery, always skipped past the Vile pages and as a veteran always had the family send me a copy when I was away.
Happy days.
I still have a few clippings from the Argue from when I scored in the Warwickshire Youth League, Leafield Athletic and Solihull Juniors. Played full back so there’s not that many…