Sport Journalists - Who Do You Rate and Hate?

Have to give a mention to Hunter Davies:

http://www.newstatesman.com/columns/sport

He’s just fantastic, there’s years of columns there to peruse. His compilation book is my favourite bog reading material.

Also really enjoy Harry Pearson.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/oct/10/newcastleunited-premierleague

Humphries…LockerRoom used to be a Monday morning highlight. Nestled down at 11am with tea and biscuits and read it religiously. Now, I often find myself not bothering with it till Tuesday. Shame.

There is a brilliant sports writer down here in Wexford folks. Alan Aherne is his name if anyone knows of him? he also steered our camogie girls to all ireland success in 2007.

There’s a very good GAA journo down Wexford way. Tom Mooney i think? Very knowledgeable and insightful.

like

liam griffin
karl mcginty
charlie redmond
vincent hogan

dislike
billy keane-like the man just cant understand anything he writes
dion fanning
eugene mcgee
colm o rourke

Dislike most retired players/managers who ‘write’ columns - Paudi O’Shea, Keith Barr, John Allen, Liam Hayes and Babs Keating are all particularly bad.

Sean Moran writes sensibly with some style. Also worth a read are Keith Duggan, Christy O’Connor and Kieran Shannon. Enda McEvoy and Tom Humphries have very good days but also very self-indulgent days.

Of course, Arrigant deserves a place of his own for repeating his online self-implosion in print.

Who does he write for tiger?

The people Mac. Very good so he is.

wonder would he be interested in joining forces with TFK, would be a good coup to snatch him from the People.

Maybe Tom Mooney if we cant get the first choice.

Think I’ve heard of him. Not all that BAd a writer now that I think of it.

[quote=“Gman”]wonder would he be interested in joining forces with TFK, would be a good coup to snatch him from the People.

Maybe Tom Mooney if we cant get the first choice.[/quote]

il work on that one.

Never read Alan Aherne myself but I hear he is good at spelling.

Humphries has lost the game for a while now.

Actually like Liam Griffin and believe I would too even if I wasn’t a wexican.
Always liked Duggan, Foley, McEvoy and Walsh. Hogan too at times.

Not fond of O Rourke, Dunne, Curtis, Breheny-actually hate Breheny.

really? what did SS say about him?

Paul Kimmage has been given the boot by the Sunday Times. Doubt he’ll have much trouble in picking up work elsewhere.

Kimmage too expensive on Murdoch’s monopoly board
44 minutes ago

In a move that may save a few quid but that will lose them a lot of readers, The Sunday Times have given the boot to the brilliant Paul Kimmage.
The former cyclist has been voted Sports Interviewer of the Year five times while at the Rupert Murdoch owned paper but they have now cast him aside, with cost the suspected reason behind the move.

Now, we know that Kimmage was not in the paper as often as we would like so we are sure the powers that be in News International may have felt they were not getting bang for their buck while Kimmage was off writing his books.

But his interviews were easily the most enlightening and intelligent in the game and one of the only reasons left to buy the gargantuan Sunday Times is now gone. Kimmage already has one William Hill Sports Book of the Year title under his belt for Rough Ride, telling his story of what life was like as a professional cyclist and he is the favourite to win another this year with Engage, the story of paralysed English rugby player Matt Hampson.

Where Kimmage goes next will be interesting, as he will surely not be out of work for long. His old home, The Sunday Independent, could do with a boost so Kimmage’s return to home soil would be a wise move by the money men at Independent Newspapers, regardless of cost.

A more likely destination is another indebted title, The Observer, as they have lost chief sports writer Paul Hayward to the Telegraph recently.
Whatever happens we know we will follow Kimmage with our Sunday morning few Euros and we think we are far from alone.

I very much enjoy the musings of James Horncastle on Twitter. Posts some very good articles on Italian and European football.

I believe he does the odd bit of punditry on ESPN as well

Keir Radenege in world soccer.

damien richardson , his program notes were the best i ever, ever read
i love listening to him on the radio also

im actually a huge radio fan, Mike Ingham, jimmy armfield on the bbc 5 live are superb analysts and great to listen. Ingham especilly

myself - if interested PM me

here are some belters from Rico-
[list]
[]Modern football is akin to a turbulent sea. Changes come fast and furious. One may be riding the crest of great waves before being engulfed in enormous crescendos of confusion. Sometimes is can be like surfboarding in the South Atlantic. You do the best you can to stay afloat while all the time fully understanding the fact that things can come crashing down around you. If you worry about the consequences you miss the thrill of the ride.
[list]
[
]City Edition, Vol. 22, Issue 1, p.7.
[/list]
[/list]

[list]
[]Football … is a ballet of wondrous beauty choreographed by highly skilled performers, dramatising the conflict between good and evil that takes place in every heart. And, at the same time it reflects the impatient immediacy of modern society in that success breeds immortality, while the procurement of second place begets anonymity.
[list]
[
]City Edition, Vol. 22, Issue 12, p.5.
[/list]
[/list]

[list]
[]There is inherent in every true football supporter a reservoir of natural optimism. This inner holding pond of hope springs eternal, and is the safety valve that regulates the emotional turbulence synonymous with professional football. It mollifies the annual agitation and soothes the savage beast of frustration. Without this optimistic dimension the personality of the authentic fan is incomplete.
[list]
[
]Shamrock Rovers versus Finn Harps, 22 August 1999.
[/list]
[/list]

Is that the same Alan Aherne who had a go at me last year when the Mick Mackey book came out???

http://www.wexfordpeople.ie/news/sport-picks-2970549.html

Think that’s the same chap alright SLR. Did you challenge him on his criticism?

Didnt bother to be honest. Didnt even know who he was, nor would most people at this side of the country so challenging him wasnt going to generate any headlines that might clear a pallet of books!!!

Diarmuid O’Flynn had a go at me too, but I left him off the hook. I have a soft spot for Diarmuid, he was the man that originally inspired my now defunct writing career.

Why is it ‘defunct’?

Didn’t the Unlimited Heartbreak book go very well in particular?

It’s only natural that different people will prefer different styles of writing / formats of books.

I am a Primary School teacher now, and am concentrating on my career there. Plus I am doing a Masters as well. Cant find time for everything. I think in general my time as a scribe probably ran its course. I am retired from all that stuff now. I wrote a club history for the club last year when I was also doing the Mick Mackey book and it wore me into the ground.