THE PRESS
The sports front
Dennis Hackett
There is no doubt that on newspapers, sports departments have a life of their own, looking askance at all the trivia around them — the strikes, the political crises, the wars, the wearisome minutiae of the front three quarters of the paper. They are purposeful men, certainly not deterred (and possibly not even conscious) of the fact that their pages attract only about 28 per cent of the reader traffic. Circulation men rightly set great store by them, and even in cases — and there are many — where editors don't ever understand what is going on in that part of the paper, they are thought of as vital. Edition times, and therefore train times, have to take account of them. When page changes are sought, the words "sport have got to have that one" is usual enough to silence all doubts. Respect always comes easier in ignorance.
One would have thought therefore that sportswriters wert a pretty fulfilled, job enriched, happy bunch of chaps: always abreast of their favourite sports and, more often than not, privileged spectators of them. It is. of course, never as simple as it seems. When something happens like West Germany's casual defeat of England at Wembley it is obvious that deep passions boil beneath. In the quality papers there is some demand that sportswriters should be able to write whereas on populars, though useful where it occurs, such a talent is not a prerequisite. Declamation is all.
Of course, no one quite came out with: 'Krauts humble British at home' but I had a strong suspicion that feeling was around and I knew without doubt that Sir Alf Ramsey, who had settled accounts with the Germans on one auspicious occasion, would, nonetheless, get short shrift. And, of course, he did. Desmond Hackett (with whom, I can at last publicly say, I have no kind of kinship) called him an "implacable dictator." Jeff Powell in the Daily Mail said "The axe is out for Ramsey" (without saying it was never, in fact, put away). The Sun, which many allege has made a success out of being behind the times, found him ten years behind the times. Ken Jones in the Mirror was a conspicuous absentee from the lynch mob, unchauvinistic, knowledgeable and quoted some sensible remarks from Sir Alf himself.
Now Sir Alf is not a forthcoming man nor a great admirer of sportswriters and therefore will not go out of his way for those who he thinks have treated him badly. Hard tales are told of him, but his record is good and he has long since realised that popular papers believe that sports fans appreciate funerals rather than first aid. On that score, I think I would agree with Sir Alf. In soccer, in particular, sports journalists seem to have an ambivalent approach.
Following a sterling struggle between the National Union of Journalists and the papers over the use of sporting names, a formula was agreed whereby articles are attributed to personalities but carry, somewhere or other, a line which names the journalist they were 'talking' to, who, in fact, wrote it and more often than not, think, suggested the line of it.
This is a rather nonsensical practice which, it seems to me, while giving professional footballers an additional source of income that, on the whole, their manners don't deserve, brings profnssional journalists into some disrepute. One has only to read them to see that their hearts aren't in it. The styles are identical and inane. Last week, with the Cup Fin cLi upon us, there was a veritable deluge of such comment by our soccer heroes. I thought the Sun, for whom nothing succeeds like excess, came out on top at the bottom with Mike England (Tottenham) ' talking ' to Steve Allan, Derek Dougan (Wolves) 'talking' to Hugh Jameson, Billy Bremner (Leeds) 'talking' to Peter Fitton, Bob Wilson (Arsenal) ' talking ' to poor Steve Allan, and Rodney Marsh (Manchester City) 'talking' to Mike Ellis — all on the same day.
In the Mirror Alan Ball kept talking most of the week to Bob Russell and the strain was obvious on both, I think, especially when Alan Ball said, referring to the possibility of victory in the second leg with West Germany, "If there is one man capable of doing that, it is Sir Alf Ramsey." Now how could he say anything else?
Charlie George on the other hand told Alan Ford in the News of the World "Why Leeds make me sick" on Sunday (it was the waiting) and told Graham Baker in the Daily Mail on Thursday, "There's nothing very exciting about waiting for a Cup Final."
I really think that sport would be better served if all this nonsense stopped. It does nothing to inform and makes a nonsense of objectivity. But it's a forlorn hope and, before the sportswriters guild get up in arms, I suppose I had better say that this was just Dennis Hackett "talking to himself."
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