Birmingham Post - Sport Blog

So what do you think of it so far?

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:20:29 +0000

One of the consequences of The Post's relaunch this week has been a drastic cutback in the amount of space given to sport within the newspaper.
The decision to focus far more on business news and switch from a broadsheet to tabloid format meant that something had to give - and sport was a prime candidate.

The price of fame - and the price of racism

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 21:23:26 +0000

I'll take it as read that you know about the abuse handed out to Ashley Cole during England's tame dismissal of Kazakhstan on Saturday; and that the Football Association has refused to play a friendly against Spain at the Bernabeu Stadium after incidents of racist abuse there in the past.
There are those who have chosen to link the two issues and blame the mob mentality that sometimes exists at sporting events. I beg to differ.

The big heart of football?

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 18:04:06 +0000

Here's an amazing statistic for you; this weekend, four of the six Premier League and Football League clubs in the West Midlands won.
Aston Villa, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Coventry City and Walsall all claimed three points, while West Bromwich Albion are excluded from this calculation because they were playing Villa.
Birmingham City were the only team to let the Post side down, losing 1-0 to Blackpool and, by all accounts, prompting Alex McLeish to unleash the verbal hairdryer treatment.
The good vibes even went further down the ladder with Kidderminster Harriers winning at Weymouth in Blue Square Premier and Solihull and the mighty Tamworth winning in Blue Square North.

Money, money, money....or exciting sport?

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 20:13:48 +0000

Don't you just hate it when bloggers go quiet for over a month?
I can only apologise for the silence from this little corner of the web since the second week in August. I can truthfully put it down to a combination of holidays and ill-health and normal service should now be resumed, at least for the next couple of months until The Post sports desk undergoes major upheaval to coincide with the redesign of the paper as a whole.

History in the making at The Lamb

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:59:44 +0000

Regular readers will be aware that while my professional interest in football revolves around the Premier League, the Coca-Cola Championship and League One, my personal interest lies further down the pyramid at non-league level.
I grew up watching Kidderminster Harriers in the West Midlands League and Southern League in the 1970s and since 1986 (apart from two years when I was sports editor of the Sutton Coldfield Observer) my Saturday afternoons have mostly been spent watching Tamworth FC.

Whatever happened to free viewing?

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 19:52:48 +0000

During my twice-daily walk from Warrillow Towers to Tamworth railway station, I pass a large roadside hoarding. For the last fortnight, it's been advertising Sky Sports, who are attempting to attract subscribers with the line 'Five Epic Series'.
It points out that Sky have the exclusive rights to the Ashes, the Ryder Cup, British Lions rugby union and football's Premier League over the next few months, as well as the lion's share of the Champions' League for the forthcoming football season.

A sporting treasure trove - or maybe not

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:23:16 +0000

Regular readers will be aware that The Birmingham Post is moving home in a few weeks, from Colmore Circus in the city centre where we have lived since the early-1960s, to our smart new headquarters at Fort Dunlop.
Wearing one of my other hats, the implications of that move have been taking up large parts of my life for several months but it has fallen to others to start getting out the skips and cardboard boxes in preparation for the move.
To that end, we've regularly been receiving emails from She Who Must Be Obeyed, asking that we start clearing out cupboards and cabinets, emptying shelves and throwing away stuff we don't need or want.

A ticket to ride

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 18:48:22 +0000

Sir Richard Branson, or more likely his acolytes in the West Midlands who surely read The Post, should probably look away now.
I've mentioned previously that this exalted position occasionally gets me into sporting events for free.
Wimbledon is not one of them. The Post gets one prized seat in the All-England Club press centre and I'd far prefer that it goes to one of our hard-working reporters.

VIVA ESPANA!

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:10:57 +0000

You'll recall my assertion three weeks ago that this was the blog that refused to let itself get distracted by Euro 2008?
I didn't believe anyone would come here to read my views on the football while the web is littered with blogs, some funny and some less so, detailing the fans' view of things. Yet finally, with one match to go, I'm going to break my rule - because I can suddenly declare a personal interest.

Picture perfect

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:29:44 +0000

One of the reasons I love working for one of the handful of broadsheet newspapers remaining in this country is the scope it gives us to display high-quality pictures properly.
Of course, our hard-working band of reporters (a very tight four-piece, not an orchestra) will tell you that it's their words which sell the paper or attract people to the Post's website, but a good picture can really pull the reader into a page - and once pulled in, they are more likely to keep reading.

Grounds for concern

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:46:55 +0000

Having managed to work Bob Dylan into a cricket piece here a couple of weeks ago, let's maintain the sport and music motif, shall we? And let's talk about rugby grounds.
I spent last weekend in Wales and the West Country, watching the peerless Bruce Springsteen in Cardiff on Saturday night (quite wonderful, thank you; an uninterrupted three-hour set and a five-track encore comprising Jungleland, Thunder Road, Born to Run, Rosalita and American Land more than made up for the great man arriving on stage 45 minutes late).
The concert was held at the Millennium Stadium, somewhere I've only previously seen from outside but which is a remarkable piece of work.

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 19:47:42 +0000

Welcome to the blog that is determined not to get distracted by Euro 2008. Not that I'm disinterested, like my colleague Lisa Smith (as I write, Holland v Italy is sparkling away on the office television and we've already had one eye on the bore that was France v Romania - and anyway, Lisa's fallen victim to the 'if it's not the greatest league in the world, it's irrelevant' school) but because I don't think you've come here to read what I think about it.

How bad is bad press for sports men and women?

Wed, 21 May 2008 17:45:48 +0000

I mentioned here in my first contribution that I was curious to find out just who reads The Birmingham Post's sports pages.
It's a topic I expect to develop much further in the coming weeks but after the first few weeks of the season, I'd love to know if Warwickshire's cricketers do.

A brave new world of sport

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:00:28 +0000

Sometimes, I have to remind myself that this is the best job in the world. I've been a sports fan all my life; one of my first memories is being in floods of tears the night England's footballers went out of the 1970 World Cup in Mexico City; one of my favourite memories is watching from the press box as Tamworth won the FA Vase at the old Wembley in 1989; one of the things I want to do before I die is watch a Major League Baseball game in the United States.
I get paid moderately well to spend my working hours reading about sport, looking at pictures of sport, talking about the best ways to cover sport in The Post. I work with people I like who (mostly) share my love of sport and, yes, I do very, very, occasionally get into sports events for nothing.
And now, the editor's gone and made the job just that bit better by asking me to blog about sport.