Concern Grows Over Paul Hayward Article

[Dorset]

Reading the Sunday newspaper is normally a pleasant pastime for me, but last weekend proved to be an exception to what has become a general rule because, contrary to previous belief regarding the writer, a certain article left me feeling offended to the point of apoplexy. Whilst it would be churlish to castigate the entire subject matter, one particular paragraph appeared to convey Paul Hayward’s personal slant to a Euro 2012 piece entitled ’Abuse casts an ugly shadow and growing cloud’ and was deeply offensive, despite running contrary to the overall tone of the article. So much so, in fact, that I would not have been prepared to repeat it here, but, as luck would have it, today’s Daily Telegraph allows me to do so without qualm or fear of retribution.

Featuring as the last item of five in their ’In Brief’ section on the sports pages, a paragraph attempts to calm a potential storm and due to the undoubted gravity of the situation, I’m sure the newspaper will be only too pleased if I widen its readership somewhat in an effort to limit potential backlash further. Under the heading PAUL HAYWARD - CORRECTION it reads as follows:-

“Owing to a production error the word ‘no’ was missed from the following sentence in Paul Hayward’s Sunday Telegraph article ‘Abuse casts an ugly and growing cloud’ : ‘Plainly anti-semitic abuse is NO more acceptable than skin-based hostility.’ We apologise for the error and any offence caused.“

Of course, regular readers of Paul Hayward on all manner of subjects in the field of sport would have come to the immediate conclusion that an error of this type must have occurred somewhere along the production line and that the man himself could not possibly have taken such an abhorrent stance when it came to a direct comparison between anti-semitic and racist abuse, let alone go so far as to declare it in print. Nevertheless, the thought still prevails - what about the effect such a statement, deemed to be an honest expression of opinion, might have on a totally unprepared John Doe, first time, paper buyer with a sensitive disposition, or an irascible seeker of the untruth who might, at the drop of a hat or an interjection, vindictively rush to his nearest police station to announce his effrontery, put it on record and thereby go on to make a litigious issue out of it?

That sort of thing doesn’t happen in the real world, I hear you say with your Old World charm and principles to the fore, because although any well-respected newspaper would normally have enough checks and balances in place to prevent fair comment filtering erroneously through as outrageous bigotry in this way, its reputation (accompanied by a suitably small and lightning fast apology) has always done the dumbing-down trick in the past and will no doubt do so again in the future. To think otherwise would be to think the worst of Hayward and everybody deserves the right to be treated as innocent until proven guilty, even if you are one of those journalists who doesn’t believe the presumption should be applied to a certain professional footballer. Previous articles indicate that this particular journalist tends to wander in and out of that condemnation camp as and when it suits him, displaying little respect for his quill quarry, but if he were to spend more time weighing up the pros and cons, the yes and the NO in any situation, maybe he’d be a better journalist for it.

And while we all wait in vain for that to happen, may I suggest that the Telegraph consider a moratorium on Paul Hayward [literal rather than actual suspension] and if this is felt to be a little too harsh, bearing in mind his lack of ‘previous’ on the anti-Semitism front, perhaps a simple half-yearly-long change of title, from ‘Chief Sports Writer’ to ’One of Our Sports Writers’ would suffice. Six months downgrading should be long enough to gauge exactly where responsibilities lay in this matter, or at least until we can all be absolutely sure there is nothing for us to get too overheated about here and a genuine error was in fact made, NO more, NO less.

All sounds fair and above board to me, which probably means I shouldn’t hold my breath getting this type of early Sunday morning closure and merely wait for the anticipated flood of Hayward diatribe on JT in the next week or two. I’m ready and waiting, if he does, as expected. Another half-baked apology or excuse wont wash next time. So be warned, as Harry Enfield once famously said… ’Oi you, Hayward, NO!!’

[Backbiter]

Interesting.

Hayward is a disgrace when it comes to Chelsea. Take this on our victory over Barca in the SF:

Chelsea may be renegades – but they are our renegades, assuming you take a nationalistic view of European football and support England’s representatives, irrespective of which badge they wear.

Yet many at home chose not to for this sulphurous second-leg, citing the intern-shooting Ashley Cole, Didier Drogba’s play-acting and Terry generally as reasons to support the fading Barcelona......

....there were few home fires burning for a side who began to display fighting spirit as soon as Andre Villas-Boas was purged by Abramovich.

...By some brief counter-attacking miracle Ramires then appeared at the other end to seize an away goal.

Terry’s sending off will only deepen the sense that power has corrupted some of those to whom the owner has been most loyal.

Chelsea offered almost nothing to the sum of human enjoyment beyond the Ramires goal.

Before that was this on our comeback v Napoli:

Roman Abramovich strode across the pitch on Wednesday night high-fiving like a man vindicated. If only it were so simple. Chelsea’s owner was certainly the beneficiary of his team’s rousing comeback against Napoli, but he was also its victim, because the transformation he authorised by hiring Andre Villas-Boas was stopped by a counter-coup.

Identified, in the wake of AVB’s sacking, as the source of the malaise, the old guard paraded themselves as Chelsea’s saviours. You had to admire the chutzpah of John Terry, who sounded every inch the manager at Tuesday’s press conference while attempting to assure his audience that he is not, in fact, the manager.

Simply: the players promoted by Villas-Boas were not of the match-winning quality displayed by the old Rat Pack. Terry and Co knew this, and when Napoli rolled into Stamford Bridge they grabbed the chance to put all the furniture back just the way they like it. Did any victorious Chelsea player really care about “English football?†They were not flag-bearers for their league or nation. The aim was to win the battle with Abramovich and stop the clear-out before it could really start.

His blindness was apparent with this ludicrous description of Malouda's calamity at home to Arsenal in the 5-3 defeat:

As Florent Malouda played a simple back-pass, Terry's studs slipped through the turf and Van Persie swooped

And a tweet last week:

Agree that John Terry should never have been a candidate to go to Euro 2012, despite presumption of innocence. This was an accident waiting.

Utter tosser.