It was around 2pm on Monday that I learned I was a lifelong Tottenham supporter who was desperate to move to London.
This certainly came as a shock to someone who follows another club entirely and has no plans to leave the Midlands. I also lived and worked in London for nearly 20 years.
Apparently, Martin Keown knows otherwise. Responding to my report of Arsenal’s 1-0 win at Nottingham Forest, Keown was quoted on talkSPORT’s X account as saying ‘I’m told he’s a Spurs fan… a journalist in the West Midlands looking to move to London.’
His anger was sparked by this paragraph in the piece. ‘Fans are disillusioned by the ongoing saga and the wider game needs a spectacular team to celebrate. Sadly, where once we had Arsene Wenger’s Invincibles, we now endure Mikel Arteta’s Unwatchables.’
Piers Morgan had his say later – with one crucial difference. Morgan disagreed with the article in every way but at no point did he speculate on my reasons for writing it.
Responding to my report of Arsenal’s 1-0 win at Nottingham Forest, Keown was quoted saying ‘I’m told he’s a Spurs fan… a journalist in the West Midlands looking to move to London’
Do Arsenal have a duty to entertain? No, and I expect them to win the title this year. Yet with their current approach, they are unlikely to be remembered in the same way the Invincibles were, or the way some of Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United teams or the Liverpool sides of the 1980s were.
Keown was a fine player and is a thoughtful pundit. He won 10 trophies in a hugely successful career with Arsenal and watches their progress with a keen eye. He disagreed with my analysis that the Gunners under Arteta are a tough watch – no problem.
When a journalist writes a forthright article, they know that criticism will follow. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about’ or ‘What a load of rubbish’ – in the age of social media, these are some of the more polite responses.
Yet pundits should not try to guess why a journalist wrote a piece. A fair number of listeners might have heard that I was ‘a Tottenham fan’ and concluded I had written the piece because I was biased against Arsenal.
For the record, there are many Spurs fans in the media and none show bias, yet football is tribal and fans do not like their teams coming under attack.
That does not justify a pundit making statements – in this case incorrect – that could prompt listeners to doubt a reporter’s professionalism or credibility.
As always when we watch matches, we write about what we see. At Forest, I saw an Arsenal side put together at huge expense who registered a single shot on target, against a team who had yet to score at home this season and were without their best player.
In those circumstances, I thought they were disappointing and said so. But it will never be anything to do with the club I support – who, for the record, are not a member of the so-called big six, and nor do they play in London or the Midlands.
