Thursday, November 13, 2008

The Sports Personality of the Year - donwendyagain

So here we are once again, that time of year when thoughts are turned to those brave souls who strived to brighten our lives with their sporting endeavour throughout the year. The BBC's campaign to suck us in is well under way and gathering momentum but we all know it will be the same saccharine sweet mixture of middle of the road commentary and glossy vacuous excrement that they serve up year after year without fail. But there is another way.

Instead of voting for the Olympic heroes, who achieved much in the heat of battle but delivered so little in terms of personality, perhaps we should be looking for an entertainer as opposed to a winner. Someone who delivers where it matters most, someone with the ability to make us laugh, cry, despair and rejoice all at the same time. After all the award has form as many of the past recipients have taken the prize on the back of that strangely British phenomenon... successful failure.

So this year I would like to consider someone who has shown that they have what it takes to fail consistently and could quite rightly be considered as one of the greatest successful failures of our time yet has retained the ability to entertain us every step of the way. Step forward Joey Barton.

He is a man who has comes with a wonderful back catalogue of crimes and misdemeanours. He is a man who knows how to court controversy and he is a man who knows how to make friends. In short this is a man who knows how to keep himself in the public eye and his cheeky personality makes him one of those players that you just love to loathe.

He has recently been released back into the community in the care of that greatly respected man of the people Joe Kinnear who will no doubt take Joey under his wing, show him the error of his ways and teach him the value of respect. The fruits of the budding relationship between this real life Obi Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker have not been slow in coming.

Having personality is all well and good, I hear you cry, but what about his sporting ability? Well it is true that his time on the pitch has been limited by Her Majesty's Pleasure but it is equally true that when Joey takes the time to focus on his craft he is a pretty tasty player.

But as we all know it’s an award for personality and Joey Barton has more personality in his little toe than the entire Olympic squad has in their combined bodies. So when you are considering who to vote for this year take a moment to consider someone who has faced real troubles, someone who keeps his head held high and someone who is a proven fighter...I give you Joey Barton.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don - you didn't much care for mine, but I like this. It's much better than Blogger B's rather unpleasant piece and is enhanced by links.

I suspect they didn't get whether you're for real or piss-taking, but I think that's a big plus.

Anyway - thanks for it and better luck next time.

donwendyagain said...

Thanks MOTM, I wasnt all that happy with it myself. Mostly because I dint start on it until 11pm on Monday night and it was a serious rush job. The wife is a teacher and was told last Friday that OFSTED were inspecting this week so my internet priveleges were revoked until late on Monday night.

I was harsh on blogger A (you) & C, mostly because I had a bad day at work and because even with my rushing I reckon my piece, with it's myriad imperfections, pissed on blogger B's piece and it hacked me off something chronic.

I was going to do a piece on Padraig Harrington, who is criminally left out of the SPOTY discussions everywhere I have looked (back to back majors! If Justin Rose had done it they would be erecting statutes) but there is no way I could have done him justice in the hour I had at my disposal so instead I went for Joey and it practically wrote itself. Most of my time was spent setting up the links.

Anyway, sorry for being a bit harsh on your piece and good luck to you as well.

Anonymous said...

No problem Don. Just glad to have had this to amuse me and convince me that my first impression of Blogger B as being not quite at the mark was right.

offsideintahiti said...

Hey, I'm blogger B!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bwScltJ1hOA&feature=related

donwendyagain said...

Sorry offie, just my opinion. :)

Anonymous said...

donwendy,
since I support a side they all love to hateI applaud your choice of a gutter candidate like Barton; obviously the SPOTY establishment (and SPOTY-establishment wannabes like GU hacks) would avoid him like the plague.
A teacher, eh? Poor you! Mrs. Greengrass is married to one of them.

Allout said...

Don

I preferred your piece last week. Barton was a bit too obvious IMHO as the "anti-candidate" and he has clearly some serious issues so is best left to himself.

I can't fault the quality of writing though and this, together with last week's piece, has definitely shown you have a distinct and readable writing style. I would have preferred to read about Harrington though!

donwendyagain said...

Allout, I preferred my piece last week as well. With an openish remit and more time on my hands this week you may just get that piece on Harrington and several others to boot.

Joey was the obvious choice but that was the whole point.

donwendyagain said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

A shamelessly bltant rip-off of MarcelaProust's original idea and a pale immitation of what Marcie's would have been like.

donwendyagain said...

It's just a pity for us all then that Ms Proust didn't have the 'balls' to have a go herself.

Anonymous said...

donwendyagain

I didn't have enough time to write anything on the SPOTY theme. Although, as you obviously noticed, I suggested on the GU blog which announced it as that week's Big Blogger theme that Joey Barton would be my subject.

I did, however, as you will have already noticed by now, manage to find time, after a much needed couple of hours in the pub on Sunday night, to write a piece for Big Blogger week 3.

And here it is, one of the three, from one hundred entries, to have been selected by the judging panel.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/nov/21/big-blogger-week-3-sportblog

Tweet it, digg it