The comments following Mike Sheahan's (sort of) retirement have got me thinking that we are in dire need of better quality sportswriters covering footy in this country. Writers with their own unique style and flair for language whose columns you actually look forward to flicking the page to on a particular day.

Have a read of this opinion piece by a writer named Barney Ronay in London's The Guardian on the recent sacking of Sunderland manager, Steve Bruce. Just brilliant.

http://www.guardian....s?newsfeed=true

I know we see the odd flash of excellence from Martin Flanagan, but surely we can do better than our staple diet of Mark Robinson and Robert Walls.

Entertaining article. How would it be if an AFL writer could give written descriptions on Sheedy such as that ? That, I would read.

ie.

  Quote

Bruce Sheedy had long ago dwindled into little more than a head that sometimes loomed out of your television complaining about things: familiar, likable, a head that might in another life have belonged to a prosperous family butcher with a secret, but still essentially a head that complained.

Mike Royko from the past.

Grantland from the present.

ESPN has some great in-house writers.

Michael Lewis (Moneyball) writes great articles - The kick is up, and it's a career killer.

"Lawdy, Lawdy, He's Great"

Sports Illustrated: Caddyshack 30 years on.

Completely agree. Sport's Illustrated writes some fantastic stuff. Australia has nothing quite like it.

As a former journo (brief stint) and a once aspiring sports writer (a few published pieces), I must say it's a hard caper to break into despite the relative lack of talent reporting for the major dailies.

Certainly room for a good group.

  On 05/12/2011 at 05:03, Tony Tea said:

Mike Royko from the past.

Grantland from the present.

ESPN has some great in-house writers.

Michael Lewis (Moneyball) writes great articles - The kick is up, and it's a career killer.

Thanks for the links. Some very entertaining reading.

I think someone local with a lot of potential is former Hawthorn player Tim Boyle. Has written some very insightful stuff in The Age and not just on football.

  On 05/12/2011 at 04:29, Range Rover said:

The comments following Mike Sheahan's (sort of) retirement have got me thinking that we are in dire need of better quality sportswriters covering footy in this country. Writers with their own unique style and flair for language whose columns you actually look forward to flicking the page to on a particular day.

Too bloody right RR, couldn't agree more. What about the Jon Ralph generation of getting their news off twitter and BigFooty? Or Kimbo Hagdorn making stuff up completely? I've said a few times on here that there's a market niche out there for genuine quality sports journalism. No news flashes, no big scoops, just good quality, in depth articles. I loved the Martin Flanagan articles when he spent time with the club, but sadly there's just not enough of that type of stuff around.

  On 05/12/2011 at 08:04, Range Rover said:

Thanks for the links. Some very entertaining reading.

I think someone local with a lot of potential is former Hawthorn player Tim Boyle. Has written some very insightful stuff in The Age and not just on football.

Good call, I went to school with him - he's a top bloke and a really smart bloke.

But I don't think it's necessarily what he wants to do beyond his current level of output.

The reason that Flanagan is so good is that he's a writer, rather than just a journalist / reporter. He has the time to really research and understand his subject matter, rather than just churn out 300 words on deadline.

As has been mentioned on another thread somewhere, Brent Crosswell used to write some really good pieces for the Age back in the 80's. I'm pretty sure Supermercado even dug a few out on microfilm which he posted on here..

Patrick Smith sometimes turns out some good copy, although he does polarise those who read him and you tend to either love or loathe him.

Garrie Hutchinson was probably up there with the best of them too - there are published collections of his footy stories - although, like Flanagan, he was a writer rather than a reporter.

John Harms is a really good sports writer. Tragic cats fan! His book 'play on' is a great read, a compilaion of three books, one about growing up as a cats fan in country Queensland during the 80's, another about horse racing and the nags they had running around the bush and the third is about following the Ashes Tour around the country in a beat up Camira.

Humorous and heartwarming.

Other than that Martin Flanagan and then daylight...

I used to enjoy Geoff Slattery in The Age many years ago before he joined the AFL to do Footy Record and then restaurants and his self titled publishing company.

Les Carlyon has written many fine articles; even though many are on horse racing, which I have no interest in, I still read them.

Thanks for the links, folks, that's some good reading. As for Oz footy writers - it's a bit of a worry when Caro Wilson wins the Alf Brown Trpohy for Outstanding Media Performer ... unless Alf was known using 'weasel' words such as 'allegedly', 'supposed' and 'intimated'.

  On 06/12/2011 at 01:16, Tony Tea said:

Les Carlyon has written many fine articles; even though many are on horse racing, which I have no interest in, I still read them.

Carlyon is one of the finest writers going around, full stop. I'm in the middle of reading "The Great War" and it's just superb, on many different levels. I've got "Gallipoli" queued up next

Grantland is very good.

They had some great pieces when the Penn "we employ people who know that we employ a paedophile but meh" State stuff came out.

But, yeah, journalism is in a bad way.

  On 05/12/2011 at 05:03, Tony Tea said:

Michael Lewis (Moneyball) writes great articles - The kick is up, and it's a career killer.

Thanks for that. Insightful. Who'd be a kicker, hey ?