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Regional editors join backlash over Sun’s Hodgson splash

The editors of England boss Roy Hodgson’s hometown papers have joined a growing backlash against The Sun’s coverage of his appointment.

The red-top greeted the news of the West Brom manager’s surprise elevation with a “cruel” front page yesterday mocking his inability to pronounce his Rs.

But it sparked an immediate backlash from football fans and fellow journalists alike with several regional editors among those voicing criticisms.

Now the Press Complaints Commission is to investigate after receiving more than 100 complaints.

News chiefs at Croydon-born Hodgson’s two hometown weeklies were among those who hit out at the Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid.

Croydon Advertiser editor Editor Glenn Ebrey said: “We rather tire of Kate Moss being dubbed Croydon’s most famous export so it is wonderful to see a great man like Roy Hodgson doing our town proud.

“No paper reflects the public mood more accurately than The Sun but I think they’ve judged this one poorly. No wonder so many people see the England manager’s job as a poisoned chalice.”

Meanwhile Matthew Knowles, assistant editor of the rival Croydon Guardian, made his own views known in a strongly-worded post on Twitter.


Further afield, the top-selling national daily also came in for criticism from Northern Echo editor Peter Barron.

In a blog post he compared the move to its notorious ‘Bonkers Bruno’ headline about former boxing champion Frank Bruno in 2003.

“Say what you like about The Sun but, more often than not, it gets it spot on in terms of its target market.  But when it gets it wrong it gets it badly wrong,” he wrote.

“This morning’s Sun front page, ridiculing Roy Hodgson’s speech impediment, is another misjudgement. It’s not funny, it’s not clever and it’s not right.”

The Football Association said it had raised the matter with the newspaper although it is not making a formal complaint.

Chairman David Bernstein said: “We are delighted at the media response to Roy’s appointment but are disappointed with the headline in The Sun, which we consider is in poor taste and disrespectful.”

Even one of The Sun’s former editors, David Yelland, joined in the chorus of disapproval.

He wrote on Twitter:  “So little compassion for Roy Hodgson today, bullying language, pointlessly cruel, pointlessly hurtful.”

22 comments

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  • May 3, 2012 at 9:06 am
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    Yet the Sun insists we all had a sense of humour failure and it was just a joke. Hmmm….

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  • May 3, 2012 at 9:57 am
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    The joke is on them, yet another step downward for the Sun. Lets just hope they keep pressing the self destruct button and its not long until the paper becomes less popular than its owners. Good news for sensible local news providers, well done to them.

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  • May 3, 2012 at 10:01 am
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    A joke needs to be funny. This wasn’t. It was crass.

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  • May 3, 2012 at 10:10 am
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    It’s surprising how many television and radio presenters ,including weather forcecasters cannnot pronounce their Rs! Nothing but weports about wain, wain, wain. But it’s to the credit of their employers they can still get work and do a good job as broadcasters.
    The media obsession with England managers having to be good with the media is a bit facile. Winning matches matters more to real football fans than dishing up easy quotes to lazy reporters.

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  • May 3, 2012 at 10:10 am
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    The confidence of Sun staff seems shot from what I hear on the grapevine. Making such a naff headline mistake on the appointment of the new England manager isn’t going to help matters. In fact, it will just be more ammunition for the tabloid-hating, humourless lefties who want to close down papers like The Sun. Now that would be a real disaster.

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  • May 3, 2012 at 10:19 am
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    You’d really think the Sun would be erring on the side of caution given all that’s going on at the moment, but what they’ve done is to stick two fingers up at everyone whilst carrying on regardless. As usual, Their actions reflects on the responsible press that are getting tarred with the same brush as comics like that during a time where the future of the freedoms of the press are actually being discussed.

    I used to have a fair respect for the tabloids but they’ve declined into daily comics.

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  • May 3, 2012 at 10:24 am
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    About as funny as a Michael McIntyre joke. Idiots!
    What do you expect from a pig, but a grunt.

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  • May 3, 2012 at 10:51 am
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    You lot have clearly lost your sense of humour. No doubt the PC brigade are now running the country. Still, they are selling 3 million a day, as regional paper sales drop and drop and drop.

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  • May 3, 2012 at 10:57 am
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    He seems a decent bloke. At least build him up before you knock him down. Daily Mail splash was far more interesting today.

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  • May 3, 2012 at 11:19 am
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    Sorry, folks, but you’re just joining in the latest craze of having a go at the Sun – and in somewhat of a Pooterish manner to boot.

    This splash is light-hearted and comical but nothing more. Do we know what Roy himself thinks? That’s the key. If he’s not bothered then neither should you be.

    These days there’s a peculiar modern habit among people, especially of the internet fraternity, of taking offence on someone else’s behalf almost hourly. It’s an odd way of living vicariously, I suppose.

    I remember a very funny Private Eye front page mocking Roy Jenkins in similar fashion. It wasn’t mean or nasty. It was just funny.

    That is the key at times to a good front page.

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  • May 3, 2012 at 11:22 am
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    Very disappointed in The Sun’s crassness – just sets up lots of other individuals, including schoolchildren, for similar taunting.

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  • May 3, 2012 at 11:28 am
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    But the Sun ‘joke’ is not funny. It’s snide and cheap

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  • May 3, 2012 at 11:37 am
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    It’s not the actual poking fun at Roy I’m taking issue with – it’s the fact that the Sun are playing with fire at a time when the press is under the spotlight and headlines like that are bound to cause offence somewhere. Personally, I couldn’t give a stuff about taking the p*ss out of his speech.

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  • May 3, 2012 at 11:42 am
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    Pedrowe, Suedehead.
    The point is it was just cheap AND an old joke. We’ve all had that joke at Woy’s expense. Nothing to get worked up about, just that if that is all the most imaginative newspaper in Britain can come up with it reflects poorly on them. It shouldn’t be front page news anyway, that’s what sports pages are there for! That’s as sad as the angle they’ve taken.

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  • May 3, 2012 at 11:52 am
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    I wonder how many of the above would be on the first train to Wapping if offered a job. Hmmm.

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  • May 3, 2012 at 11:55 am
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    There’s a difference between playground fun-poking and genuine humour, and the Sun doesn’t seem to know the difference. Neither, apparently, do its 3 million readers, which may be one of the reasons why we have the government we have today.

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  • May 3, 2012 at 12:09 pm
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    Bad taste and just rubbish!
    The second point is the most important thing!
    Did they think their readers was would think it was hilarious!
    It was the sort of front page a bunch of 15-year-old numpties would come up with!

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  • May 3, 2012 at 1:04 pm
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    It’s just some lazy dimwit on the backbench setting the scene for a series of ‘witty’ one-liners to be shared by news and sport when England fail again, look out for:
    ‘WOY: WE WAS WOBBED!’, ‘WOY’S HATWICK’ and WOTCHCA! …you get the picture

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  • May 3, 2012 at 2:19 pm
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    Remember WOY Jenkins, the Labour Home Secretary?
    Don’t remember anyone getting quite so hot under the collar about him.
    The Sun has form in this area. GOTCHA wasn’t in the best of taste, either, was it – especially as 350 Argie sailors went down with the Belgrano.
    Of course the Hodgson headline was in poor taste. But The Sun specialises in poor taste. If its readers were noted for good taste, they wouldn’t be buying The Sun, would they?

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  • May 3, 2012 at 3:13 pm
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    Now if the Sun had done a splash headline that same day along the lines of: Woopert Not Fit and Pwoper!

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  • May 4, 2012 at 11:05 am
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    No time for the Sun, but a bit of perspective here. When impressionists such as Rory Bremner perform they do this by accentuating the mannerisms, tics and speech patterns of their candidate. That’s how we recognise who it is.
    It’s the same for some of our best cartoonists, who greatly accentuate features such as long noses, sticky-out ears or small eyes to bring to life their target.
    The Sun’s effort comes across as a naff and pointless impression, but then they’ve been off the boil for a while.

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