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Coventry Telegraph reports Sky Blues fan "battered by Wycombe fans after final whistle"

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  • According to the all knowing aunt all he remembers is two men in hoodies asking if he had been to the game. I'm no Hercule Poirot but I don't think that's enough evidence to identify them as Wycombe

  • Oh dear, I hope our more excitable supporters haven't been suckered by this young lady. Provoke them a bit, try to get them to be abusive, and then with a bit of selective editing tomorrow she gets to run another story "heroic innocent Herald (or whatever this rag is called) journalist suffers horrendous abuse online from football yobs'" and wwfc well-earned good reputation gets destroyed by an ambitious unscrupulous journo. Bloody social media.

  • Which posts have you read to come to that possible scenario @DevC ?
    I saw one post to the Aunt I'd describe as abusive but this was there before the press report was written. Every thing else looks ok. Some questioning and some being sympathetic.

  • Purely comments here righty. I fear that's the story she is hoping to run. Hope nobody has been suckered.

  • Take a look on her Twitter feed and see what you think. To be honest it's the headline that is the worst bit and that's normally written by someone other than the reporter.
    It will be interesting to see what happens. I think the reporter should be bought to account but agree that social media might not be a good way to do it.

  • To call the lady who wrote the article a journalist or reporter is generous if you ask me; looking at her responses. Some third class graduate moron working for a crap local rag more like.

  • The nearest cemetery I can find is over 6 miles away from the Ricoh that's over an hours walk and headed away from the station.

  • The thing to bear in mind about the headline is the use of quotation marks around the allegation. It's as good as an admission that they don't know what's happened but have hedged their bets - if it turns out to be true, they're fine, if not, they're merely reporting what someone told them.

    Tabloids do this all the time - opinions as opposed to provable facts.

  • I say this apropos of nothing, but I attend a large number of games as a neutral all over the country and the only time I have ever felt intimidated was going to a Coventry match at the Ricoh in 2006 when I was approached on a narrow walk way but a group of youths demanding to know if I wad going to the game and who I supported.

  • I was, unfortunately, watching from the Cov end on Tuesday...certainly made me glad I was a Wycombe fan!

  • edited February 2017

    A quick bit of digging (slow work day) suggests there are 6 or 7 cemeterys in Coventry.
    There is one over the back of the ground, but the complete opposite side to where the coaches and cars are parked. Judging by my 'brief' exchange with the aunt, she's just a mouthy wum who has no clue what happened. Coventry isn't the sort of place i'd go walking on my own, so i can imagine it's a regular occurrence.

  • @arnos_grove Remarkable that she doesn't understand where the burden of proof lies. I suspect she will be sued for libel a few times in her short and unspectacular career.

  • Doubt it's worth suing someone who is probably on benefits.

  • Had a brief chat this afternoon with Antonia Bannister, the reporter who wrote the article, mainly to enquire whether anyone had been arrested and also to register my (and many other fans') concern that the good reputation of Wycombe fans was being besmirched, not least by the scurrilous reference in the headline to 'fans' when the article itself clearly referred to a single fan. As expected, she confirmed that someone else writes the headlines. She was also unequivocal about the extent to which reporters nowadays draw upon social media for their stories. No surprise there.
    Sadly, Ms Bannister told me that she had received a good deal of abuse from Wycombe fans.
    She confirmed that the police were dealing with the case but that it hadn't yet been "crimed". Not one of their top priorities I guess!
    I said that if it did transpire that a Wycombe 'fan' was responsible all genuine fans would be united in condemning such barbaric behaviour.

  • edited February 2017

    Blimey, first it was Dev asking Rushden and Diamonds fans for their opinion and now this. Don't you people know this forum is strictly for uninformed speculation only?

    Also photos of power stations.

  • Good work @micra . It's hard to be objective in the face of such shoddy journalism but I thought the headline writer was always different to the journalist at it is the headline that is the most inflamatory part of the story. I hope the journalist has the good sense to follow the story through but I fear that unless it comes through on Twitter she'll be on to the next bit of fake news.

    Would be interesting to know if the 'good deal' of abuse she claims is the stuff we can all read on Twitter if it relates to something else. I read through it all last night and unless things have changed since I thought the responses (barring one or maybe two) were fairly tame.

    I wonder what will be reported next time a 'Wycombe fan' batters someone that graveyard.

  • Well done @micra most of us were feeling frustrated and annoyed at that shoddy article but you made the call

  • Just wondering if anyone who contacted the journalist involved in writing this story had heard any more about whether the police made any progress or if any Wycombe fans were involved.

  • I certainly haven't but then she didn't ask for my name or number. Girls don't seem to these days!

  • You need to be more proactive Micra!

  • @micra, when a lot of our fans abuse our own players, for the "crime" of not playing well enough every game, it's no surprise they abuse someone who looks to be involved in making something out of nothing

  • Criticism of players is best left to the manager but try telling that to the yoofs!
    Observations about individuals being below par in a particular game or games are fair enough - e.g. I mentioned that PCH had clearly taken a knock - but......oh dear, I'm teaching granny to suck eggs.

    @mooneyman - chance'd be a fine thing!

  • The accusation was the story, The reporter didn't care whether there was any merit in it and no doubt has moved on to covering fun runs, litter hotspots, and all the other dross that people don't read in local media.

  • 'Battered?' sounds a bit fishy to me

  • ..but when the chips are down...

  • ..and feeling a bit tench..

  • Something smells about this story!

  • There's a rabbit away

  • I've been following this up (very slowly) and have today sent a complaint to the editor of the Coventry Telegraph over the way his paper have handled this 'story'. I also attached a response that I have written and invited him to publish it. I suspect he won't but you never know. I also sent a condensed copy of the same article in the hope that it might at least be printed in the letters section. I will also attach it as a comment to the original article if I still can.

    I will also send a copy of my response to the FSF, post a copy on the CCFC fans forum and it will also be in the next edition of The Wanderer. You can probably tell I'm quite irritated about this, but unfortunately due to a very busy period at work have only just had the time to do anything about it.

    I attempted to contact the reporter, Antonia Bannister, but she was unwilling to speak to me and instead passed me over to a colleague who did speak to me for some 20 minutes, but was both unhelpful and extremely condescending. He was also adamant that I was not to quote him on anything he said, which is a shame, but I must stay true to my word on that one.

    I contacted West Midlands Police to try and establish a time and location for the attack - as pointed out further up the thread, this appears to have taken place some distance away from the ground. Unfortunately, they told me no log could be found of the incident. Whether this means the crime was simply not logged or never even reported to the police, I'm afraid I don't know.

  • Sterling work on your part, Jonny King. I did at least get to speak to Ms Bannister but it wasn't a very constructive discussion. I had nothing much to report back except her comment that she had received a lot of abuse, allegedly from Wycombe fans. One person's abuse is another person's justifiable expression of irritation.
    I look forward to reading your article(s) in due course.

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