Wycombe Wanderers Monthly Review Articles
Hi everyone,
First of all, what a result today. Unbelievable performances all round!
Thought now was a good time to introduce to you the monthly reviews of Wycombe I will be doing throughout the season. I have been a Wycombe fan for 14 years now and am looking to get into football writing and the media.
If you could just have a read each month and let me know what you think/comment on the posts your thoughts on the month that would be great. Also open to any other suggestions of Wycombe related content you might be interested in seeing in the future.
Below is the link to the page. Any comments are much appreciated.
Cheers, Fred
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Comments
Hey @fredk333,
I wish you well for your efforts in getting into a sports writing career. Here are a few thoughts, meant as constructive analysis. Hopefully nothing sounds too petty! I really appreciate you sharing this!
1 - "Despite going a goal down and being under some serious first half pressure, the Blues held on and took a point from the game, thanks to a brilliant volley from Akinfenwa."
The flow of logic would make more sense here (to me) if the equalizer was introduced before the phrase "the Blues held on". As it is, it is Held On + Took Point + Equalizer, whereas it might flow better to be Equalizer + Held On + Took Point?
2 - "This game was followed by the Chairboys first home league win of the season. A first half penalty from Joe Jacobson was followed by Akinfenwa’s third goal in as many games and despite Burton pulling one back, Wycombe held on to gain a much needed three points."
For the above, to me it might read better if Burton were introduced as the opponent earlier, giving the game more introductory context as a background to the goals. It could also be good to separate the paragraphs for each game, possibly?
3 - _"The month had started well for the club and they will have been hoping to keep this good run of form going when they were faced with an away day at the Ricoh Arena, home to Coventry City. A cagey contest was decided by a late Conor Chaplin header and Wycombe left the West Midlands with nothing.
Despite this defeat, Wycombe were no doubt beginning to make some noise in League One and the following weekend’s home game against Scunthorpe provided exceptional levels of ‘noise’."_
For the above, "they will have been hoping" (which reads as though written from current perspective, with the game not yet played) might read better as "they would have been hoping". Also, the paragraphs might well be combined, as "Despite this defeat" would belong to the preceding game description. If separating the paragraphs, it might be better to say "Despite the defeat at Coventry..." Also, this is really subjective, but the statement about us starting to make some noise in League One despite the defeat might be more apt after the Wallsall loss, which came after three wins in four, rather than the Coventry loss, which came after a draw and only our second win of the season. In fact, it could be a good point of summary for the entire month, despite the negative result in the last game?
4 - The introduction of the Scunthorpe game is again at the end of a paragraph, with the description of the game starting in a new paragraph. This feels a little abrupt (again, jsut my opinion).
5 - "Curtis Thompson also put in some brilliant performances throughout the month to give Ainsworth a real headache."
Maybe for the above, clarify this as a selection headache? As it is, he could just dislike Thompson doing well!
Besides the above points, maybe just a touch more colour to each game would add a lot. For instance, mentioning Allsop's dramatic late miss at Coventry, or Kashket taking the penalty instead of JJ at Wallsall and subsequently missing, only for Samuel to pounce on the rebound, would really add to the interest. I say this in part, because your strongest match for descriptiveness is (to my mind) the Scunthorpe game, where the three Wycombe goals are so well summarized as "A 27th minute screamer from Dom Gape" "Fred Onyedinma produced a sublime curling effort into the top corner" and "A long ball wasn't dealt with by the Scunthorpe defence and Craig Mackail Smith nipped in and slotted home" - these are so well done because they summarize the goals in a highly visual manner, so that, without seeing them, the reader at least gets some idea of the type of goal, and is engaged in the narrative more. I would say this works well not just for our goals, but even the opponents goals (at times). I suppose it depends to some degree on how much you want to elaborate, but goal descriptions (along with any other notable incidents) are so much more interesting than just noting who scored and when. If all the games, goals and incidents were described as you did with the goals against Scunthorpe, it would really elevate the entire article.
Again, thank for sharing (it is pleasant to review such a successful month for the Chairboys!), and my points are well intended, so forgive me if anything comes across as too nit-picky. It takes some guts to put yourself out there creatively, and I hope you are able to achieve your goals!
Cheers!
I thought that was a very good review. I agree with @Shev about the insertion of “selection” before headache in relation to Curtis Thompson’s impressive performances and the description of CMS’s winner against Scunthorpe could have been more specific insofar as (from memory) he was only a few yards into the Scunthorpe half when he robbed the defender of the ball which bounced quite high and was controlled by two headers by CMS whilst in full flight and bearing down on the advancing ‘keeper before slotting home. Something along those lines.
Good luck with your future endeavours.
Thank you very much for your feedback @Shev . Means a lot that you took the time to read and review it in such detail. Will have a proper look through your points and make some changes!
Will post it up on here each month if you ever fancy a read.
Thank you @micra also.
No worries @fredk333 - it says a lot that you are willing to listen to others opinions. I shall certainly look forward to the next monthly summary!
@fredk333 Nice work, and I will not dissect as skilfully as the mighty @Shev but a few little things that struck me. I would assume as it's a Wycombe review that your readers are largely going to be Wycombe fans so perhaps you don't need to mention Wycombe so much? I know you're possibly aiming at a wider readership but you are obviously a fan and it's your blog so you don;t have to be objective which means there's nothing wrong with a bit of 'us' and 'we' and perhaps a bit more description ( as per micra's suggestion with regard to CMS's goal...which was great and perhaps needed a more fullsome write-up) but as you go on you'll probably get into the swing. You sometimes state things as fact, which others (especially on the Gasroom!!!) might disagree with so Thompson might have put in some good performances IN YOUR OPINION that you would imagine would give Gareth a headache.
(If that makes sense! ) Good luck with that meeja career. It's a tough business, but you write well, you just need to put a bit more of your own character/style in it. Tick! Tick! VG. Ever onwards.