Live blog coverage from Look Away Now. All the major incidents… as they happen!
11:21 Good morning everyone. Welcome to the first ever day of live coverage from Look Away Now. We'll be bringing you all the breaking news from your favourite blog as you go about your daily business. Eating a bagel? Too busy to read a whole thousand or so words? Fear not. Look Away Now will be… hang on a second.
11:24 Sorry about that, really needed a wee.
11:25 Where was I? Ah yes... Look Away Now will be bringing you live, unedited progress of its latest blog entry. Lucky you.
11:27 Don't forget, you too can get involved with our coverage today. Drop us text at the usual number, or get in touch via Twitter. This is all for you, remember.
11:32 Now then, down to business. Most of you reading this will be fans of what we lovingly term 'the beautiful game', following its highs and lows with anything from casual interest to rabid fetishism. But whatever your level of indulgence, the internet is here at your fingertips to drip feed you the knowledge you crave.
11:39 Now while the internet isn't exactly an exciting new dawn, I've been pondering one phenomena in particular, that of live text-based coverage – rolling, minute-by-minute, bite-sized accounts of various aspects of the game, be it a particular match, an impending transfer deadline or, as we witnessed recently, the voting procedure for a major event.
11:46 As a symbol of the footballing world getting smaller, you'd be hard pressed to find a better example. In many ways, 'as-it-happens' coverage has become the 21st century equivalent of staring through the window of Curry's on a Saturday afternoon trying to catch a glimpse of 'Final Score'. But what is the essence of this thing that makes us crave the interaction it provides?
@anfield_face_ache via Twitter: “The thing about live updates are that they bring me closer to what is really happening out there. It makes us deadhead plebeians feel accepted and wanted by the wider world, like our opinions actually matter or something. Which, of course, they don’t. Hodgson out!”
11: 53 BREAKING NEWS: Introduction Finished
Some solid work there after a shaky start (see 11:24). Let’s hope things heat up a little as the day progresses...
12:01 Feeling a bit peckish to be honest. Off to see what’s in the fridge… back soon.
12:04 Bacon! Result. Looks like sandwich time…
12:15 In one sense, providing interactive accounts of footballing matters as they occur is just an extension of good old-fashioned football journalism. Things happen and they're reported on – simple as that. What we're witnessing is an example of the narrowing of time and space as we perceive it, a notion synonymous with so may facets of our experience of the modern world, what social theorist David Harvey termed “time-space compression”. The sandwich was excellent, by the way.
@Redknapp’s Pocket Money via Twitter: “You know what I would have gone for on that bacon sandwich? Ketchup. Ketchup is clearly the only sauce up to the job.”
Sorry RPM, no dice. Brown sauce on bacon, ketchup on chips. That’s the rule. Always. Thanks for reading!
12:20 As mentioned a couple of months ago in this blog, the court case surrounding Liverpool's ultimately successful buyout by the NESV Group was given the live treatment, showing that this type of account has moved beyond the purely sporting. In recent weeks, the Guardian website has been offering an up-to-the-minute account of reaction to the Wikileaks scandal, in which thousands of diplomatic memos were unleashed online, with potentially grave/liberating consequences (depending on your political persuasion). This is as good an example as any of the rapidly altering nature of news reporting, with breaking details handed over in something scarily approaching real time.
12:25 The major problem is that once the template has been set, what happens when relevant information is suddenly at a premium? During a match itself there will always be a talking point: some minute tactical adjustment, say, which will add to the mental picture which the coverage is attempting to sketch in the reader's mind. But it's tougher to apply the same measure of intricate detail when events are reported third or even fourth-hand: a player heading for a medical or a vote being counted, for example; occurrences passed from reporter to reporter, then eventually to us. It's here that, for me, live coverage begins to lose some of its charm.
12:32 Suddenly found myself with a touch of writer's block. I'm not worried though.
12:40 I’m bored. Dangerously bored. Nothing much on the TV today. Whatever happened to 'Working Lunch'? Remember the goldfish in the title sequence? Wonder what happened to that little guy.
12:48 OK, starting to get a little worried now...
From JohnnyCroptop via text: “'Working Lunch' was cancelled in July 2010, replaced on BBC2 by 'GMT with George Alagiah'. Status of goldfish: unknown.”
This is the kind of feedback I’m looking for, people. Keep it up!
13:03 With the chance of actual action drying up, one of the key ingredients when it comes to knocking up some top-quality live coverage soup is a generous helping of reader interaction. Whilst admittedly occasionally responsible for some interesting remarks or thoughts, what this essentially amounts to is several hours of 140 character-based pub banter. Not that I’m anti-banter. On the contrary, I’ve engaged in it several times and I will openly admit that I’m a fan. But when it comes down to it, perhaps what I’m looking for from this type of interactive sports coverage is something approaching informed debate. Maybe I'm looking for too much, especially when most of the feedback is coming from people using such suspect monikers as “Rooney’s Fat Wallet”, “Captain Gooner” or “Henry Winter”.
13:04. Actually, that’s probably just Henry Winter.
13:09 But my point remains and, in stating as much, maybe I’ve accidentally stumbled across a wider angle of discourse. The internet, as a forum for discussion and debate, is clearly unparalleled and as such can easily be seen to have, if not replaced, then provided an attractive alternative to, more traditional methods of footballing discourse.
@Captain_Gooner via Twitter: “You got a problem with me, mate?”
Nope, no problem at all. Sorry C_G.
13:21 When ready-to-go material runs out, users are encouraged to create their own – be it via opinions, quips or rumours (see 13:03) – making live coverage a furthering of the do-it-yourself, user-generated content area of online culture. From Facebook and YouTube to blogs such as the one you're reading right now, content becomes inclusive by the very fact that it is created by those using it. However, the inevitable side effect of such a modus operandi is that the quality will fluctuate. Yet it occurs to me that what drives this forward isn't a desire for high quality product, but rather a want to be part of the process, to further incubate the notion that football is the property of the consumer – the fan – and should be theirs to celebrate and object to whenever and however they see fit. They say that football is a game of opinions, and this rings truer today than ever before.
@fickle_online_content_generator via Twitter: “Some interesting thoughts there, but how about a pop-culture reference or two to go with them?”
13:34 The Jam famously sang that the public gets what the public wants, a comment on the nature of workaday existence, and the easily-consumable product required for people to get on and get through, the sustenance needed to tame the ennui. With football more popular today than at any point in history, it could be argued that this sort of blow-by-blow coverage is simply satiating a prevailing need – to know and to be involved, perhaps to an almost voyeuristic level. The difference now is that we have the means to make it happen – a means that, once employed, will self-perpetuate its own importance.
13:38 Of course Weller and co also sang that the public wants what the public gets. If we didn't have this kind of coverage, would we miss it? Probably not, but you could justifiably say the same of any particular form, genre or item of popular entertainment out there.
From SusieTheHammer via text: “Hi Look Away Now, was gr8 meeting you at The Horse & Spatula last nite. We shud hook up, give me a call sumtime xx”
Er, hi Susie. Kinda busy right now... I'll be in touch x.
13:41 I probably won't be in touch.
13:43 Maybe what it does provide that cannot be knocked is the interaction it allows with the providers themselves. Twitter, as well as blogs of varying authorship, readership and standing, allow us unprecedented access to the minds of those giving us our information, but the as-it-happens phenomenon neatly formats this into something approaching actual conversation – a live chat, if you will, not with friends and family, but rather with those upon whom we rely for our football news and views. You could surely argue that this, on some level, keeps things healthy and honest, a move towards cleaning the filter through which all news, footballing or otherwise, is presented.
@stop_taking_things_so_seriously via Twitter: “But 'Cheesey', 'Stevo' and their ilk don't really have an agenda to push, do they? Surely they're just enjoying a bit of a chat whilst providing a much-loved service?”
13:48 That's a fair point. Football, like all good, (mostly) progressive things in life, has done its best to keep up with the needs of its clientèle. In terms of the fan experience we've seen the continued betterment of stadia and TV access (if you can afford them), but we've also witnessed a grassroots rising, the relentless ascent of the website and the forum, the phone-in and the FanZone, the blog and the podcast. In terms of being a further offering for enjoyment of the game on an interactive level, live coverage undoubtedly succeeds. Within the context of a world of increasingly impersonal social interactions, while it feeds off of this need, it at least does its best to feel friendly and inclusive in the process, two characteristics only a fool would attempt to discourage, whatever the subject or setting.
13:53 Time to start wrapping things up...
13:57 Well that's it folks, we're drawing towards the end of our coverage. I do hope you've enjoyed yourselves – thanks to all our tweeters and texters for making this a (hopefully) worthwhile experience. We'll be back sometime after Christmas... in the meantime, take care.
13:59 Forgot to put the wash on. ****.
~ Matt
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