Manchester Evening News

[tommybooth]

Leave him alone. He is not able to come out this evening as he is squeezing his Zits, and mummy say's he has to be in bed by nine.

 

[Mike Keegan]

this made me laugh

Pete Marshall ‏@petemarshall7 1h
@MENnewsdesk Keyboard warriors out in force to attack @david_lynch88 Wonder how many would actually say some of that to his face?

id have to let my ten year old say it to his face only fair!

This is sounding more and more like a facebook / twitter exchange of a 12 year old. I'm not the biggest fan of the MEN but there are some good articles on there at times. Lynch has just come across as a kid trying to make a reputation for himself with an extremely poor story which if any editor at a reputable media outlet reviewed, would of kicked out instantly. Now they have the news desk tweeting almost subtle threats that if anyone challenged him face to face they would regret it. I almost think thats worse than the article itself.

Pete Marshall does not work for the M.E.N. - I think he was tweeting our newsdesk. Stu's article will be up shortly and I'd be amazed if it wasn't a total opposite to what went up earlier.

 

[erast fandorin]

I fucking knew that pleb Peter Marshall reminded me of something...

We would all say it to his face Pob, i mean Peter.

Come on now,we all know we'd all come unstuck if this nasty looking bastard is looking out for Lynch

 

[stony]

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/stuart-brennan-manchester-city-selling-6676806

Stuart Brennan: Man City are selling out and growing
5 Feb 2014 17:27

In response to a piece on the MEN website, Blues reporter Stuart Brennan has his say on the City's stadium expansion plans


A piece on the MEN website has caused some outrage by suggesting that the Etihad Stadium was a fair way short of capacity for the crunch match against Chelsea, and that this bodes ill for City's plans to expand the stadium to 60,000 in the next few years.

It was unfortunate that the claim came on the night when City announced that the match had attracted the biggest crowd of the season.

The game was sold out weeks in advance, understandably, as it as between the two favourites for the Premier League title.

I noticed a few empty seats in the Chelsea end, which surprised me, but given the distances involved, and that this was a Monday night, it was not entirely surprising.

But if there were significant areas of empty seats in the home areas, they were not evident to the naked eye on the night.

There may have been pockets of empty seats, but that does happen, especially at night matches, when season ticket holders who live some distance from the ground cannot get time off work, or kids have to be up for school in the morning, and so on.

It was also true on the night that kick off was almost delayed due to severe traffic problems. City's coach was delayed, and many others reported serious difficulties in getting to the stadium.

It is not beyond the realms of possibility that many of the empty seats were down to people abandoning their bid to get to the ground.

Whatever the reason, the fact remains that the seats were sold. That might jar on football purists, who like to see full grounds, but it is a fact of life in modern football that the stated attendance never matches the true attendance.

It is not lying or covering up, simply that clubs work off their ticket sales rather than counting how many individuals show up on the day, or night.

But it is ludicrous to suggest that City would forge ahead with plans to expand the stadium had they not done their homework on projected crowd figures.

The fact is that they are selling out for every home league game. What other figure do you need to justify plans to expand the stadium?

City are also turning into a global phenomenon, a process which has accelerate this season thanks to their brilliant, attacking football.

As happened at United and Liverpool, the club now caters for a growing demand for tickets from overseas – if you wander around the ground before matches, you will bump into many fans from all corners of the planet.

City's worldwide television audience is up 133 per cent since 2009, and almost half of the visitors to their website are from overseas.

City are growing, they are selling out regularly, and the odd empty seat is the exception rather than the rule.

It comes to something when a Manchester United fan has to rush out an article to defend City from a badly written, badly researched hatchet job from his own paper.
Fair play to Stuart, I wouldn't expect anything less, but the MEN can fuck off as far as I'm concerned. I will never buy or click on it's website again.

 

[johnny on the spot]

Wow, this is just like the end of 8 Mile. Except with local sports journalists instead of rappers.

 

[stuart brennan]

this made me laugh

Pete Marshall ‏@petemarshall7 1h
@MENnewsdesk Keyboard warriors out in force to attack @david_lynch88 Wonder how many would actually say some of that to his face?

More silly , inflammatory , childish , school playground type crap from the newsdesk of a supposedly professional organisation. Why is this Pete Marshall pillock getting involved .

l would imagine there's plenty of blues that would love the opportunity to say it to his face .

Can I just point out that Pete Marshall is nothing to do with the MEN - I don't know where one or two of you got that idea. He seems to be a former colleague/friend of David

 

[manchester blue]

Not sure what the law is on use of images commercially but I've already emailed City to ask for a ban and the sports editor of the MEN so I was on a roll...

From:
Date: Wed, 05 Feb 2014 17:41:23 +0000
To: <pictures@bbc.co.uk>
Subject: Use of BBC images.

Hi

The following pictures were reproduced by the Manchester Evening News in a derogatory article. I am making an enquiry to see if the Manchester Evening News has copyright permission to use your images commercially and if so do you want your images used in future publications which show the BBC in such a negative way. This article has caused a great deal of negative publicity for the city’s local paper and it would be a shame if, by implication, the BBC were seen to condone such use of images by this publication.

Regards

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/manchester-citys-failure-regularly-fill-6674975" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ ... ll-6674975</a>

 

[laserblue]

Fair play to Stuart Brennan for responding swiftly and factually to Lynch's appalling schoolboy snot flick at City but WTF were the MEN doing allowing this juvenile idiot to do that piece AND run with it. Lynch should be delivering papers not writing for them.

 

[Dogtanian]

That is just the most embarrassing piece i have ever read, oh dear me M.E.N.

 

[franksinatra]

I am as staggered at this article as the rest of you, and have made my views known to David and to our online operation, as have one or two other journalists.
In fact, I have just written a reply to David's article which is due to go online shortly - apologies in advance if it is misses any points, but it had to be done quickly.
All I can say is that David is entitled to his opinion.

What is his opinion exactly?

Within the article he makes reference to the fact the capacity is 47,805 and the crowd was below that figure highlighting we are unable to sell out. Then when you read his twitter messages he is covering up his lack of research trying to make out he is concerned that some fans are not turning up to games.

The fact is after ten years at the stadium a local journalist for the local paper has no understanding that a sell out to fans will fall under this number and then rights an article highlighting the empty seats, complete with red circles, without undertaking any research to check his facts before writing such an inflammatory article.

I would have more respect for him if he owned up and said 'sorry I thought the game was not sold out and was concerned due to the proposed extension' instead he takes to twitter and tries to cover up his lack of knowledge.

Lazy pathetic journalism.