Jeremy Alexander's e-mail address please

[surreystokie]

...as my letter was returned. Thanks.

[TheWiseMaster]

Monica

I emailed the sports editor att JA

Go to the website and there is an option to respond to the article

[stokebill]

Link to report here, but I can't see an email address at a glance.

Did notice his chalkboard though, which I missed first time around.

"It's not what we're led to believe, but most of Rory Delap's long throws pay no dividend whatsoever. Boro switched off at their peril, however"

Match of the Day highlighted just how dangerous the throw's were on Saturday. If we scored from every Delap throw, Jeremy, we would have won the league by now.

www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/mar/23/stoke-city-middlesbrough-premier-league

[PerCyfilth ....Captains Log]

Not the first Time this bell end has slagged us off.
Football
Premier League
Stoke escape tight spot after the Windass sideshowDigg it Guardian report Observer report Match facts
Premier League
Stoke City 1 Fuller (pen) 73
Hull City 1 King 45

Jeremy Alexander at the Britannia Stadium The Guardian, Monday 1 December 2008 Article history
Ricardo Fuller equalises from the penalty spot for Stoke City. Photograph: Carl Recine/Action Images

Tony Pulis called Hull "a breath of fresh air" on Friday. Any air might seem fresh beside Stoke's. A swirling mist deliberated whether to do the decent thing and draw a shroud over proceedings. In the end Hull emerged through thick and thin with their third draw running. Stoke's point was their first coming from behind. Partisans were content. No one could rightly be happy. Both managers were chirpy.

The equaliser came from a penalty that Pulis described as "debatable from one angle, clear from another". Phil Brown felt "robbed by a theatrical dive and poor decision ". Such is perspective. Either way it was Route One going nowhere. Mamady Sidibe headed on Thomas Sorensen's punt, Ricardo Fuller stretched to beat Boaz Myhill and, as the ball ran on, "felt contact on my trailing leg". There was no point in chasing. It was Stoke's fourth penalty of the season, the third converted. Seven goals have come from Rory Delap's throws, only five have come otherwise.

The throws are a running gag; they are also a plot line. Their threat is an undue influence on defenders. Several times Hull landed themselves in trouble for fear of conceding one. Myhill, sold short by a backpass, juddered in terror before hacking the ball for a preferable corner. George Boateng played Sam Ricketts into trouble on the by-line, Sidibe tackled and crossed and Fuller sliced a sitter wide. When the throws did come in - 12 in all - Hull were rock-solid ready. "I was proud of my defenders today," said Brown. "Michael Turner has been concussed for three days. That was an England performance."

Dean Windass had his own answer to the throws. For the fifth the substitute did his touchline limbering-up where Delap was preparing to deliver. For the sixth he was booked for it. Marlon King, scorer of Hull's goal, said: "It was not part of the plan. The manager said everyone's got to try and stay on the field." Getting booked off it was not mentioned.

"He's a man that has been red-carded three times in one game," said Brown. "Anything can happen with Dean Windass." Coincidentally the goal derived from it. Hull cleared the throw and broke, Andy Griffin fouled Dean Marney on half-way and, from the free-kick, Turner and Marney won headers for King to blast in. On an afternoon of blank verse the justice was poetic.

Brown had something to say on Delap's ritual. "From minute one we were getting told to hurry up our goal-kicks yet he took 30 to 35 seconds with every throw-in coming from left wing to right. He didn't bust a gut and then, when he got there, he made sure his nail varnish was right and all the rest of it." It was almost true. Delap had a girl with a red towel waiting for him. Neither was available to Hull. The towel changed ends at the interval, but Hull had the last laugh on that, too. In injury time, when they had settled for the draw, Paul McShane called for the towel in his own half, dried ball and hair and threw short.

"We came to play better football than we did," said Brown after they had played the only football on show. Geovanni took his buffeting without complaint and was thoroughly involved. Ian Ashbee always gave his defence an easy way out whereas Stoke's back four almost invariably played long. Brown acknowledged that Stoke play to their strengths. Those strengths, while legal, just happen not to be footballing.

Their fans, notorious on the road, noisier than any at home, evidently like it. Crowds have risen from under 17,000 when they gained promotion last season to over 27,000 this. But theirs is a negation of the game that presumed to appropriate the prefix "beautiful".

Like Wimbledon two decades ago, they ask awkward questions. They are a ceramic pot with a chip on its shoulder, that is probably beyond repair. Periodically an advert rolled up on the touchline saying: "Lunch with the Legends. Limited availability." It was unclear whether it was the lunch places or legends that were limited. Stanley Matthews is gone. Delap?

Man of the match Michael Turner (Hull)

[serpico]

It's a awful hit piece, he should perhaps take into consideration the huge gulf in the cost of our team compared to that of Middlesboro's before writing such a horrible hatchet job, perhaps he wants us to play more like west brom, which is essentially surrendering by playing to your opponents strengths rather than your own.

[surreystokie]

TWM, what on earth is ATT JA?! And stokebill, you can't see it at a glance? Neither can I see it, after 1000 glances at the Guardian website.

Can't anyone who has not had their e-mail returned, simply write his or their sports' editor's e-mail address on here?

[FullerMagic]

www.sportsjournalists.co.uk/blog/?p=1738

According to that website, it's [e-mail]

[deliasmith]

Monica:

www.guardian.co.uk/gu_contacts/0,,180767,00.html

[surreystokie]

Many thanks. All for the sake of a dot!

[hchpotter]

Good luck Monica. For what it's worth I sent my thoughts to the sports letters page:

Dear Sirs,

Jeremy Alexander may not like Stoke City but surely he is employed to report impartially on the games you pay him to watch.

In his report on last Saturday's match v Middlesbrough his condescending tone in his descriptions of the Stoke City team, the manager, the club's supporters, and even an inexperienced centre half's post match Radio Stoke interview was entirely consistent with his report earlier in the season on the Stoke v Hull game. Such consistency betrays a worrying lack of impartiality.

Whist it may be true that Stoke are not the most attractive team to watch might that not be because our starting 11 cost roughly the same as Middlesbrough's replacement striker, Alves?

With a modest budget, and despite predictions that Stoke would "do a Derby," Pulis has guided Stoke to 8 home victories and the club proudly sits above the aesthetically pleasing West Bromwich Albion and Middlesbrough, as well as established premiership giants Newcastle United and Blackburn Rovers (oh, where did all those millions go?). Even the dashing, thrilling, brave Hull City are a mere one point better off than the "philistine Potters".

And the supporters? Given little to sing about for 70 minutes on Saturday they were truly magnificent. Without songs as crude as perennial Premiership favourites such as"Who the f**k are Man United?" or "Who's that lying on the runway?", and without resorting to the jeering of their own players (which has become a phenomenon amongst established Premiership teams worthy of comment by Fabio Capello), Stoke City's supporters simply turned up the volume and inspired their team to a crucial victory.

I have a reporter's pad and a biro. I even have a laptop. If you need lazy journalism lacking impartiality for Stoke's next home match report please let me know. I'll send you in a report for half of Jeremy's wage. Yeah, definitely.

Yours faithfully,

Tim Haynes

[PerCyfilth ....Captains Log]

Mar 24, 2009 13:52:13 GMT @stokebill said:

Link to report here, but I can't see an email address at a glance.

Did notice his chalkboard though, which I missed first time around.

"It's not what we're led to believe, but most of Rory Delap's long throws pay no dividend whatsoever. Boro switched off at their peril, however"

Match of the Day highlighted just how dangerous the throw's were on Saturday. If we scored from every Delap throw, Jeremy, we would have won the league by now.

www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/mar/23/stoke-city-middlesbrough-premier-league

Compare that drivel to the report by Stuart Barnes (Observer report) on the same link and you would imagine they hadnt been in the same ground.