Journalism, we are told, is constantly in crisis. Whereas once the idea was that a newspaper would cost the same as a cup of coffee, we now live in a world where people are willing to spend €5 on a Venti - whatever that means - Carmelized Honey Frappucino With Whipped Cream, Chocolate and Cinnamon and refuse to pay for a newspaper. (Obviously, this coffee seems to be 16 ounces of condensed diabetes, so best to order a Skinny version to keep you alive for long enough to buy another one).
As the print media dies, the only thing that will save it is if it makes itself as necessary and indispensable as the corporate coffees to which we are so hopelessly addicted to. Thankfully, Jonathan Liew of The Telegraph is here to crusade for modern journalism with a description of Sam Allardyce that is so utterly perfect and accurate that it makes us want to downgrade our coffee to a 'grande' and use the change to buy a paper.
Liew was tasked with filing a match report on Sunderland's victory over Norwich, and he opened the piece with a line that distills the essence of the complex character that is Big Sam into a single line:
Late contender for intro of the season.https://t.co/pmP0UEutc9 pic.twitter.com/FiBiN8B4fS
— Adam Hurrey (@FootballCliches) April 18, 2016
Absolutely superb. Liew has long swince been a master of match reports. Going back to 2014, when Kolo Toure imposed himself on Liverpool's 3-2 victory over Fulham as only Toure can - a comedy own goal followed by a truly hilarious collision with referee Phil Dowd - Liew had an evocative description of his performance:
To watch Toure for the rest of the half was strangely bathetic. For the most part, he was a quiet but grimly menacing presence, like an overflowing kitchen bin that everyone knows needs to be emptied sooner or later.
We think even Allardyce would approve of the intro. He has surely read it, we can't imagine Big Sam being overly fond of spending money on Pumpkin Spice Vanilla Lattes instead of a newspaper.
We urge you to read Liew's report on the Telegraph website here.
