Thursday, September 08, 2011

Give it the elbow

Wow, the BBC Sport website really doesn't like the US Open tennis. For the last couple of days they've been trumpeting "the latest humiliation" for the tournament (it was raining) and condemning it for being the only one of the four major tournaments not to have definitely said it was probably going to have a roof by 2016. And today they've really gone to town jeering at the continued water problems on one of the courts.

I'm trying to guess, by analysing the tirade of abuse, whether it's motivated just by professional jealousy because the BBC can't afford to show the tournament on telly, or whether there's a personal grudge. I think it's the latter - tournament referee Brian Earley has clearly done something in the past to upset BBC reporter Jonathan Overend, who's now getting his revenge by saying things like "He looks a total buffoon."

I wonder what it was that caused this seething hatred? Maybe they played tennis together as boys, and Earley accused Overend of cheating? Maybe Earley went on record as saying that the SJA Broadcaster of the Year Award 2011 wasn't a real prize? Maybe Earley borrowed a fiver from Overend last week and refused to pay it back? I'm going to keep imagining increasingly unlikely scenarios, and hope that the next BBC article gives further clues.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

When I was young we played tennis in the rain, and the BBC didn't even care; to be fair though, nobody cared. :(