There Are Two Types of Sports Journalist

There are two types of sports journalist. To outline my thoughts I will take two Sunday Times rugby writers, Stephen Jones and Stuart Barnes. You would be forgiven for thinking that the two types are 'bad' and 'good', but that isn't my point.

There are those who have played sport at the highest level and there are those who have not. Both have their place, and those who represent the common man should be careful not to step into the territory of the other.

There is always the nagging fear that anyone who has only ever written about sport will forever be a 'commentator' and not a 'doer'. There is something sickeningly fawning about it, interviewing the heroes, forever being the link between the public and the hero, so close but so far in every respect. Surely the worst fear for any upstanding sports journalist is to be lambasted by a sporting professional, "What does he know? To what level did he play?"

This is the risk that too many sports journalists of the Stephen Jones type take. They are too close to the line. And any sportsman who did moan about a journalist in that way would be right to do so. It doesn't make for good reading either.

It all relates to the standards by which a professional sportsman is judged by a journalist. The safest way is to judge them by their own standards. "He would have expected to kick that penalty...He kicks them 9 times out of 10". This is acceptable to read (clichéd but acceptable) - it doesn't cross any lines.

The wanton, arrogant and often disapproving tone that Jones takes too often smacks of a man who thinks he's the champ, the champ of rugby writing, what Norman Mailer was to boxing. This seems to give him equality with those champs in the field he is writing on. He's been around for 30 years after all, covered every World Cup and every Lions tour since McBride. But he has never gotten any closer to a rugby pitch in all that time.

He judges players by what he's seen. This, to a certain extent, is fine, and often makes for interesting reading, especially for those of us who never saw Barry John or Gerald Davies (Jones' heroes are nearly always Welsh). Jones takes all the inside-centres England have ever had and ranks them and then attempts to place the current incumbent. This is how he decides whether the young man is a worthy wearer of the shirt. This is more problematic as it fails to accept that a player is often the best available. At this point Jones can become unbearable in a short-sighted tirade about modern standards and so on. Again, he is left as the commentator who always knows best but is never willing to do anything about it.

Stuart Barnes also falls in to this trap occasionally. As a former player he is naturally inclined to be nicer towards players. He knows the pressures that Jones has never faced. Never. As such his insights are often more interesting. He has the stories from touring. And everyone knows that a story about players on tours is always going to be more interesting than one about drunken hacks, sniffing about for a story.

Where Barnes falls down is his remarks on coaches, for he is nearly always right about players. He has played with and against some of the greats, drank Merlot with them, sung Leonard Cohen with them and is a better judge for it. He never was a coach though, too much of a maverick player, so his comments on coaching must always be taken with a pinch of salt. Having said that, he played under many coaches and his judgements are aided by the fact that he got along spectacularly with some and abysmally with others. He knows what he is looking for in a coach. Jones knows what he is looking for in a coach - one who wins. His experiences are narrow and so are his judgements.

Both types of journalist have their place. It would be tiresome to constantly hear the musings of those who were once at the pinnacle. We can be amazed and enlightened by their words but we will never be them. They have seen things we never will. So we need the more literate of the remaining majority who lack the playing experience to put forward their views. They must become expert watchers and the things that they pick up on are the smaller things that the competitor naturally has no time for. The view from the press box is a very good one but those who inhabit it and make it their home should remember how far away it is from the arena and temper their writing with appropriate levels of sympathy, along with the awe for those who compete. For that is what the reader feels. As soon as an everyday journalist loses their sense of awe for what they are watching, they are finished.