Shat on the Telegraph

At the weekend, Gary Lineker watched his boyhood team Leicester City come from 3-1 down to beat Manchester United 5-3. He got excited and swore on Twitter. He’s a football fan.

I’m not sure they can be at the Telegraph.

They didn’t see the joy of a football fan. They saw the opportunity for a sanctimonious BBC-bashing article.

Honestly, I struggle to think of a more joyless and po-faced piece I’ve read recently. And I was covering the #IndyRef.

It’s one thing to write a “Ha! Ha! Look Lineker used a meme about him in a funny way” piece, it’s another to thunder “And it included a swear word. And then he swore again. WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO?”

There’s a brilliant bit in the article, as the paper pushes the spokesperson from the BBC to ensure that Gary is getting told off.

“A BBC spokesperson told the Telegraph: ‘Gary’s is a personal Twitter account but we regularly remind him of his responsibilities around football based tweets.’ When asked if that meant Lineker was being spoken to about Sunday’s tweets, the spokesperson said: ‘Yes.’”

That reaction from the BBC is dullsville too. All those middle managers today, fretting about whether Gary Lineker has read the latest Social Media Guideline from Editorial Policy in case he swears again and the Telegraph writes another article and the sky falls on their heads or something. And the PR team having some crisis meeting about it.

Utterly joyless.

Anyway, Lineker swore, and that’s what the Telegraph did.

We made this.

Shat on the Telegraph.