Thursday Gossip

Thu 15 Sep 2011, 9:43AM
Posted by David Clayton

Any sub-editor worth their salt won't miss out on the opportunity to have a play on names and today's media is a veritable feast of corn dogs.


When a key player has a starring role in a game, it's open season for journos and the guys back in the office and in the wake of City's 1-1 draw with Napoli, there's a similar theme among the headlines awaiting in various papers and websites today.

Aleksander Kolarov's fine free-kick earned the Blues a 1-1 draw in the opening Champions League match at the Etihad Stadium last night and if you throw in a broken nose for the Serbian, you have a potent mixture for creativity.

The best of the corny bunch is David Anderson's 'Kolar and tie' in the Daily Mirror while notable(ish) efforts include; 'King Kol nose best' (Martin Blackburn, The Sun); 'Arise Sir Aleks' (Rob Beasley, The Sun); 'Mancini let Ov the hook' (Kevin Francis, Daily Star), 'Roberto nose it's a tough road to the final' (Kevin Francis, Daily Star) and 'Special K is City's hero' (Jim Foulerton, Daily Express).

There are one or two more prosaic efforts, too, with Sam Wallace's 'Kolarov curler ensures City's grand entrance does not fall flat' among them, though the actual report is worth reading.

On to the actual content of the above match reports and the always readable Martin Samuel succinctly sums up what last night meant to City and the supporters.

He writes: "An over-blown parcel of muical excrament it may be, but there is something rather charming in finding a stadium in which the Champions League anthem actually has a meaning.

"At Old Trafford; at Stamford Bridge; at the Emirates Stadium the traditional curtain-raiser to a match in Europe’s premier club competition passes by barely acknowledged.

"Yet at City, as the unfamiliar sound filled the night air and the silver and black banner fluttered over the centre circle, there was a genuine sense of significance of having arrived, not at a journey’s end, but at a place that mattered."

Nicely put.