Guest Post by Grant Stantiall

I read a good article regarding electronic media and how it fits in with NZ football through a bloggers viewpoint.

Enzo Giordani’s In The Back Of The Net website/blog is now one of my first reference points on NZ football. He mentions others that I also look at, and these sites are rapidly pushing mainstream media coverage off my radar.

Take for example todays Sunday Star-Times football article by Billy Harris. Now I like Billy as a person, but his writing has really become either dated or to be blunt, nothing more than flannel. It just seems too lazily put together for my liking. His articles consistently fail to give any real depth. It just seems to be a quick wash of words and then you’ve finished reading the article.

Bill will regularly make reference to the EPL or other foreign leagues which to my mind is pointless because anyone interested in those leagues will already have accessed the internet, checked their fav team websites, results, Soccernet or whatever and gleaned all the info they need, to get their fill of football in realtime.

Making reference to these things just wastes valuable space that could easily be used on better things SUCH AS LOCAL FOOTBALL.

My rule of thumb for media coverage of football in NZ is that:

1] YOU COVER NEW ZEALAND FOOTBALL ONLY

No need to cover foreign stuff. That’s what we have the internet for.

This is the problem that mainstream media is now faced with. Things happen and I get it straight off a Twitter feed. No need to wait for a paper.

I won’t subscribe to the Waikato Times until the local football coverage improves in quantity. And I must point out that is no reflection on Ian Anderson.

I like Ian and will read his stuff if its online. I’ll only buy a paper if my photo has been published in it. Ian is no doubt restricted by space, what else is on sportswise and Rugby.

There is far too much rugby – which is of absolutely nil care factor for me – in the Waikato Times. Others I have recently talked to on my three-game Claudelands Rovers promotion/playoff journey also talked of having similar views.

So now you have a small growing community of people that aren’t buying our local paper because of the reasons I have outlined. It’s the individual’s choice what to spend money on in these tough economic times and so if the newspaper isn’t delivering what you want, don’t buy it.

I’m ready to quit subbing to the SST and if the NZ Herald can’t get its “pile of pony” together, they will get the cancellation letter as well.

To even push things along myself, I am even considering going around various Waikato clubs and asking them to point out their top young players and doing a feature article of them. Yes, photo, a bit of a story and then get it up on a blog or website and get a bit of local interest in our promising talent.

That is exactly the sort of stuff I would PAY to read.

So, it appears to me that those most interested in the media side of New Zealand football are amateurs who do it for the love, not the money. We know what we want to read about. We are primarily fans and we love our New Zealand football.

So, have a look at Enzo’s blog/website, check out The Matamata Bus and Jeremy Ruane’s Ultimate NZ Soccer website and the others, if you love your dose of home-made football.

This originally appeared as a post on Melville United’s forum. It was so topical that I asked if Grant would mind me publishing it here so we could expose his views to a wider audience. And let us know of any other blogs you like.