Watford Observer v WD Sport

I'm beginning to think that Affleck has never quite gotten over being utterly humiliated and belittled by Aidy Boothroyd and the club when he was at the Wobby and it is this that fuels his obvious bitterness and inferiority complex.

 

You should go on Mastermind with a chosen subject of 'stating the bleeding obvious'.

 

This is what I don't get abotu WD Sport, in their 'About Us' section, first line:

"WD Sport was set up in the summer of 2015 to reflect the broad range of sporting achievements that take place every weekend in the town of Watford and surrounding areas."

I have bolded the bit that puzzles me. In addition another bit that puzzles me is under the WD Sport header on the main page it says: "The only sports dedicated publication in Hertfordshire"

However, I'm certain 99% of the material is about Watford FC and very rarely about any other sport in Hertfordshire. Which leads me to conclude that rather being a site that 'reflect(s) the broad range of sporting achievements' it claims to do, it is basically just a fancy Watford online fanzine. Not greatly different to something like BHaPPY or Blind, Stupid and Desperate that once was.

 

I like WD Sport, news out of the Watford camp would be worse than banal without it ... the Wobby haven't got the same insight and the official site is as sanitised as a pair of nun's knickers.

There's a podcast on their site by The Rookery End that includes an interview with Kevin Affleck (about 19 minutes in) that is a good listen. He also refers to them launching a print version ... if they get it right it could be the beginning of the end for the Wobby

 

I see WDSport managed to surpass themselves recently with an article on Layún.

The basis for the story is what a website called Football Leaks "has confirmed", then they regurgitate their quotes from December before quoting a wordpress blog.

It really is just a fan site that had once been designed quite nicely, big photos of Ronnie aside which now limit my ability to browse at work.

 

WD Sport has retweeted a tweet from Anya telling us he is in a traffic jam . Fascinating.

A new journalistic low has been reached . At least , because the original tweet was from Anya rather than Affleck, there were no spelling mistakes .

 

whenever we, on occassion, get those student type people come on here, you knowthe ones, they're doing some kind of media course or somesuch, and they post a link to their blog or to their website asking for our thoughts, and whenever i click on the link they provide, i am usually expecting it to be something along the lines of what WD Sport have put together. And usually, it is.

 

I don't know or care about Affleck and whatever history he has with the Wobby. I have just the one observation. All you lot who keep banging on about how bad WDS is: wtf have you ever done? If it is as bad as you make out stop whining and make your own site.

 

Completely agree, well said!! WDSport is a bit of WFC-related fun & IMHO not too shabby...& I like it.

 

When i was 9 years old i made a comic strip about Watford in the style of 'Roy of The Rovers' and in one of the storylines it transpired that Wilf Rostron was an alien and got beamed up to the mothership mid-match, we'd used all our subs at that point and ended up losing 2-1 to Coventry City after going down to 10 men. There was another one about Colin West being a kind of 'Frankenstein' player and he was created in a lab out of bits and pieces of traditional number nines including George Reilly, Ross Jenkins and Mark Hately. I don't think i ever finished that comic though.

 

I don't need to be a second rate Watford blogger to have an opinion on one. I've also never been a Republic nomination candidate, but I still know a lunatic with a ginger comb-over when I see one.

It doesn't take a genius editor to see that a lot of WD Sport's recent output has been noticeably lazy, smug and packed with awful grammar. Wtf have I ever done? I became a reader. Like many others, I thought WD Sport offered something different and interesting. I would like them to find that level again, and I think that any reader has a responsibility to make it known if standards are slipping.

 

He's now re tweeting Nathan Ake s girlfriend telling us she has just got back from her morning run . No word of a lie .

He strikes me as being a bit stalky . I guess it will come to its natural conclusion when his Mum comes in his room and catches him staring at pictures of other peoples girlfriends....again .

 

Affleck retweeted this clearly fake quote from Gary Neville that was doing the rounds on Twitter. When I saw this last week the first thing I did was assume it was probably fake and designed to attract retweets from morons so looked into whether he actually said it or not and very quickly found that he did not. The man calls himself a journalist ffs.

 

WDSport gives as good as they get to be honest, defensive on Twitter, digs at the WO, Afflecks a bit of a **** stirrer.

I could probably move to dubai and earn tax free for a few years, come back and spend my time following the WAGs on instragram too, but I don't want to.

He tries to be the centre of attention, so much so that you can't actively avoid his site unless you never go online. A bit like ignoring SS Billy on here, I still have to see the replies to his drivel on a match thread.

 

It can get a little bit worse than the odd defensive tweet if you're unlucky.

In December I got a phone call from Kevin Affleck, despite having never met him or spoken to him in my life.

He read some quotes from a post I'd made in this thread and shouted down the phone, saying that I was wrong and what I'd written was libellous and defamatory.

The post in question was about an article on WD Sport about Troy Deeney's attempts to fly a helicopter to Anthony Joshua's fight straight after the Sunderland game if I recall correctly. I had said that this article had unattributed quotes in it. I had also commented that it was unprofessional to have unattributed quotes and that this made it seem like WD Sport had conducted an interview with Troy on this subject.

I was wrong, I must have skim read the article. Affleck had attributed the quote. I don't know how I missed it, but I did.

To be clear, I should also say that the post Affleck was so annoyed about was not written because of any ill-feeling, it was a genuine error on my part.

The phone call I got was completely out of the blue, and to be completely honest it actually scared me a little. Maybe I'm soft, but I'm not used to getting phone calls like that.

Without going into too much detail, Affleck shouted and swore at me, and said that I should choose my fights wisely. He said he was surprised to read that someone 'looking to get into the business' (I write the odd thing about Watford FC, though I am extremely rarely paid for the privilege so 'business' is a stretch..!) would write something so defamatory. Lots of shouting, effing and blinding, that kind of thing. I didn't know what to say really, and my attempts to bring the conversation down to a normal volume probably only exacerbated things.

For a little bit more context, just so I am stating as many of the facts as possible - I don't want to be accused of attempts to defame or anything like that - a few weeks before this phone call I had wanted to send a few stories to WD Sport. Basically I've done a few interviews with ex players recently, and I'd emailed Affleck about them. For whatever reason I got no reply, and I guess that might also be why my comment in particular stuck out to Affleck on this thread, as he knew my name or something.

Anyway, I didn't know how to react at the time, and to be honest when I went through it again in my head in the hours and days after I thought it was more of a risk to Affleck's reputation calling me up and bellowing down the phone than it was to just have my post sitting there on this thread. Someone could have mentioned I was wrong in what I was saying if they'd simply read the article properly and hit reply. Christ, even Affleck could have come on here and said that.

Initially, I thought I'd just never mention him, his site, or engage at all on the topic of WD Sport again on this forum or indeed in public, but now I feel I should just state what happened.

To this day I don't know what to think though. I did something wrong by publicly passing judgement on an article I'd only skim read, but that kind of reaction was something I have never experienced. I made an error, for sure, but I don't think it warranted a phone call from someone I've never in my life met. Also, it's not like I had written reams and reams about how WD Sport is rubbish, don't read it, blah blah blah.

So, this is not an attempt to pick a fight, or any nonsense like that. I have no idea why I'd even want to pick a fight in the first place. Before that phone call, I knew almost nothing about Kevin Affleck. Time has passed, and I've decided to mention what happened. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm not trying to put a slant on this - I admit I did something wrong. I don't think it's unfair at all to share what happened.

Call me all the names under the sun if you like, but that's what happened. Even though it might look like I'm inviting more attention here, I just honestly hope I never have to speak to Kevin Affleck again, and I hope we end up out of each other's way from here on.

 

He shouted, swore and was threatening. What a classy bloke. His reputation goes before him...

 

He sounds a bit of a fruitcake, needs to put a bit of perspective on things I reckon.

 

352-wow!

That sounds a very professional and measured response from the paid person,not in the least disproportionate!

We all make mistakes and I assume,if you got a word in edgeways,that you apologised? At this juncture you would expect a less hostile conversation to ensue.

I always read the WD site and do enjoy the slightly different way it is presented,but it isn't Tennnyson by any means and a little humility goes a long way.

The fact he had your number is slightly alarming too! Change it now.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if he rings you up again after that 352, comes across as the kind of person....

 

Let him speak to my Mum,that'll sort him out!

Rude,aggressive person.

 

It's all detailed in the book Tales from the Vicarage. It's been a while since I've read it and I don't have a copy of it to hand but from what I remember Boothroyd pretty much had Affleck sussed as a trouble maker and stirrer from day one, treated him with the contempt he deserved and generally made his job as difficult as possible.

In fact, funnily enough, I'm sure that Affleck took offence to and still holds a grudge against Boothroyd to this day for overreacting to perceived slights made against him and repeatedly making aggressive, sweary phone calls to him when these occurred.

 

If that's what he did in response to a pretty innocuous comment, imagine what he has planned for Watford Talk.

 

If he really behaves like that I'm amazed Kev's journalistic career has never really taken off

 

It's gonna be like that stuff Kevin Spacey did in Se7en imo.

 

The horse's head was an absolute nightmare to clean up, I can tell you that.

 

I used to think he was just a harmless idiot but that story promotes him up a level, to fully fledged jumped up little pr1ck.

I had an online interaction with him which was amusing rather than threatening like yours 352.

He wrote a terrible piece on Britos after he got sent off against Preston (I think), in which he painted Britos as some kind of butcher and a terrible signing etc, etc.
I merely responded at the bottom of the article saying that I found the piece to be unbalanced,sensationalistic, clickbait, as Britos had only been sent off once before and was a talented defender who needed a chance to play before being written off.
He then got the hump and proceeded to pick me up on some point of grammar, which made me chuckle. But funniest of all, that bell end from 'enjoooythegame', Nick Wilson, came on and started defending Affleck like he was his mum.

 

Managed to squeeze another dig at Ashton and Simpson into a piece today. Not that he bears grudges, of course.

 

Hmm. A neutral may think that someone who had articles rejected by WD Sport may not be the best person to judge the site. You had presented yourself as a budding journalist, gave him your contact details freely and then publicly criticised an article he had written for reasons that were incorrect, and I assume that during the call you still believed that what you had written was correct, and presumably attempted meticulously to explain why the article was poorly written.

I would have been surprised if he hadn't called a fellow journalist who appeared to be having a fit of wrongly-attributed pique, likely because their stories hadn't been taken. The abusive bit is still outrageous, but we only have one side of a story which starts with WDS not taking your articles, so, with all respect, only having the one side to go by makes it difficult to make a fair judgement.

He is an arse of the highest order, but that doesn't make WDS poop, and frankly, if they weren't there this season, local news on the club would be worthless, given that the Wobby only seem to be upping their game in competition with WD.

 

At the time he was very very anti Ashton and Simpson and very pro The Russos, the same Russos that leant Baz the money to buy the club

I wonder if his opinion of them has changed since that loan

 

That's fair enough. The fact that I had emailed Kevin Affleck twice and got no reply on either occasion might not make me look all that neutral. It was certainly disappointing to get no reply whatsoever. You'll just have to trust me though that this had absolutely nothing to do with that. Why would I lie about something like some quotes being unattributed? It was a mistake on my part, but one that I don't feel required the response it got.

I did not give Kevin Affleck my telephone number, he had my email address, which itself is easy to find anyway. A phone number is not so easy for a complete stranger to find generally. He went to a Watford Observer journalist to get my number. When I asked how he got my number he wouldn't say.

You are wrong to assume that I attempted to 'meticulously' explain why the article was poorly written over the phone though. When I recognised the post being spoken about, I attempted to explain why I'd said what I said, and in reply I was told that it was defamatory and that the quotes in the article were attributed 'because I know about attribution, I've been a journalist for a long time.'

Whilst on the phone, being told off, I found the article, saw the attributed quotes, got told to 'learn how to ****ing read,' amongst other things, was shouted down for using the word 'mate' when I tried to calm things down, and so on and so forth.

You're fine to assume some things, and I've been completely honest about about the sending of those two emails. Prior to this phone call, I had no serious ill-will or malice towards WD Sport or Affleck himself, and the worst crime I felt Affleck was guilty of was being a bit of a stirrer in some of the phrases used on social media etc.

As you've made a lot of this issue of having a couple of articles rejected, all I'll say is that if someone has the time to search for and find my telephone number in order to berate and threaten me, but isn't willing to reply to an email saying 'no thanks', I think the person claiming to be the professional in this instance, threatening the potential career of a 'budding journalist' as you've put it, isn't being very professional at all.

Of course, it's not professional to make a mistake like the one I did, but I'm not a professional! This is a football forum.

If this is what being 'in the business', as Affleck put it, is all about, I'd rather not be in it. And I guess Affleck got his way in this case, because I'm out. No plans. I'll stick to other stuff. I'm not in the right place, physically and mentally, for this kind of thing.

The content WD Sport brings out is not 'poop', I've not said that. The fact that it's run by someone so horrible though means that I and friends and family that have heard about this episode can no longer read it without it being tainted.

 

352 is there any chance that he edited the content after you commented? Wouldn't surprise me if that was the case...

 

Should've recorded the conversation and shown him up to be a nob he really is.

 

I would be shocked if that was the case.

It's far more likely I missed the attribution, and that's that.


EDIT: And just so I can be clear about as much of this as possible, I of course assumed when Kevin Affleck said it was him on the phone, that he was calling me to respond to my most recent email, which by then had been sent around a month ago I'd guess. So when 'it's Kevin Affleck here' became 'why have you said x y and z on the forum?' I didn't know what to say really.

He also opened with the line 'have I just woken you up?' It was about 4 o'clock so I was a bit confused. I later recalled that opener and recognised it for the dig it was.