The League Two relegation battle

[JoshIlanBlogs]

Hi guys,

I am Josh Ilan, an aspiring football journalist and a long-suffering Barnet fan.

It would be much appreciated if you could read by article on "The League Two relegation battle." If you could rate article at the top of the page, that would be great - comments on either this forum or the blog would also be brilliant.

Here is the link to it: http://joshilanblogs.wordpress.com/2013 ... on-battle/

Looking forward to our game away to you in two weeks times: could be crucial to both our teams chances of surviving.

Thanks in advance and best of luck for the rest of the season,

Josh

[tomogull]

Okay Josh - just a couple of bits under the Torquay United section. (i) You don't need an apostrophe in player's and (ii) you need to add Martin Ling's name after manager. The other bit you've got wrong is that we aint going down ! I reckon it will be Dagenham and Aldershot. York weren't a bad side when they visited Plainmoor recently and they've had a good Easter (four points). Otherwise a very good summary - good luck with your football journalism. Oh, by the way - pleased you think Barnet will stay up (I also think they will) because we always beat your lot as you will know !!!

[Gazzableedsgull]

It's good to see other football supporters points of view regarding our current situation, it's always interesting to see what other people think when it comes to our clubs problems .. A prediction of 23rd for ourselves is wrong in my own opinion due to what we have shown over the last 5 games (not including yesterday) .. Going forward I can't see us getting anything at Gillingham but you never know! Barnet at home no doubt will be a nervy fixture and will probably resign one of our clubs to a final day scrap for survival however I have a feeling (looking at the run-ins) that Plymouth and Aldershot may just bottle it.
I appreciate you have taken the time to do some club research and wish you well with your future career should you achieve your goals! Aslong as we stay up then i don't mind who goes down at the moment.

All the best Pal

[ferrarilover]

Hi Josh,

First paragraph, teams are relegated from divisions, not leagues. It is a disaster FROM L2 rather than IN L2.

Second paragraph, the first use of imperative is improper, the second use is repetitive (although this wouldn't be the case if an appropriate word had been used in the first instance)
You've also used the word 'plagued' twice in this second paragraph.

You need a space between colons and the word immediately following them.

'A period of transition' is passive voice; 'a transitional period' is probably more appropriate.

Italicising nicknames, much like putting colloquialisms in speech marks, will show you up as a posh boy. The Sun will edit you for it, The Times won't.

Line one of the Barnet Lowdown needs the word 'the' inserted.

Sentence 7 in Barnet, 'with them' is entirely superfluous.

Traditional thinking suggests that any number lower than 20 should be written in full. Certainly stick with a theme in individual sentences (AFCW).

Accrington, again, 'with them' is not necessary.

Leam Richardson was a replacement, not an appointment.

It wasn't an 'offset' it was a 'catalyst'.

There's more, but it's late and I think this is enough for now. Aside from a few proof reading errors, a couple of instances of simply needing Shift+F7 and an annoying tendency to use semi-colon and hyphen far more than is strictly necessary, not a bad effort at all.
I, like others, don't think we'll go down, but then I guess no one thinks it'll be their side for the drop.

On a Barnet note, despite the change, would you rather go down and be in a division appropriate for the club or are you happy to struggle every year for the sake of being in L2?

Matt.

[AustrianAndyGull]

Yes Sir, sorry Sir. =D

Bloody hell Matt! I've got visions of the poor bloke sat at home in front of his pc with stars going around his head!

I reckon he didn't bargain on that when he asked what we all thought.

I didn't understand some of it as i only got a GCSE in English and i'm not a professor like your good self Matt but it was interestingly and bizarrely it made me laugh. Cheers mate!!

[Scott Brehaut]

Bloody hell Matt! I've got visions of the poor bloke sat at home in front of his pc with stars going around his head!

On the contrary, I have visions of the guy reading that and thinking "what a complete penis" and ignoring it like the majority of others would too.

[ferrarilover]

On the contrary, I have visions of the guy reading that and thinking "what a complete penis" and ignoring it like the majority of others would too.

Why?

The boy wants to be a professional journalist. It's bugger all good him turning in a submission which has confused the word 'imperative' with something else entirely and is littered with grammatical errors, because the Editor will laugh at him and give the job to someone else.
Why is there this hatred and pillorying of those who still respect the basic rules of spelling and grammar? We don't see such a cavalier attitude anywhere else, so why here?

If a guy turns up at Torquay and wants to be a footballer, it's not good if he gets his passing and shooting wrong, because that means he can't be a footballer (although Billy Bodin seems to manage). This chap wants to make a living out of writing, so his writing better be spot on. I just don't, for the life of me, understand the attitude you display when all I've done is help the guy out.*

I wouldn't mind, but he came to us. It's not as though I've critiqued a random post on here from, say, Forever (who, by his own admission, is not brilliant with grammar). It doesn't matter here, because we're on a forum, so greengrocers apostrophe's don't matter.

I received some literature from Asda a while ago. It was a weighty tome full of lamentable and labourious Health and Safety nonsense. After many, many hateful pages whittering on about attention to detail and accuracy in work, the final page was reserved for 'You're notes'. Immediately, it lost all credibility because of such a glaring and obvious error.

Truly great writing, like anything truly great, is a joy to behold. Only this morning I read an excellent, if depressingly short, piece in the Guardian's Comment is Free section and it brightened my day for being simple thoughts so well expressed.

The written word is one of our primary methods of communication and it seems that anyone who appears to know how it works is genuinely despised by some. This is one of the saddest things I can imagine.

For the young, I have questions two: what is taught in English lessons at school these days and when did 'a lot' stop being two words and become one?

Matt.

*Yes, this is grammatically incorrect, but sometimes, it's ok.

[hector]

My predictions had York and Torquay relegated also. The six pointer v Barnet will obviously cause some reminiscing of the 2001 encounter. As so often seems to happen - especially to us - expect Barnet to get some revenge. The official site seems to be suggesting the possibility of four wins. If Ian Atkins was in charge perhaps, but not Knill. I cannot even see us getting 4 points.

It is a measure of how poor the division has been this year, that you have a very high points total for the likely relegated clubs and quite low ones for the promoted sides. It has been a real much of a muchness division, where anyone (except us for the last 4 months!) can beat anyone! This just adds further to the frustrating of impending relegation. It is a shit league. We shouldn't be struggling.

[The Farmers Friend]

The boy wants to be a professional journalist. It's bugger all good him turning in a submission which has confused the word 'imperative' with something else entirely and is littered with grammatical errors, because the Editor will laugh at him and give the job to someone else.

Totally agree.

Would also add that anyone aspiring to be a journalist is going to have to get used to their copy being corrected, amended and rewritten by a sub-editor who will also pull them up if they feel they are having to do too much work.

[ferrarilover]

Farmer's Friend's favourite footballer is a bloke from the 70s, indicating he's a chap of middling years. This comes as no surprise given his sensible attitude to writing. The olden days blew the big one for many, many reasons, but I am going to miss them when they're gone completely.

Matt.

[diamondgirl]

I, also, agree with The Farmers Friend and Matt. Nothing wrong with using the correct grammer and puncuation. It's too easy, these days, to just ignore it. The reading of any given article is much enhanced if the contributer writes using the Queens English like what it's supposed to be. :devil:

Twitter and text messaging have a lot to answer for.

For what it's worth I don't believe TUFC will be relegated. I think that "Honour" will go to Aldershot and, either Accrington or York.

[Gullscorer]

Has nobody read the Herald Express in recent years? Or most other tabloid papers? This young man's writing will not be at all out of place. He should make an excellent (if that's the right word*) journalist..!!

(*Somehow the words 'excellent' and 'journalist' don't seem to belong together...) =Z

[JoshIlanBlogs]

Cheers for the feedback guys - much appreciated. Matt - glad you've looked at my article so closely, and I will take tips on board.

To answer your question, I feel that providing we stay up, we may do very well next season, with this being the first time in years where we have had a proper plan in place. Our defence is one of the best in the league (14 clean sheets since October), but we do lack in attack, mainly due to wrong team selections.

Best of luck for the rest of the season. Apart from when we play you, that is!

Hopefully this fixture will be a L2 one next season

[ferrarilover]

More than welcome Josh. I will disagree with your assertion that you'll do well next year, with due deference to your vastly greater knowledge of the situation. You had a couple of mediocre years following promotion form the Conference, but have bumped along the bottom since and, without the financial backing enjoyed by the likes of Bradford and Northampton, I can't see there being enough about you to make a 40 or 50 point gain in one year. The division will surely be much stronger next year too, with more points required to rise up each place in the table. Nothing against Barnet though, so wouldn't object to seeing you do well.

Matt.

[Dave]

More than welcome Josh. I will disagree with your assertion that you'll do well next year, with due deference to your vastly greater knowledge of the situation. You had a couple of mediocre years following promotion form the Conference, but have bumped along the bottom since and, without the financial backing enjoyed by the likes of Bradford and Northampton, I can't see there being enough about you to make a 40 or 50 point gain in one year. The division will surely be much stronger next year too, with more points required to rise up each place in the table. Nothing against Barnet though, so wouldn't object to seeing you do well.

Matt.

Oops, not an error from the great one.