"Anthony Vickers: After 30 years, it's time to leave the best job on Teesside - thanks and goodbye"-article summary link >

r00fie1

Well-known member
https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/anthony-vickers-after-30-years-18835817

After all those years AV has hung up his laptop at the Gazette.

Its a typical goodbye "note" from Tony.
He doesnt change to please the top brass and has never cuddled up to authority just to keep on the inside track.
Hes always backed Red Faction, The 12th Man and FMTTM.....

AV.jpg

Extract:

"I hope over the years I have managed to put into words what people have been feeling. For good and ill.

I barged my way onto the sports desk looking to give fans a voice. Back then that was a real novelty.

I had been writing for Fly Me To The Moon and had been a founder member of the Football Supporters Association and was a strident campaigner against fences, against heavy-handed policing, against racism and, most importantly, against the lazy stereotypes of fans as a mass of ignorant lager louts.

That led to some early questioning of my credentials as an objective reporter. Keith Lamb branded myself and fellow FSA man Dave Lee as 'hooligans in suits' and those early years were fractious and I spent some time on the naughty step. There has been a lot of that.

Persona non grata. Slammed by the press chief in the programme. Angry phone-calls from the top brass almost every Tuesday after the Big Picture column was printed. De facto bans. Taking flak is part of the job, from the chairman and from the angry brigade who think you are in his pocket."


For me, the essence of football is supporters, not players. It is about the collective experience, not the result. It is about making shared memories and being a focus for emotions otherwise unhealthy repressed."

See ya AV(y)
 
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