Gazza goal not favourite
One of the prime minister's advisers has ticked me off for saying in that Paul Gascoigne's famous goal for England against Scotland in the 1996 European Championship was Gordon Brown's "favourite football moment".
This is "a common myth," the adviser tells me. "I thought you'd know this is rubbish." He continues:
"Gordon was asked by a newspaper before the 2006 World Cup whether he'd ever been to an England match. He said that he'd been to several. He was then asked what was the 'most memorable' England match he'd been to. He named two. First, the Euro '96 game against Scotland because of the fantastic atmosphere at Wembley, with McAllister's penalty miss for Scotland followed by Gascoigne's great goal for England. Second, the qualifying game for France '98 between England and Italy in Rome, again because of the atmosphere and tension of the game.
"The paper chose to say that his "favourite England memory" was Gascoigne's goal against Scotland. This was refuted by us immediately afterwards and has been many times since."
I happily stand corrected.
I'm Michael Crick, and I'm Newsnight's political editor. My guiding rule is that in any story there's usually something the politicians would prefer the world not to know. My job is to find that out. Follow me on
Comment number 1.
At 22nd Jul 2008, Blogpolice wrote:Spin, pure spin.
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Comment number 2.
At 23rd Jul 2008, midnightPantsman wrote:And no white suit Mr Crick did John Simpson up stage you? and indeed Martin Bell
on Sky news ? too many white suits ?
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Comment number 3.
At 23rd Jul 2008, Barbazenzero wrote:Re #1 Blogpolice
I agree with 66.67% of your post but where does the "pure" come from?
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Comment number 4.
At 23rd Jul 2008, oldnat wrote:Michael
Nice to see you're continuing your policy of providing brilliant, insightful political comment. This thread is worthy of a cub reporter.
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Comment number 5.
At 23rd Jul 2008, threnodio wrote:Does it really matter?
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Comment number 6.
At 23rd Jul 2008, Brian Tomkinson wrote:Mr Crick can't even report the trivia he so relishes accurately! How did he get this job and how does he manage to keep it?
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Comment number 7.
At 23rd Jul 2008, Steve_London wrote:Gordon's "Hug a Hoodie" moment !
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Comment number 8.
At 23rd Jul 2008, oldnat wrote:Michael
On Newsnight tonight (8 hours before the polls open) you do an investigative piece on Glasgow East MP corruption, when the stories have been circulating for weeks.
I'm not suggesting for a moment that this was deliberately done to protect Labour - I doubt if you care that much about Scottish politics.
I imagine it was because London centred ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ would only give airtime the night before, and the night of the election.
You could, however, have posted on this - even your report was hardly a "scoop".
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Comment number 9.
At 24th Jul 2008, Barbazenzero wrote:Re #8 oldnat
Spot on. It was the obvious follow-up from Michael's "Rumours of his death are greatly exaggerated" thread that was spiked and could have been done a week ago.
Much too late now to embarrass anyone.
Goodnight. It'll be a long one tomorrow.
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Comment number 10.
At 24th Jul 2008, threnodio wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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Comment number 11.
At 25th Jul 2008, MsEllaneous wrote:Oldnat, lets just be happy Michael Crick actually confronted Margaret Curran about it. For it was plain no one from ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Scotland intended to, or STV either for that matter. Every one of them, Brewer, Campbell and the insufferable Brian Taylor were in this to save Labour. Disgraceful from start to finish and something Licence Payers should start taking action over. Last night's Newsnight was different with Crick involved and Sopel did a good job too
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Comment number 12.
At 25th Jul 2008, Barbazenzero wrote:Re 11 MsEllaneous
Fair comment. That was certainly way better than norm and showed Maggie's true NuLabour colours.
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