Oliver Holt

[Reading Til I Die]

My mum doesn't like him either.

I thought your mum loved cocks?

ZING!

How VERY dare you!

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

the Mirror connection is a red herring that our more rabidly right wing contingent have jumped on. A Tory football chairman is hardly a rare breed of animal. Holt is a Chelsea fan and a sports journalist. There's not a lot more to say - draw your own conclusion.

He's actually a United fan.

He's actually a Stockport County fan.

He just happens to be good friends with Neil Warnock, whose love for Reading is legendary.

[RoyalBlue]

Holt seems to be making a habit of criticising and then changing his mind.

Sports Columnist of the Year Oliver Holt didn't think London 2012 would be a hit. But a visit to the British Swimming Championships changed his mind.

[Upper West Ginger]

I thought it was love, but he wiped his dead seamen on my wig and left.

They would be the ones that went down on the Titanic, would they?

[Pepe the Horseman]

I thought it was love, but he wiped his dead seamen on my wig and left.

They would be the ones that went down on the Titanic, would they?

The Titanic? Isn't that what they call your mum?

ZING!

[RoyalBlue]

I thought it was love, but he wiped his dead seamen on my wig and left.

They would be the ones that went down on the Titanic, would they?

The Titanic? Isn't that what they call your mum?

ZING!

You mean hundreds went down on The Titanic?

[SCIAG]

1) aren't we more labour than tory?

Two Tory MPs.

[rfc2001]

the Mirror connection is a red herring that our more rabidly right wing contingent have jumped on. A Tory football chairman is hardly a rare breed of animal. Holt is a Chelsea fan and a sports journalist. There's not a lot more to say - draw your own conclusion.

He's actually a United fan.

He's actually a Stockport County fan.

He just happens to be good friends with Neil Warnock, whose love for Reading is legendary.

Can't wait to see that W*NKER back down at the Mad Stad

[Platypuss]

1) aren't we more labour than tory?

Two Tory MPs.

Labour largest group on council though. Bloddy rare for the south.

[Pepe the Horseman]

He's finally made peace with Stephen Hunt, in his last ever article for The Mirror.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/ ... ed-4973104

One day near the beginning of May 2013, Stephen Hunt emerged from the Wolves dressing room at Brighton’s Amex Stadium and walked straight up to me.

His side had just been relegated but there was another reason for the bitter smile that was playing on his face.

“I’ve been waiting more than six years to talk to you,” he said. “Why did you never even ring me to get my side of the story?”

I was surprised. I said he would never have taken my call. He ­disagreed. We had a sneering exchange before he turned away and trudged to the team bus.

Last week at a hotel in Ipswich, where he plays now for Mick McCarthy’s promotion-chasing side, we had the conversation we didn’t have that day in Brighton.

The conversation we ought to have had back in October 2006 after a challenge from Hunt ­fractured Petr Cech’s skull during a match between Reading and Chelsea at the Madejski Stadium.

“You came for me twice,” Hunt said, remembering the damning pieces I had written about his part in the collision. “You had put me down almost as a murderer, no?”

Not quite, but he had a point. I criticised him heavily. I wrote about his ‘appalling challenge’.

I hinted strongly that the ­collision wasn’t an accident, because that is what I believed.

Hunt got death threats. Someone purporting to be a Chelsea fan tried to get into his apartment.

I let him swing.

I assumed that the brick wall of agents and club communications departments would block any chance of me speaking to him. In football these days, it’s too easy for journalists and players to avoid each other.

It’s easier to let enmity fester. Separation is the norm and mutual suspicion reigns.

Then there’s this, an observation from the late golf writer, Peter Dobereiner, that one of the best sports writers of our era, Paul Hayward, is fond of quoting.

“A columnist,” Dobereiner once said, “hides in the mountains during the heat of battle and then comes down to bayonet the wounded.”

That’s the thing about Stephen Hunt. Petr Cech was wounded. That was obvious.

But I didn’t notice that Hunt was wounded, too.

Back in 2006, I dismissed Hunt in my own mind as a feral thug when, actually, I didn’t know anything about him.

Until we sat down at the hotel near the Ipswich marina, I didn’t know that game against Chelsea was his first Premier League start.

I didn’t know he had been released by Crystal Palace and Brentford earlier in his career.

I didn’t know Reading manager Steve Coppell had put him on the bench match after match after match.

I didn’t know he had set a record for how many times he came on as a substitute and that Bobby Convey, the man who was keeping him out of the team, was injured the day before the Chelsea game.

I didn’t know how much Hunt had invested emotionally in that game because it could be his breakthrough moment.

I didn’t know how desperately a man who had had ‘more downs than ups in his career’ wanted to be ­remembered for ­something good that day.

“After you wrote that stuff, I wanted you to ring me so I could tell you there were two sides to the story,” Hunt said. “At least hear my side. I was angry about it. I waited six years to speak to you. I’d say it was lazy journalism.

“If you had heard both sides, I would have been fair game.”

So now, at last, we talked about the ­collision with Cech.

It happened after just 20 seconds of the game.

I looked at the footage again and again the night before. It still seemed to me Hunt left his knee in when he could have avoided contact.

“I wouldn’t say I left my leg in there,” Hunt said. “I would say that I have gone in for the tackle. I have gone in for the impact.”

I said he could have avoided contact.

There was a pause.

“No,” Hunt said, “because if I avoid contact, I ­probably would have had a screaming manager. Well... not so much Steve Coppell, but the coaches. In my mind, the coaches would have expected me to go into that tackle with Cech.

“I may have been a little bit giddy. My knee was down there but I am out of position for sure. It wasn’t natural. I’m trying to make sense of it. I haven’t had too much deep thinking about it or conversation.

“I couldn’t afford for it to affect my commitment. That is my game. My game is energy.”

Hunt refused to let the furore affect him on the pitch. In the aftermath of the Cech incident, there was one match where he felt he was a little tentative. That was it.

I asked him if he still felt emotional when the subject was brought up. He smiled at the leading question.

“I wouldn’t say my heart rate has gone up talking about it,” he said. “I feel like I am unbreakable in that kind of way. Mentally strong.”

In a way, though, he is one of the wounded.

He has been a dedicated, honest professional who has carved out a good career and he has played for Ireland but he can never escape what happened that day at the Madejski Stadium.

“It haunts me,” Hunt said. “I had a lot of years at Palace and ­Brentford before I even touched the limelight. No one in Ireland knew who I was. When I was picked to start against Chelsea, I was thinking ‘my day has arrived’.

“All of a sudden everyone knew me but I wanted people to know me for the right reasons, not for the wrong reasons.

“Even to this day, ‘you’re the guy who did that’. There is no ­forgetting it because he wears the helmet. Everyone is reminded of it every time they see him.

“I wish it had never happened. Of course I do. But I don’t have any guilt. I have a clear conscience. I didn’t mean to fracture his skull. That’s one thing for sure.”

Hunt is not a feral thug, by the way. It didn’t take long to find that out. He’s bright, sharp, hyperactive, clever.

Recently, he has written a couple of articles for the Irish ­Independent. Both were brilliant pieces of ­journalism.

One of them caused controversy because Hunt, who has always had a great love of hurling, ­questioned the levels of commitment shown by GAA athletes compared to Premier League footballers.

I asked Hunt how it felt to be on the other side. To be a columnist. To be criticised for something he had written.

“A bit weird, a bit ­unsettling,” he said. “But there was a buzz, too. A little buzz about the reaction.

“If I went and trained with them, I’d say the same thing to their faces. I might get a shoulder or a whack for it in the game. But I’ll take it and get back up.”

Things are coming full circle.

Hunt is 33 now, in the autumn of his career. He dreams of one last shot at the Premier League and retiring at the top.

When our conversation ended, his wife and young daughters came into the foyer, and they all strolled off towards the town centre.

Eight years on from the collision with Cech, it’s time to put the bayonet away.

[Royal Rother]

That's good.

Interesting that Hunt, so often labelled by Reading fans as a "thick pikey", is now producing brilliant pieces of journalism...

[fruits]

“It haunts me,” Hunt said. “I had a lot of years at Palace and ­Brentford before I even touched the limelight. No one in Ireland knew who I was. When I was picked to start against Chelsea, I was thinking ‘my day has arrived’.

Yes he owed everything to Steve Coppell and Reading FC, then instead of saying thankyou he couldn´t wait to leave. Since leaving us think he must hold the record for the player with the most club relegations in the history of football.
Although he will not have a chance to add to the total as his present club, Ipswich , is flying.

[wingnut]

Thanks for posting that, Pepe. Still a fair bit of grandstanding by Holt in that. Hadn't realised that was Hunt's first start for us.
FWIW, I don't begrudge Hunt wanting to leave. His dip in form after Xmas when were chasing promotion was irritating but SC should've managed him and the team better in that slump.

[Pepe the Horseman]

I don't remember it happening after just 20 seconds either.

[Forbury Lion]

Big scary man with a big pencil writes something mean and nasty about our precious little clubedy wubbedy...

Wibble.

People have been shot for that kind of thing (too soon?)

[Forbury Lion]

just what is his problem with reading football club? surely he doesn't decide to not like us because the of petr cech incident only?

Did he say or write anything new? - If anything, it sounds like his view is warming.

[Gordons Cumming]

It looks like Holt has a new view of Hunt and we've got a new view of Holt.

[WoodleyRoyal]

It looks like Holt has a new view of Hunt and we've got a new view of Holt.

uh no he is still a cunt

[AthleticoSpizz]

Eight years later, a nice read......maybe OH should have spoken with Cech a year after the event.....when he and Hunty had made their peace.

[From Despair To Where?]

Thanks for posting that, Pepe. Still a fair bit of grandstanding by Holt in that. Hadn't realised that was Hunt's first start for us.
FWIW, I don't begrudge Hunt wanting to leave. His dip in form after Xmas when were chasing promotion was irritating but SC should've managed him and the team better in that slump.

It was Hunt's first Premier League start, live on Sky, against the reigning champions. No wonder he was fired up no doubt the coaches told him to make his presence felt. Don't know if it was after 20 seconds but it was definitely inside the first minute.

Was it avoidable? Of course it was avoidable if you want to make football a non contact sport. Was it deliberate? Absolutely not, an unfortunate accident. Very magnaminous of Holt, but, as Hunt suggested, probably about 6 years too late. As a "respected", award winning journalist he really should have sought out both sides of the story before writing such tawdry opinion pieces.
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