Welcome to Press Watch, the Washbag’s sideways glance at all things Town related in the media. If you see anything remotely concerning Swindon Town in the worlds media get in contact with me via Twitter @mrbraindown

Apologies, apologies readers, this week’s Press Watch is a little light on content, to be fair it’s always been very light on substance, but there were always plenty of rambling words knocking about to fill the required column inches.

I had written a complete article last night, it was ace I promise you, full of gags, amusing anecdotes – the works. But when I was coming to the end, applying the finishing touches, my version of Microsoft Word screwed up and I lost everything, absolutely everything. The language I used was colourful to say the least.

Bill Gates once said “I will always choose a lazy person to do a difficult job, because he will find an easy way to do it”, well William, I think you found a very lazy person to design your autorecover system because its effing shite!!

So what you’re going to read now is a rough facsimile of my first draft, it’s really not as good because, to be truthful, I couldn’t be arsed to spend any more time on it, I’m exhausted, I don’t possess the strength in depth to do this week-in-week out, I blame the embargo……. etc etc.

Enjoy.

Scunthorpe…. What is it about that name? It’s that word isn’t it? Its stands out like a sore thumb, try as you might you simply cannot see past it. It’s a word that is not in everyday circulation, so I think that’s why we’re drawn to it so quickly.

These days most people tend to use the more acceptable alternative – hamlet, I’m talking about the word Thorp obviously, why what word did you think I meant?

Of course I’m making light of a very serious problem, a problem so serious it has a whole internet protocol issue named after it. I’m talking about the wonderfully descriptive ‘Scunthorpe Problem’ , it’s an issue that affects some other wonderfully named places like Penistone, Clitheroe and Lightwater and I’m sure I don’t need to highlight the issue with those place names, well maybe I do (it has the word twat in it you see).

Anyway, there were a couple of total thorps on show in the Scunny side that Swindon faced on Saturday,  I’m talking of course about the lovely Leon Clarke and David Prutton. Leon showed the Town faithful exactly what we’ve missed out on, by displaying some powerful running and directness which ultimately paid for Aden Flint, David Prutton showed exactly what we’ve not been missing from our midfield, showing off his ponderous indecision and lazy distribution.

Oddly there seemed very little coverage of the Di Canio/Clarke bust up in the pre-match build-up. I couldn’t find anything in the Scunthorpe press. The preview on the official site doesn’t mention it either.  The Sun provided some national interest via their match report,  but sadly they managed to get their facts totally wrong about the ‘bust-up’.

“Clarke had a tunnel bust-up with Di Canio last year after being subbed against Southampton, then sat on the pitch in protest”

On the whole and very disappointingly there were not many mentions of the incident at all in widely available media outlets, but I scratched the internet surface a little deeper and uncovered some gems like this…….

On the whole the game was as disappointing as the media coverage, I was at least hoping for a glimpse of the Scunthorpe mascot, the ‘Scunny Bunny’ – my imagination was doing overtime dreaming up what that was going to look like.

Match report wise, nothing very exciting to see here, much like the game, so let’s move on.

In preparation for this column I often search across Twitter using keywords like Di Canio and Swindon Town etc. This tends to dredge up some gossip and angry exchanges. I normally get a few hits, but this week following the departure of Dougie Freedman from Palace and Paul Jewell from Ipswich I got a bumper return.

It appears that Paolo’s appointment would be overwhelmingly popular in East Anglia and South London, although not everyone was happy….

But sorry to disappoint all these hopeful fans, it appears that Paolo is here to stay, with him vowing to continue all his good work at Swindon.

Following on from the positive reaction I had to my STFC fortune teller, I was at a bit of a loss to come up with something to follow it up with. I’ll try and think of something before Christmas, so you can give it as a present to someone you hate love.

Speaking of Christmas presents, ever thought of buying your nearest and dearest a miniature Paolo sculpture? Well if so, looky here! I think the dissembled version is a little disconcerting, I think it’s that little head screaming out in pain. But why plump for realism and painstaking detail when you can have this.

Onto the Crewe encounter, another disappointing result despite the battering we handed out in the second half. This sentiment was shared by the writer of the match report in the Crewe Sentinel.

“Gresty Road has seen many grandstand finishes, but this was a grandstand second half with the visitors camped in the Alex box, but somehow failing to find a way through a back four that refused to be breached under relentless pressure”

The Sentinel also has a page dedicated to the match stats, which also point to a dominant Swindon performance, leading in every category apart from the most important one. The website also chooses the goalie as the man of the match, infuriating.

Paolo has a moan at the bottom of the match report, blaming McCormack and the embargo as the reason for the defeat, which in the article comes across as just a load of nonsensical ramblings.

“The embargo counts a lot as well as we have spent 45 minutes in their box and couldn’t score”

The story also finds its way onto many mainstream media sites, with Sky Sports running the story with Paolo swinging punches aimed at the embargo, Alan McCormack and our youth team.

So onto miscellaneous Swindon news, Joey Barton has a rant in The Mirror, opening up and arguing the toss about his lengthy playing ban by dragging Di Canio’s infamous referee shove into the argument, almost 14 years to that great day of it happening.

“Paolo Di Canio [banned for 11 games in 1998 while playing for Sheffield Wednesday] fights a player, gets sent off, pushes the referee over, raises his hands to Nigel Winterburn…”

Scotlands Daily Record mulls over the choices for the vacant Bolton job, Paolo gets a mention rubbing shoulders with some managerial legends like Mick McCarthy and Alan Curbishly.

And that’s yer lot this week, I simply cannot remember anymore from my first draft, so before Microsoft Word gets above its station again I’ll sign off.

Till next week.