The Times is a conduit for shoddy journalism

I'm speechless, utterly speechless. I have just read the most vacuous, inflammatory, 'pandering to the masses' article that I've come across outside The Daily Mail. And it was in The Times for chris'sakes!!!

There's a new article on Times Online this morning called The Top 50 worst famous football fans. It's a populist and ill thought-out run down of the famous football fans that you wouldn't want to stand alongside on the terraces. Okay, so I recognise it's never going to be Tolstoy but when you look at the three worst fans as chosen by the muppet journo it takes on a darker tone.

1. Adolf Hitler (Schalke 04)
Hitler may have bombed Old Trafford, but he wasn’t a Manchester City fan. The Fuhrer had a soft spot for Schalke, who, funnily enough, were German champions six times between 1933 and 1945. “Winning a match,” Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda chief, wrote, “is of more importance to the people than the capture of a town in the East.’” He obviously never went to a Norwich-Millwall game. (Yeah he probably never went to a Norwich-Millwall game, he was too busy killing millions of Jews - which isn't mentioned)

2. Russell Brand (West Ham United)
Potty-mouted “comedian” who minces about Upton Park pretending he owns the place. Also writes a pathetic weekly football column in The Guardian and called his autobiography “My Booky Wook”. (Called his autobiography "My Booky Wook"? What a Blackguard, what a cad! You say he left a nasty voicemail on Andrew Sach's phone? Well that's pretty much as serious as mass genocide in my book....)

3. Jon Gaunt (Coventry City)
We hate to kick a man when he’s down – “Gaunty” was sacked by TalkSPORT recently – but you probably wouldn’t want to sit next to everyone’s least favourite right-wing shock jock at a game.

What about Benito Mussolini (27)? What about 'Serbian paramilitary and ethnic cleanser' Zeljko “Arkan” Raznatovic (Red Star Belgrade and Obilic) (7)? What about Osama Bin - frickin' - Laden (5)? WHICH INSENSITIVE RETARD THOUGHT THAT A FASCIST DICTATOR WOULD BE MORE FUN TO CHAT TO ON THE TERRACES THAN HEATHER MILLS???? (I'm not sure I picked the best example here.)

I'm quite frankly ashamed that The Times has been caught up in the knee-jerk reactionism of Brandgate. The Times has been my rag of choice since I was 16, precisely because it had a reputation for balanced and well written reportage. Now it's just The Sun with fewer tits - Simon Barnes' nature report apart.

It's difficult to put my finger on exactly what offends me more about this article; the horrific imbalance of the piece and the ranking of its protagonists or the fact there isn't an associated podcast voiced by Jimmy Carr with thoughts by Stuart Maconie.

If anyone gives further work to the author of this dross, Kaveh Solhekol, then they'll be singlehandedly stabbing the heart of even-handed and decent journalism with a poison tipped dagger. I'm urging all of the combined editors and subs at The Times to stamp out this kind of lazy, gap-filling and pointless journalism. Let's raise standards, huh?