Narrative concepts in the journey of Bobby Duncan
How a piece of sports journalism is crafted to produce an impactful story
The Athletic is a subscription-based sports website. With writers covering events all around the world, it has grown into one of the most popular outlets for sporting news recently achieving a feat of one million members.
Some of the more recent posts include an interview with former Manchester United academy player Charlie Scott, as well as an in-depth feature into Italian football giant AC Milan.
The Athletic are successful in “turning information and events into structures that are already meaningful to their audiences” (Fulton 2005, p.1). Constructing a story and providing a personal touch has become a staple for the company. The natural ability to take the reader on a journey is something that takes careful consideration.
The Athletic’s website is where most of the written content is located. In addition, there is a range of podcasts available which provides an audio element to the site. Social media outlets complete the multimodal model, with established forums on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Overall, The Athletic falls under sports journalism — yet has the scope to produce long-style features, breaking news and even incorporate data.
The article in focus for this critical analysis is a piece by James Pearce — a journalist formerly of the Liverpool Echo. Pearce spoke to Bobby Duncan who is a former Liverpool player seeking a loan move out of Anfield.
To begin, the article immediately introduces Duncan who is the main character. We have been made aware of his recent transfer speculation through the subheading, but the piece goes back to 2016 where Duncan was playing for the England Under-16s.
This is an example of temporality which is a switch in time. We are drawn into Duncan’s experiences for the National team and it relates to the work by Huisman (2005) who states how “all events are not equal” (p.13).
Pearce, the narrator, makes this editorial decision to reflect on an important moment in Bobby Duncan’s career early on. Given the storyline is centred around a move to a new football team, this moment is significant both in the life of Duncan and also to the readers who are intrigued to learn more.
Shortly after, another actor is identified as Liverpool icon Steven Gerrard. We are told that Bobby Duncan is the cousin of Gerrard. This is an interesting point in the piece because it ties in a plethora of narrative concepts. Firstly, the setting. Pearce quickly transitions to when Duncan was playing for Manchester City’s youth team and how the club had offered to pay for his education at St Bede’s College. St Bede’s is a chosen school for City academy players to attend.
The setting has helped establish the stage in Bobby Duncan’s life. His father is brought in and the succinct focus on pacing is evident. The storytelling slows down with Pearce drawing on a time when Bobby had a new contract offer from Manchester City.
“His father Rob pointed to a brown envelope sitting on the mantelpiece in the lounge.”
This is what is known as ‘the complication’. We are told the finer details of wages and even house decorations with the setting adding to the suspense. As more information was revealed, the decision to decline the offer was a meaningful step in Duncan’s footballing journey. The narrative has been refined to a “specific day, time and place” (Huisman 2005, p.14) with the narrator emphasising this period in the life of Bobby Duncan.
Further information is given on contract disputes and the eventual compensation package agreed by Liverpool in 2018. ‘Duration’, otherwise known as “the steadiness of speed in the narrative” (Ibid. p.13), is noticeable because the narrator spends a large part in the early ongoings of the piece on a very specific moment.
At this point in the narrative, we feel close to the main actor. We have been able to build a clear mental picture of the predicament Bobby Duncan found himself in. This is through the narrator intentionally slowing the article down. Furthermore, the use of direct quotes from Duncan emulates the notion of ‘mimesis’. The conversation that the young footballer had with his father is reflected directly onto the reader. Aristotle describes ‘mimesis’ as the “actions and speech of the characters” (In; Huisman 2005, p.18). As for why this is important, the fact that Pearce uses the exact words of the character’s creates a sense of drama. The focus of the article is to mirror the life events of Bobby Duncan which is consistent with the aforementioned personal edge to The Athletic.
The narrator fast forwards 12 months to a stage where the article transitions from an overriding sense of optimism to disappointment. Again, there is a switch in time, setting and several new actors are added to the story. Interestingly, the setting this time is not something physical or geographical. We are shown Duncan’s Twitter feed and the narrator explains the sudden detachment of Bobby Duncan and Liverpool Football Club. Instead of Duncan’s living room, the established setting — ‘mise en scène’— is now social media. Immediately we question how a lifelong dream to sign for Liverpool diminished via a social platform.
“[Rubie was] adamant that the youngster won’t ever represent the club again. Duncan, who has removed all mentions of LFC from his social media accounts and has blacked out his profile photos, retweeted the statement before deleting it an hour later.”
Bringing together the agenda and sequence of events
Duncan’s fallout with the club from Merseyside is briefly explained but we are immersed in the narrative due to the multiple concepts being utilised. While the mode for this format is text, you can see comparisons with Ira Glass and his broadcast work. Glass stresses the importance of being able to construct a suitable agenda. Pearce is able to do this because of his chosen structure. In particular, the pace he sets for certain events. The Twitter feud is only a snippet of a wider issue concerning agents, finances and opportunity.
The narrator introduces Saif Rubie about halfway through the piece and he arguably replaces Bobby Duncan as the main actor.
Digression
However, after the naming of a new agent, we are given what shaped up to be a backstory of Duncan’s life during his exit from Manchester City. This has already been mentioned so the narrator chooses to revisit a setting. In terms of the overall effectiveness, this section comes under scrutiny. Pearce moves away from the narrative techniques that kept the reader engaged throughout. In contrast with the start of the piece which was well-paced, included direct quotes to help mirror the actors’ speech and a suitable sequence of events, the piece digresses.
Semiotics: Language
The movement of the article is worth noting here. The tension and drama somewhat diminished until the controversial figure of Saif Rubie returned to the story. What I gauged from the depiction of Rubie is that he is an actor which the reader should come to dislike. Much like “Classic Hollywood movies and realist television dramas reinforce myths as the existence… [of] the natural opposition between good and ‘bad” (Fulton 2005, p.7).
Pearce takes the focus off Bobby Duncan and shifts the impetus onto Rubie’s dealings. The narrator returns to language to tell the story which Huisman conveys as “the principal semiotic means humans have for signifying meaning” (p.12). Duncan is fazed out of the narrative with Saif Rubie’s business background, previous legal issues and overall persona now in the spotlight.
“[Rubie] has certainly managed to separate himself from the rest. Liverpool haven’t ever dealt with anyone like him but that’s not a compliment.”
The narrator chooses to include past tweets and quotes to reflect upon why Rubie’s relationship with Liverpool was problematic. Pearce wants to draw a reaction out of the reader. He uses this particular moment in the agents’ career as a microcosm to show how Saif Rubie has not represented his clients with their vested interests at heart. It plays upon Huisman’s work again who suggests how “particular devices…might be intended to promote a particular emotional context of reception, that of sympathetic anticipation” (p.14).
Works by Storms (1973) and Wegner (1983) have demonstrated that the “manipulation of narrative perspective significantly influences not only recall and recognition, but also casual assessment… [causing] deviation from the logic of impartiality” (Peer 2001, p.231). Now, whether this was intentional from the narrator, that is questionable. Yet, the portrayal of this particular character at the end who is seemingly devoid of any footballing agenda, makes it difficult not to judge him in a negative light.
Overall meaning
This is how the piece ends, with a feeling of sympathy towards a young footballer who had a dream taken away from him. The narrator is effective in promoting this emotional response as the sequence of events are aligned in such a way that creates a binary opposition between agents and footballers.
Throughout the narrative, the effaced narrator James Pearce delicately implements techniques which create tension and leave the readers questioning the wider context of the issues he has touched upon. “Narratives in any medium or genre… are ways of structuring and representing lived experience” (Ibid. p.27) and this article from The Athletic is a useful example which showcases how concepts can be used to craft a thought-provoking story.
Taking inspiration
Tuesday’s lecture was the first time I had come across any of the narrative concepts. I needed to read around the terms to understand them from an academic perspective. This allowed me to apply them after reading a piece of media. Without a doubt, the notion of pacing is something I will be looking to implement in future work. Interview and longer format pieces provide the opportunity to tell a meaningful story and I will be paying much closer attention to the duration of certain events. This is a skill in itself because selecting exactly what is relevant from an interview can be difficult.
We have discussed in class the importance of combining data with human angles. Interviews add substance to the story and from a narrative perspective, can be just as important as the data. The structuring needs to be succinct to not only tell the story clearly, but to also emphasise what the problem is and why it is significant. Interviews can help answer some of those questions by making the piece more relatable to the reader.
Bibliography
Fulton, H (2005) Introduction: the power of narrative In: Narrative and media. Cambridge University Press, pp.1–7.
Huisman, R (2005) Narrative concepts In: Narrative and media. Cambridge University Press, pp.11–27.
Peer V, W. (2001) Narrative perspective and the interpretation of characters’ motives. Language and literature. London: Thousand Oaks. Vol.10(3): pp.229–241.
Pearce, J (2020) Money not the motivation for Bobby Duncan — but he’s impatient to prove he belongs at the top. The Athletic. Monday 21 September 2020. (Available at: https://theathletic.co.uk/1162636/2020/09/21/money-not-the-motivation-for-bobby-duncan-and-he-does-still-have-a-liverpool-future/) [Accessed: Wednesday 23 September 2020]
Storms, M, D. (1973) Videotape and the attribution process: Reversing actors’ and observers’ points of view. Personality and social psychology.
Wegner, D, M. and Giuliano, T (1983) Social awareness in story comprehension. Social cognition. Vol.2: pp.1–17
