Cricket to us was more than play, it was a worship in the summer sun….

Jonathan Agnew is a well-respected commentator on BBC radio’s cricket coverage. Will Buckley is a slightly less well-respected senior sports writer for the otherwise excellent UK Sunday newspaper, The Observer. During the recent topsy-turvy, edge-of-your- seat England v Australia Ashes series, over a lunch break at The Oval, Agnew interviewed diminutive English popstrel Lily Allen, herself a surprisingly loyal, and it transpired amusing, devotee of Test cricket and never anything less than an engaging interviewee. The interview was light-hearted, informal and, judging by the days of faux-panic and jocular ribbing between Agnew and his co-commentators in the build up, an unabashed tongue-in-cheek affair. How, his colleagues enquired, amused, would the bumbling Aggers cope when faced with the paparazzi-fodder and darling of the red-tops. They got the joke. Buckley didn’t. After the interview, writing in his column he accused Agnew of unashamed fawning and positioning “himself firmly on the pervy side of things”, a cross “between benevolent uncle and desperate middle-aged man panting on the edge of the dance floor.” Sticks and stones and all that. But…

Agnew, like Allen, and unlike Buckley, is a rapacious Twitterer. He has 22,000 followers. She has nearly 1.3 million. In the ethereal world of social media they are, like a couple of virtual New Jersey hoods, very well connected “tweeple”. In the lead up to the offending interview Agnew tweeted about his nerves, the excitement, the questions he should ask, what he should wear. Allen, too, tweeted how excited she was. It was all very cheerful and sociable. Until Buckley waded in. Agnew expressed his surprise at the tone of the column on Twitter and thanked his followers for expressing their shock, and 140-character support, too. The Observer website was swamped with astonishment. Allen chipped in and voiced surprise. 

And then more people piped up. And more. And more. And still more. A “snide, nasty, small-minded and utterly hyperbolic hatchet job, dripping in meanness” they cried! The hordes gathered at the gates and, fired by his role as slighted quarry, Agnew demanded an apology.

Today, so vociferous has the support for Agnew become, that this atonement now seems imminent. The whole torrid affair has tipped into the mainstream press and Buckley is boxed in, his reputation in tatters. Or twatters.

So, what have we learnt from this tragic tale? Well, it’s not only brands that need to tread carefully, to act responsibly, to listen to the proles. If you want to throw stones at national treasures, be sure to keep in mind that it’s not only they who you damn. You take on legions of pumped-up, digitally-savvy devotees, too, each with a voice. And against such a tsunami of opinion, even august strongholds such as The Observer are dust.
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