Live, minute-by-minute commentary on how quickly newspaper sites updated their football pages after England beat Ukraine 2-1 tonight.
Summary
35 minutes after the game finished at 9.55pm, half the major UK newspaper sites hadn’t updated their football home pages with a match report.
90 minutes later, three of them still hadn’t updated their football home pages. The Express still hasn’t published a story.
10.15pm: 4 published – 4 haven’t
20 mins after the game, and 4 newspapers have the game as the main headline on their sites’ football home pages. Four don’t mention it, as this table shows.
| Newspaper website | Headline at 10.15pm |
|---|---|
| Telegraph | Terry seals win for England |
| Guardian | England 2 Ukraine 1 |
| England 2 Ukraine 1 – John Terry’s all gold | |
| Sun | Terry nicks it |
| Express | SHEARER COMES IN AS NEWCASTLE SAVIOUR |
| Mirror | England team to play Ukraine: Aaron Lennon starts in place of David Beckham |
| Times | Capello turns to Crouch to lead England’s line |
| Independent | Scotland drop captain and goalie over ‘drinks session’ |
10.25pm
The same picture – 40 minutes after the game, and 4 major news sites still hadn’t updated their sites. Hello? Anyone there?
10.35pm: 5-3
There was one improvement at 10.35, as the Independent gets the story live. That’s 5 with the story, 3 without.
| Newspaper site | Headline at 10.35 |
|---|---|
| Independent | Captain Terry keeps England on course |
| Express | SHEARER COMES IN AS NEWCASTLE SAVIOUR |
| Mirror | England team to play Ukraine: Aaron Lennon starts in place of David Beckham |
| Times | Capello turns to Crouch to lead England’s line |
10.45pm: Still 5-3
The situation looks the same – although the Times has published a match report, but hasn’t added it to its football home page.
‘Top sport’ at 10.45pm
The same is not true of the Express or Mirror – I can’t find a story anywhere. The Mirror still has ‘Look ahead to tonight’s world cup qualifiers’ on its home page and team news in its latest sport box … The Express’s claim to be ‘updated 24/7’ looks a bit hollow.
I go and look the sites up in a different browser, to make sure it’s not a caching issue. Nope.
10.55pm: 5-3
One hour after the final whistle. The headlines on the football home pages of the Express, Mirror and Times still haven’t been updated. But edited highlights are just starting on ITV!
I want to go to bed soon. Come on people … I have a good hunt round the Mirror and Express sites. No sign of a report anywhere.
11pm: 5-3
The Express’s ‘Latest sport’ page is leading with “Salford winger Paul White will miss the rest of the season after aggravating a knee injury in the Reds’ 48-12 defeat at Hull”. That story was published at 1pm today – 10 hours ago.
11.15pm: Yup, 5-3
The Times does have a picture of John Terry on its sports page – it’s next to a feature called descibed thus: “Italian will ensure his players do not fall victim to overconfidence if they defeat Ukraine at Wembley”. Still nothing on its football page.
11.25pm: You guessed it …
90 minutes after the game. Still no story from the Mirror and the Express. I check Google news to make sure. At least the Times has a story – perhaps the football-page updater has gone to bed.
11.30pm: Just the Express left
I find the Mirror story! It’s not mentioned on the home, sport or football page. But there is one there – maybe it’s been there a while, who knows? No one would have found it …
Off to bed – the Express is relegated.
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