Talk:Gavin Henson
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[edit] Some tidy-up and removals
I have done a bit of a clean-up job here in two parts. The prior version's lead-in went "current", "2004", "2005", "2001", "current", "when at school" in that order and the rest of the article was similar. So I have reordered and copyedited a lot. I don't think anyone will complain about that. It's just what happens when you get a lot of small additions to an article.
Second, we have entire paragraphs like "Gavin Henson is currently one of the most popular European athletes and was recently voted 'hottest athlete' by European women, ahead of footballer diva David Beckham. Henson is also widely known for being a metrosexual. He has been rumored to use spray-on tans, shave his legs, alternate between silver and gold boots, and his wide array of different hairstyles have made him an icon amongst the gay community. Despite the controversy surrounding Wales' favourite son, Henson still remains one of the hardest-hitting centres and also widely reputed as one of the longest-ranged place-kickers.". Where to start?
I am sure there are any number of tabloid headlines referring to "most popular" or even "popular", but without a reference, we can't say this. Anyone interested in restoring this paragraph, which I have removed, could you please provide checkable references as per WP:CITE for "most popular", "hottest athlete", "ahead of David Beckham", the spray-on tans (I'm not disputing the tans, I just want a source for spray-on), "icon amongst the gay community", "favourite son", "hardest-hitting", and "longest-ranged"? I'll grant that Carolyn Hitt called him metrosexual (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4243567.stm), but I'm not sure that this counts as "widely known as a" and I think it is better to describe the attributes leading to it than to just give the term. There's an interesting explanation of the leg-shaving from Henson in the Observer interview, incidentally.
In the spirit of not adding stuff I can't substantiate, can anyone help track down references to something I think is true but have no sources for? I think that when Henson arrived at Swansea, he was very shy (!) when it came to dealing with the media. He was asked to do some kind of homework in addition to the physical training along the lines of talking to someone new each day. I can't find this anywhere now. Is this true, wrong, my memory making things up, someone else entirely, or something that just got said a lot but never got written down?
--Telsa 23:09, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
I think the thing about him being shy and being made to work at it at swansea was from a documentary about him on BBC wales I think. Think it was called "Beyond the spikes" or something like that. Somewhat explodes the myth of his arrogant persona I feel. - Rhyswyn
[edit] How much detail do we need?
Argh, this citing discussion is now a paragraph, and one as long as the paragraph about his family background, his early days, his first club, his first international appearances, and the Lions. Surely there is no need for the details about who did what, who said who did what, who cited whom for doing what, the basis for the appeal, who has got away with shorter bans for worse offenses, comparisons with Boks v France and the implications of the ban for his chances of 6N selection? (On the other hand, there is definitely a need for someone to write something about how the game is refereed, because I can't find an article that fits yet.) Trimmed. Please discuss here before expanding it again! --Telsa ((t)(c)) 17:32, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
