Extraordinary to relate, but The Times, which within living memory was proud to be regarded as the "newspaper of record" in sporting terms, is at present operating without a golf correspondent, a chief sports writer or a tennis correspondent.
After the departure of Peter Dixon - who could hardly have thought himself to be as irreplaceable as he has proved to be - and the plain daft exit of Simon Barnes, the third leg of sports editor Tim Hallissey's unwanted staffing hat-trick has come with the axing of the controversial Neil Harman.
The circumstances which led to Harman's sacking, for that is what it is, were outlined fully here.
After the departure of Peter Dixon - who could hardly have thought himself to be as irreplaceable as he has proved to be - and the plain daft exit of Simon Barnes, the third leg of sports editor Tim Hallissey's unwanted staffing hat-trick has come with the axing of the controversial Neil Harman.
The circumstances which led to Harman's sacking, for that is what it is, were outlined fully here.
Neil Harman: new balls please?
Confidentiality clauses used to suppress information often frustrate journalists' working lives, so it is doubly galling when such contractual niceties are used to keep things schtum on a development within the profession. Even this week, News UK corporate types were informing media correspondents that nothing had been decided in respect of Harman's fate.
Yet one suspiciously well-informed American website - possibly helped by some of Harman's erstwhile colleagues in the tennis press boxes around the world - was reporting the dismissal of the paper's tennis correspondent at the end of September.
And this week, Private Eye confirmed the news. Our own enquiries suggest that the Eye report is well-founded.
Harman was suspended by The Times in July, pending an internal enquiry into whether he had committed acts of plagiarism while doing the "day job" for the paper.
The former Mail football reporter had undertaken massive amounts of freelance work and book-writing as lucrative sidelines, including an Andy Murray biography published immediately after the Scot's Wimbledon victory last year. Harman admitted his over-enthusiastic use of cut-and-paste in the 2013 Wimbledon yearbook, but according to the Eye, it was shown to be a technique he had practised for at least six years; it even claims that he reproduced entire 600-word articles.
The internal inquiry by Bob Tyrer, of the Sunday Times, found no evidence of such plagiarism in Harman's work for his newspaper, but sources at the Little Shard suggest that the dismissal was achieved by utilising one of those catch-all contractual clauses which talk grandly of bringing the paper into disrepute.
It is questionable whether Harman could have continued to do his job for the paper, as the All England Club was considering withholding the reporter's Wimbledon accreditation. This is one of the more distasteful elements of the affair, since the sports editor of another national newspaper - an inhabitant of a glasshouse who has a plentiful supplies of cobbles to throw around - was apparently energetically lobbying Wimbledon to pull the plug on Harman's media access.
Nor are the blazeratti innocent of flagrant hypocrisy here: Wimbledon happily continued selling the yearbook throughout the championships fortnight, despite being made aware of the plagiarism issues in April this year.
Harman is believed to be considering a legal challenge to his dismissal from The Times. In his late 50s, another senior journalism job seems unlikely to come his way. Work for the "dark side" in PR might be possible. It has also been suggested that Harman has received an offer to write a book about the episode.
And that's one book that will have to be all his own work.
Yet one suspiciously well-informed American website - possibly helped by some of Harman's erstwhile colleagues in the tennis press boxes around the world - was reporting the dismissal of the paper's tennis correspondent at the end of September.
And this week, Private Eye confirmed the news. Our own enquiries suggest that the Eye report is well-founded.
Harman was suspended by The Times in July, pending an internal enquiry into whether he had committed acts of plagiarism while doing the "day job" for the paper.
The former Mail football reporter had undertaken massive amounts of freelance work and book-writing as lucrative sidelines, including an Andy Murray biography published immediately after the Scot's Wimbledon victory last year. Harman admitted his over-enthusiastic use of cut-and-paste in the 2013 Wimbledon yearbook, but according to the Eye, it was shown to be a technique he had practised for at least six years; it even claims that he reproduced entire 600-word articles.
The internal inquiry by Bob Tyrer, of the Sunday Times, found no evidence of such plagiarism in Harman's work for his newspaper, but sources at the Little Shard suggest that the dismissal was achieved by utilising one of those catch-all contractual clauses which talk grandly of bringing the paper into disrepute.
It is questionable whether Harman could have continued to do his job for the paper, as the All England Club was considering withholding the reporter's Wimbledon accreditation. This is one of the more distasteful elements of the affair, since the sports editor of another national newspaper - an inhabitant of a glasshouse who has a plentiful supplies of cobbles to throw around - was apparently energetically lobbying Wimbledon to pull the plug on Harman's media access.
Nor are the blazeratti innocent of flagrant hypocrisy here: Wimbledon happily continued selling the yearbook throughout the championships fortnight, despite being made aware of the plagiarism issues in April this year.
Harman is believed to be considering a legal challenge to his dismissal from The Times. In his late 50s, another senior journalism job seems unlikely to come his way. Work for the "dark side" in PR might be possible. It has also been suggested that Harman has received an offer to write a book about the episode.
And that's one book that will have to be all his own work.
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