Football on TV

It's effectively shit isn't it?

Apparently there is some level of excitement for Adrian Chiles making his big tournament bow for ITV, although quite why this functional everyman is heralded as some sort of saviour is a mystery to me. Chiles is a decent TV pro, but is hardly memorable. The fact is that Chiles' main virtue is the fact that his presence does not instantly make you reach for the mute button, make you desperately turn over to watch adverts on another channel, or start tweeting bitterly about how much of a cunt he is, unlike virtually every other man currently working in televised football industry in Britain. It hardly seems a story to make the front pages of the tabs, but it somehow did a month or so back.

Sir Gary Lineker is of course Chiles main competition over on Auntie. Lineker is oft-maligned by some; my own position is fairly simple. Gary Lineker scored the most important goal of my football life (and probably the second and third most important as well). It will take more than ten years of shitty vanilla broadcasting to use up my goodwill towards him: simply put, Lineker is still a legend in my book, so despite his terrible puns, permatan, bland opinions and matey banter, he remains my anchor of choice. The back-up anchors (Jake Humphries on BBC1, Matt Smith on ITV) are decent enough;I retain a fondness for Smith ever since the Monday Premiership, and Humphries did well with the last few Superbowls, so will be welcomed chez dj. Most of all, whoever Gaby Logan works for (I forget), will be thoroughly welcomed: knows the game, and Would Smash.

It all becomes a bit more difficult after that. The pundits, for example, are mostly a long list of cretinous wankers you wouldn't piss on if they were on fire. Alan Hansen peaked at around the same time as S Club 7 (Euro 2000/Reach respectively), and should have fucked off about the same time, instead of leaning back and muttering the same thin-lipped bollocks about "pace, penetration, power". Alan Shearer has nothing to offer the viewer, aside from the contents of his trousers. Shearer, despite being a marvellous centre forward, somehow has not been as fortunate as Lineker in retaining any of my goodwill: he is perhaps the biggest cunt out of the whole bunch. Lee Dixon is fairly vapid, although inoffensive, and perhaps offers the most insight out of these three. I am usually a fan of Martin Keown on MOTD2, and hope that he might make an appearance. O Neill is ok, Strachan is fantastic if he turns up.

Over on Channel 3, Andy Townsend and Robbie Earle are, if possible, somehow even worse than Hansen and Shearer. Townsend is fairly passable on the radio when I've heard him on Talksport, but seems embarrassingly vapid on TV, utilising only cliches. Townsend seems to be aiming to be a more informal Shearer, so he will say nothing of interest, but do it in a vaguely matey, colloquial way: fuck you, Andy. I do like Gareth Southgate though, and have ever since he first came through as a player. He's a better pundit than he was a manager, and should stick to that role if possible. Actually, I doubt he'll get much choice.

The commentators and co-commentators are, of course, when the real cunts come out to play. Clive Fucking Tyldsley is perhaps the biggest among these. A man who believes that the fact that Brian Moore (Rest In Peace With Shitloads Of Beautiful Women And Fine Wine) happened to retire a year before United won the European Cup in the second biggest trophy robbery of the last twenty years and therefore that he, by default, was commentating when Sheringham and Solskjaer scored means that he has to mention it every fucking time he has a microphone in front of him. Let's get one or two things straight, Clive. You were commentating on two momentous evenings in European football, but you contributed very little to them. If anything, your contribution was a negative one, in that people were forced to turn off your commentary and listen to the radio, or simply watch the match in silence. You add nothing to the occasion, no analysis, no insight, no weight, no gravitas, merely an unbelievably irritating desire to make everything feel like a massive occasion. You never say anything to help the viewer understand better what is going on in front of him. You are merely a self-important prick, who is incompetent at your job, who believes himself to be part of football's rich history. Well you're not, Clive. The truth is this: Everyone fucking hates you, you massive fucking wanker.

Ahem.

Peter Drury is ITV's other commentator. The situation with Drury is somewhat simpler: he doesn't have the same belief in his own importance, but he is somehow a less competent commentator than Tyldsley, adding somehow even less explanation or insight to the occasion. Somehow, Tyldsley and Drury have achieved an remarkable feat: each one makes you simultaneously relieved that it is them who is commentating, not that other twat, but also wish that it was the other one, because this one is so shit. A remarkable vicious circle that will make the mute button the most used in the dj house over the next few weeks.

Since Motty has finally fucked off (thank you God), BBC have nothing like the level of irritation in the commentary box; Jonathan Pearce is nothing special, but at least he doesn't bring the same approach to matches he used to on Capital Gold: every fucking day they would play an edit of Three Lions with Pearce's absurd bellowing over the top: "Ready Steady Teddy" and "A, L, Super Al, Super Alan Shearer" For Fucks Sake. Thank fuck he has now toned it down a bit.

Like the commentators, there is precious little talent in the co-commentator department either. Jim Beglin seems to have deteriorated massively in terms of his analysis over the last 15 years, to the point that I'm sure that his wife wonders if he is coming down with pre-senile dementia; look out for him if he is commentating on African teams, because this is a man to whom every black player is identical, if his attempts to identify Sulley Muntari when Inter met Barca are anything to go by. David Pleat is equally witless; incapable of pronouncing names, and with one of the most annoying voices you can imagine: like the boy in your class at school who loved trains. It's a shame, because he's solid in print, and capable of giving insight (I sound like a fucking parrot with that, but you wonder why it seems that so few people in the industry have grasped that their job is to help the viewer at home understand what they are watching, and if they can't do that, either because they are so dull that they have nothing to say (Graeme Le Saux) or genuinely possess a subnormal IQ (Ian Wright), they should simply fuck off).

Lest it appear that I am being too harsh on ITV, the Beeb's Mark Lawrenson is of course the biggest cunt in the Co-Commentator class. Lawro appears to have had all his humour and joie de vivre sucked out by Shearer's promotion to the first choice couch with Hansen and Lineker. Yet still he continues to crack terrible jokes. Needless to say, he has a complete inability to add anything that gives the viewer or listener added insight to the game (again).

I'm frankly sick of all these cunts already, and I've not had to watch one game thus far, so we'll leave it there, I think.