Match of the Day vs The Premiership

I would like to see Motty on Question Time. No, seriously.

So does PJM. I would, too.

Blair was embarrassingly nervy and deferential, as he is in 'non-political' scenarios. Yet it cannot be said that his judgement of footy matters was altogether awry: as Alba and JtN point out, his judgements were oddly accurate.

Boyle is absolutely right to say that Blair looked terrified when they replayed the old radio interview. It was as though, having just made a claim, it was going to be undermined 30 seconds later, and we were about to see him lying outright on live TV, as it happened. It would have been so emblematic. And this is just Football Focus.

But it did not happen; the tape proved his innocence - which perhaps makes me wonder why he looked so scared.

On the whole, otherwise, he was fairly uncontroversial and unenlightening. Surely he could at least, for instance, have said that Supporters' Trusts are a good thing? But then, perhaps he doesn't think they are.

A terrific photo in the next day's paper showed him talking afterwards, not with Lawro and Manish (sp?) but with... Hansen... Lineker... and ... yes: the man who cut his political teeth on Dispatch Box: CROOKSY!

He said when he was first over in England on some job, he was working with Garth Crooks, who proved unable or unwilling to remember Greg's face, and instead introduced himself or asked Greg who he was over and over again.

The more times the better.

Arsehole.

Lineker continues to flourish imo - maybe it's taken for granted? but he's at the top of his game, the presenting game that is.

Apprently he was/is going to be on Breakfast this morning. We the viewers were invited to try and stump him with tricky questions about Leicester.

As you can see, I am already hard at work, so I couldn't watch it.

Lawrie Sanchez seemed an utter bastard to me - and believe it or not, that came as a surprise.

I heard Des on Parkinson yesterday, both of them saying TV critics are impotent, ie. don't matter. In a way, it was a relaxed, engaging meeting of two broadcasting greats - well, one great, with some geezer from Yorkshire. But in a way, also, it was two rich fellows chuckling over the complacency they can now get away with.

Just realized that the start of this thread directly coincided with the arrival of the TACTICS TRUCK. It's like finding a tablet of stone recording the parting of the Red Sea.

Steady Mike and I last night watched Tyldesley rather than BBC, if only cos, in Mike's spontaneously superb formulation, Guy Mowbray has third place play-off written all over him.

It's one thing not to be able to replace David Coleman or Barry Davies. But making Guy Mowbray your #1 commentator and giving him the World Cup Final?

I don't recall noticing Mowbray much, which is how I want it from my commentators frankly.

Is it me or does Hansen spoil MOTD2? He sits there like a fucking critic waiting for the others to do something wrong. The whole atmosphere is all wrong. It reminded me of that awful time he was on Frank Skinner's show and was giving it "Says something funny then! Come on Frank you're supposed to be funnier than that! MAKE US LAUGH FRANK!"
Arsehole.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Tuesday, November 8, 2005 5:10 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Still true. The main problem for me is that the bbc studio is always full of unpleasant people who poison the atmosphere. You need no hansen, no shearer and no lawrenson before it becomes decent watching. ITV is almost always more pleasant now but the adverts are killer. I rarely bother with the punditry now, it's only worth it for the replays.

Guy Mowbray may not be a marquee name but he can't possibly be worse than Tyldesley can he? I get more than enough Clive over the course of the season as it is.

Apparently Alan Hansen is actually a pretty nice guy in real life, he's getting increasingly half-arsed when it comes to his hardman act. I can cope with either Hansen or Shearer on their own, together they're appalling. Here's hoping Shearer gets a job in management sometime soon.

Can't be doing with Lawro or Townsend at all, for entirely different reasons.

started watching bbc coverage last night but eventually had to switch to itv due to lawro's constant negative vibes complaining about a shit game. but then itv weren't much better. personally thought it was a good game.

Don't wish to wallow in the past, but this thread was really something in 2004-05. Perhaps it can be again...

From The Fiver the other day:

What's got eight arms, no spine and makes wild predictions about football matches without having a clue?

The Match of the Day panel.

Seemed to be some distinct bad vibes between Shearer and Hansen throughout the BBC's coverage, I think. Following his failure at the Lolcastle, it feels like Shearer realises punditry is his only career now, thinks he needs to make some kind of panel powergrab and has become even more boorish as a result.

The combination of Lineker - who, after all these years, still feels like a supply teacher who thinks he's still one of the kids - Shearer, Hansen and Dixon/Lawro is absolutely deadly. They really need a European/South American/Hodgson-style eminence grise to make them up their game.

I don't particularly warm to Lineker, but I have to admit he's a fine presenter and does a decent line in deadpan. There was one bit in the lead-up yesterday where Lineker was running through the Dutch penalty in the 74 final and pointed out the foul might have been outside the box "... but they didn't have technology in those days".

A couple of seconds later Shearer got it and bellowed "THEY DON'T HAVE IT NOW!!". He does this all the time, and it's starting to crack me up.

I realised how good Lineker was in 2006, when they had the likes of Ian Wright and Leonardo in the studio dropping enormous clangers and the thing kept threatening to spin out of control and Lineker would get things back on track with a knowing look to the audience. Leonardo talking about golden showers and Lineker going "well at least you all now know it's not scripted" was a classic.

Amid the torpor of 2010's panel, not so much.

BBC badly missed Martin O'Neill this time round.

Yeah Seedorf only partly made up for O'Neill's absence.

ITV's panel was still worse, though. Watching Southgate desperately trying to carry Davids and Vieira was painful. Poor Lucas Radebe seemed to have no idea what he was doing there, Desailly just seems to be becoming increasingly incoherent, and Townsend looks every inch the man who is far too secure in his job.

From the BBC website's news ticker:

The World Cup final drew a peak audience of 17.9m viewers on BBC One, and 3.8m on ITV1

Ouch.

I'd expect ITV to do worse than the BBC but 3.8m is embarassing.

BBC having us on there surely

I don't know if this has been mentioned but Lineker, Hansen, Shearer and Dixon were all wearing suits (with ties) last night, which seemed odd to me. I wondered what the reason for it was, so checked to see if the ITV team were doing the same but they were dressed casually as usual.

As has been already mentioned, Hansen and Shearer is a bad combination. Hansen has become a parody of himself and his comments seem repetitive and predictable. Of course, from his playing career he is clearly something of an expert on defensive play, but the way he always homes in on 'dire' defensive mistakes has become annoying, as has his over-reliance on a very limited repertoire of phrases consisting of two words joined by 'and', eg 'passion and commitment'. Shearer is really dislikeable. Lee Dixon, on the other hand, I quite like. I think Shearer, Lawrenson and Hansen all come across as being over-aggrandised by having BBC contracts. Lawrenson's history piece about the Spion Kop was awful (actually I detested all the BBC's woven-in history segments, and also that bus that travelled around, with the insufferable Dan Walker).

Overall I much prefer the ITV coverage, despite the ads and the irritating theme music/title sequence. I know he is not popular here but I like Andy Townsend. I like his briskness. Regardless of which channel they appear on, I tend to like old pros who keep it brisk and hard-bitten, which means I like Townsend, and also Mark Bright (I like the way he gets over-excited), Jim Beglin, Mick McCarthy, and even Kevin Keegan.

I watched Hitchcock's VERTIGO last night and early on in the film James Stewart appears to be doing a very plausible ALAN HANSEN impersonation. Could it be that ALAN HANSEN's entire screen persona is based on James Stewart's combination of bewilderment and indignation?
PS: The film was a game of two halves.

― Puddin'Head Miller (PJ Miller), Tuesday, 21 December 2004

also Mark Bright (I like the way he gets over-excited)

You lost me there

iirc the viewing figures for the World Cup final always break down roughly like this btw

Almost all pundits wore suits until a certain point, which may have been about 2006. Then the norms changed and channels copied each other. I thought the change was a bad thing, partly because I think these people are too complacent as it is: wearing a suit might at least give them more of a sense of gravitas; dressing casually confirms to them that this is casual and they needn't make any effort. This tendency to complacency has blighted hitherto peerless BBC coverage for years.

Suits have continued to be used in outside broadcasts / live games, etc, sometimes.

Mike last night constructed Andy Townsend's work schedule, in full, as follows.

6:58pm: arrive at studio. Wear pink shirt.

also Mark Bright (I like the way he gets over-excited)

You lost me there

He tends to get over-excited by goalmouth incidents, bad misses and so on, and start shouting. There is something endearing about it.

Guy Mowbray is absolutely terrible, as I keep saying

Beeb considers him better than Jonathan Pearce?

I didn't think the suits were necessarily a bad thing. It just seemed odd to me that they wore them for the final. As far as I am aware, they dressed casually for all the previous games.

If I was Pearce, I'd be looking for a move to another channel