all football.
Forget the ever increasing mountain of debt that is hanging over the country, forget cutting the deficit, forget having to squeeze out a budget, forget about having to clear up the mess that Labour always leaves behind, even forget dropping the ban on fox hunting.
The first thing this new coalition ConDem government should do is ban ITV from ever getting their hands live and exclusive on any football game.
Everything turns to shit when it moves to ITV.
I can count the amount of decent games I’ve seen on that channel over the last few years on one hand. This season it has amounted to a couple, the Leeds games against ManUre and Spurs and the second half of the Spurs Fulham quarter-final. The rest, FA Cup, Internationals and Champions League have been tedious. Saturday’s F.A. Cup Final was no exception.
Oh but there was the chance of a fairy tale upset. No there wasn’t this was ITV, things like that don’t really happen live and exclusive on ITV. It was hugely predictable.
You knew who would win and you without a single doubt that the winner would come within minutes of Kevin-Prince Boateng’s inept penalty. As soon as Drogba lined up to take the free kick, what 2 and half minutes later, it was going to be one nil and game over.
Of course you might not have known that Dindane was gonna back of and just hang his arm out to try and stopped the ball or that Jamie O’Hara was going to completely ponce out of any attempt to do what someone in a wall should do. Quite frankly with that pathetic ponce out and the words he said before the semi-final, you ain’t going to be starting many games back at Spurs Jamie, so now you’re better than sitting on the bench, you might as well find another club. Next years relegation fodder.
And throughout all this tedium we were in the hands of two of the countries finest behind the mic. Clive “that night in Barcelona” Tyldesley and the person who seems to now be the default “colourman” on the channel, Jim Beglin. Who it has to be said does possess all the correct qualifications for the job. Having played for Liverpool at some point and being as dull as ditch water oh and utterly predictable. It’s all that is required for all the channels really, you can change the Liverpool bit for scummy ARSEnal. How the hell else do you explain Alan Smith – surely being able to pronounce all the letters in the alphabet should be must – Donkey Adams, missing link Keown, or the line up of cretins on Sky of a Saturday afternoon with Jeff Stelling. Paul Merson, do me a fucking favour.
I can’t actually remember what Beglin said at the time but going on past experience, I can imagine how it went when Ballack was fouled, which has put him out of the World Cup – so it did serve some purpose then. His usual routine in such matters is that the “dirty” foreigner, on the end of the challenge, was “looking for it” – you know they’re all dirty divers – and when he’s found it he’ll “make the most of it”. This is mainly the case when the challenge come from a British player, you know a good honest pro, like say Jamie Carragher, clod hopping his way through someone’s knees. Foreigner is now lying there with his leg hanging on by the merest sliver of skin. “He was looking for it, and he’s making the most of that”. The fact the foul came from Boateng though probably confused the hell out of Jim.
It’s all so bad it even makes you wish for David Pleat to be the sidekick. At least then you can have a bit of a laugh trying to guess how he’ll pronounce some of the player’s name. Talking of that, later on ITV did anyone get the count on how many variations Duke McKenzie came up for the surname of Amir Khan’s opponent in his title defence at Madison Square Garden, Malignaggi caused Duke more trouble than Khan?
Hell you even start to reminisce about the good old days with Big Fat Ron. Though with his nemesis sitting in the studio, seemingly doing an audition ‘Allo ‘Allo, I can’t see Mr Bojangles making any comeback soon.
So take warning Adrian Chiles, everything ITV touches turns to shit. Christ it did it to the last housewives favourite, Des Lynam, hell even worse it pretty much did it to Morecambe and Wise.
But of course it’s not the fault of ITV, they really can’t help being shite it’s part of their make-up. It’s the fault of the organisation that took their money. An organisation that lost yet another clown at the weekend. Billy Smart hasn’t lost as many clowns as this mob. Lord Triesman, another clown in an ever increasing line of clowns employed by the F.A., whose initials sum them up so well. It’s what they know and it ain’t very sweet.
Though is it in the public interest to have the World Cup bid scuppered by some tart and a newspaper? £3 billion it could cost us, I’d sue.
Again it makes you wish for the good old days of Graham Kelly boringly doing bugger all, until he got caught.