Tuesday 23 February 2010

Liverpool v Unirea Urziceni

Liverpool v Unirea Urziceni
Thursday 18th February
Five 19:30

Prologue

If Dave’s could take a rare moment to get serious readers, he’d like to tell you that he picked this game as it highlights his biggest bugbear with the modern game. The UEFA Cup (and FA and League Cup’s) was once seen as a hugely important competition that could define whether a club ‘at the top table’ had enjoyed a successful season or not. Now it’s seen as hindrance to the bigger priority of getting into a qualifying stage for another competition. Everyone knows the reason for this is the much sort after ‘Champions League Revenue’ that comes with qualification for the group stages but one of the many things that disappoints is that lots of fans as well as directors of clubs seem to give this priority over their team winning a pot.

Maybe it’s me here at Dave’s. Maybe I’m living with nostalgic and romantic ideas that are no longer relevant. Maybe I’m putting short term glory ahead of perceived long-term stability (such as that enjoyed after Champions League appearances at Elland Road and sportsdirect.com@St.James’Park.) And maybe kids don’t now grow up dreaming of scoring the winning goal in the cup final, instead its the goal that means their team finishes 4th and in turn, they get a mention in the boardroom when the club announces a record turnover at the yearly accounts.

Programme

The face of Five’s Europa League coverage and Liverpool fan Colin Murray told us that a ‘sold-out Anfield expects tonight’ (which I suspected was an early porky from the chirpy Ulsterman (the ‘sold-out’ rather than ‘expects’ bit obviously)) and immediately we saw Rafa Benitez and his Liverpool team arrive at the stadium amidst the news he was fielding a strong team for the game. We were then treated to a montage of clips highlighting Liverpool’s poor season so far with snippets of radio commentary focussing on defeats and exit from the Champions League. Just as the full depressing reality of a team being 4th in the Premier League and still in European competition in mid-February was hitting home we were thankfully uplifted as the camera slowly walked under the iconic ‘THIS IS ANFIELD’ tunnel entrance, the music picked up and we got to hear radio clips of more successful moments from the season so far. Phew!

Unlikely popular pundit Stan Collymore was in the studio with Murray, while at pitch side we had the thinking-mans pundit (pun semi-intentional) and softly spoken Scot, Pat Nevin. Nevin then let me down after that favourable introduction by rolling out one of the traditional Liverpool in Europe sound bites that ‘these fans love European Nights.’ A graphic appeared showing us the current odds for this year’s tournament and unsurprisingly Liverpool were sillily underpriced favourites at 13/2. Nevin opined that current holders Shakhtar Donetsk were the value at 14/1 whereas if DTVSr was asked to delve into its substantial gambling knowledge he would advise you to take a chance on ’The Peoples Club’ from across Stanley Park at 20/1.

As the build up continued we were given snippets of info on Unirea which included that the town of Urziceni could fit into Anfield twice over and there’d still be 10,000 empty seats, the club ‘fell out of’ the Champions League group stages despite beating Rangers and Sevilla and that former Sheffield Wednesday and Chelsea player Dan Petrescu was their previous manager. All the kind of stuff DTVSr (mostly knows but still) likes to be told to be fair. Benitez was then interviewed and I don’t think anybody could’ve faulted the basic logic in stating that he’s ‘playing a strong team as they want to win.’

Straight from another advert (we were now onto number 4 with the programme 25 minutes old) we saw shots of the crowd and Murray enthusiastically told us that a familiar song could be heard and true to his word a surprisingly full Anfield was scarves aloft singing You’ll Never Walk Alone. Is anything more comforting of a European night at Anfield than commentators going over the top about this spectacle that more often than not is followed by average at best support for 90 minutes? So we could all reflect on just how magical this is, Five thoughtfully went to another add break and on coming back Murray informed us that ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone had just gone on for ‘3 or 4 full choruses…It’s a European night all right!’ You said it Muzzer!

Liverpool started the game well and after just 35 seconds Steven Gerrard had quite a decent chance and his volley was saved by the Unirea keeper Giedrius Arlauskis. It would not be unfair to say this was the highlight of the play for the 1st 45 minutes as despite controlling possession, Liverpool created very little in the way of chances. The stand out aspect for DTVSr was the prominence of one of the referee’s assistants. For those of you unaware, UEFA are trialling the introduction of 2 additional referee’s assistants behind each goal during this years Europa League games meaning there are 5 ‘officials’ on or around the pitch during the match. Despite having watched a good handful of matches in the competition already this season I hadn’t noticed that they walk onto the field during play so seeing this assistant 10 yards into the pitch at the Kop end looked bizarre to say the least. Wearing navy blue trackies to accompany his bright blue ref’s shirt one would be forgiven for thinking we were witnessing sporadic but laboured one-man pitch invasions from a Danish league keeper.

With a trackie bottomed official walking on and off the pitch being the most noteworthy moment of the opening half hour, commentator Dave Webb remarked that ‘it’s a quiet night at Anfield isn’t it.’ Surely this broke the journalistic code of conduct that can only describe European nights (why are they never referred to as ‘European Games?’) at Anfield as ‘passionate’, ‘electric’ and ‘typical.’ As the whistle went to signal the end of the first half Webb continued to write his own death warrant by telling us ‘the lack of noise around Anfield tells its own story.’ Shame on you Dave Webb, Clive Tyldesley would be turning in his grave (were he dead.)

Murray welcomed us back to the studio after the adverts by telling us he’s ‘not a big fan of stats on a night like this so here’s the one maters, Liverpool 0 Unirea Urziceni 0.’ We went to Nevin who was now in one of them control room type analysis vans (popularised by Channel 4’s Test Match coverage a few years back) and he showed us clips and graphics to indicate the shape of Unirea’s defence. After a few words from Nevin and Collymore regarding Liverpool’s poor attacking play, Murray made a gag at the expense of their pronunciation of Liverpool centre forward David Ngog. “I’m a big fan of David ‘N-go’, its David Ngog I’m not so keen on.’ This made a change from him telling us how big a game this could turn out to be in ‘Leverpurl’s’ season.

No changes to either side as the second half began but the Leverpurl fans got behind their team with a chorus of ‘oh when the reds go marching in’ At this point I should state how surprised and impressed I was that Anfield had sold out for this. Those of you who keep up with my tweets will know that I put this down to reduced ticket prices and offered to ‘eat my hat’ if this wasn’t the case. Well I can say that having done a little research on the topic, tickets were their usual price and that last night, true to my word, I ate my ‘hat’ (in the form of tasty ham and salami pizza.) I would like to add to my unlikely praise of the Liverpool fans by saying that I don’t think any other club in Europe would have done so for this game (yes, I am more than aware that there are stadiums twice the size of Anfield amongst some of the clubs of Europe.) However I would like to finish on this attendances note by adding that should Liverpool play in the Europa League again next season, expect to see a few thousand empty seats at number of games and if I’m wrong, well I’ll eat my hat again.

After an unprecedented second commentary mention of the night for Northwich Victoria (Unirea played them in a friendly on Monday) we saw Anfield legends Kenny Dalglish and Phil Thomson sat together. ‘Nine hundred and ninety two Liverpool appearances between them’ Webb very matter of factly pointed out, which I’m guessing he didn’t just remember of the top of his head. Thankfully the game livened up around the hour mark as Unirea had a half chance with a shot from the edge of the box, shortly followed by a decent long range effort from Liverpool full back Fabio Aurelio. Ryan Babel then replaced the ineffective Albert Riera and Gerrard had a very half-hearted penalty appeal turned down which on replay didn’t even seem worthy of that adjective. ‘It’s like appealing for an LBW and then realising its going well down leg-side’ Webb commented.

The urgency of the situation seemed to becoming more apparent to Liverpool now who built pressure and after a scramble in the Unirea box, Ngog’s shot was deflected wide for a corner. ‘They’re no mugs’ said Webb who chose this moment to read out Unirea’s Champions League record and co-commentator Graham Taylor added that he was ‘impressed they’ve stuck to their game plan so well.’ In another positive move Benitez brought off midfielder Alberto Aquilani for young Spanish forward Daniel Pacheco. After a pretty standard applause/cheer for this substitute Webb told us ‘If nothing else that has really lifted the mood here’ in an obvious attempt to get back on track to the guidelines given in the ‘How to commentate on European nights at Anfield’ manual.

Just a minute after a promising looking situation for Unirea, Liverpool scored after Pacheco headed Babel’s deep cross back across goal for Ngog to nod in from close range. ‘Well that’s what we’ve been asking Liverpool to do isn’t it’ Taylor stated. This understandably perked the Kop up and ‘Fields of Anfield Road’ briefly reverberated around the stadium. Gerrard then teed himself up for a great effort from outside the box which was ‘so Steven Gerrard wasn’t it.’

Taylor when asked what mark out of 10 Liverpool’s performance merited, said that he ‘wouldn’t give higher than a six’ which was pretty much the number I was expecting and as the game came to an end it was hard to argue with the veteran ex-England Manager. Even in the 10 minutes or so after they’d made the breakthrough and with the crowd relatively lively they hadn’t put any great strain on the opposition. Still, it’s hard to imagine them not progressing through the 2nd leg and as Gerrard said in the after match interview ‘they’ll get more joy against them next week, when they have to come at us in their home ground.’ Disappointingly Gerrard had ignorantly overlooked the fact they are playing the game in Steaua Bucharest’s, rather than their own home ground the following week but fortunately at no point of the broadcast had one member of the Five ‘team’ referred to him as ‘Stevie G.’ The use of which is my 2nd biggest issue with the modern game.

Watch

Benfica v Hertha Berlin
Tuesday 23rd February
ESPN 17:00

Unirea Urziceni v Liverpool & Werder Bremen v FC Twente
Thursday 25th February
ESPN 17:00

Shakhtar Donetsk v Fulham & Juventus v Ajax
Thursday 25th February
ITV4 17:30

Sporting Lisbon v Everton
Thursday 25th February
Five 19:30

Tuesday 16 February 2010

Italy V England

Italy v England
Sunday 14th February
BBC1 14:00

Prologue

Welcome to the first non-soccerball based blog of Dave’s TV Sports Review folks. As this is such a momentous (the more cynical readers might say me actually publishing a new blog is momentous these days) occasion I’ve decided I’d like to share with you my hopes and aims for this piece of work. First and foremost I’m hoping you enjoy it, secondly I hope my inherent lack of knowledge on the oval balled game doesn’t jump out of the screen at you and thirdly I hope the constant interruptions to my viewing by checking the scores of FA Cup 5th round games that were taking place at the same time didn’t mean I missed any vital action.

Programme

The programme predictably began with a montage of clips showing people in England and Italy Rugby clobber in various touristy spots around Rome relating to the fact that it was Valentines Day in the Eternal City (and everywhere else I hasten to add.) Presenter John Inverdale was then stood on the Stadio Flaminio pitch with regular 6 Nations summarisers Jeremy Guscott and Jonathan Davies who enthused about the previous days incredible Wales v Scotland game and France’s impressive win against Ireland.

We were then shown a section dedicated to Lawrence Dallaglio’s cycling challenge for sports relief which is taking him to each of the 6-nations stadiums (three of which I’ve been past but not in fact fans) and a review of England’s win against Wales the previous week. Back on the pitch, Inverdale told us he’d been watching Jonny Wilkinson practicing his kicking for half an hour, which was ‘totally metronomic.’

The build up continued with an interview with Italy coach Nick Mallett who largely took the opportunity to defend his teams’ widely criticised negative tactics against Ireland last week. The interview was cut short in bizarre fashion as the director decided that we’d seen enough of Mallett’s musings and that a shot of an Italian girl in the crowd holding up a sign with the legend “WILKO WILL YOU MARRY ME’ adorned across it was more important. Being a sucker for a bit of romance I hoped Jonny would accept this proposal but the beeb chose to ignore this potentially life-changing moment for England’s most recognisable player but instead concentrated on the impending but now largely irrelevant game of rugby.

Pitchside reporter Sonia McLaughlin Spoke to Kiwi legend Justin Marshall who commented on the amount of England fans who’d made the trip and suggested many of them would’ve used the ‘I’ll take you to Rome for valentines weekend love’ followed by ‘you’ll never guess but England are playing Italy that weekend’ tactic. I was surprised this ‘theory’ had took the best part of 20 minutes to come up but personally think the likelihood many used it is slim at best. If you’re into following international Rugby its pretty likely the other half is aware when the 6 nations is on and will soon put two and two together. Bit of advice for you readers but if you are going to attempt to pull such a stunt be a bit savvier and choose something like a Segunda Division game (and put the words ‘hastily rearranged’ before it) rather than something that’s likely to be advertised before Eastenders. Some of you will thank me for this in the future.

We get to see the players come out through the tunnel and line up for the national anthems. The England players as always put a lot more passion into their singing of God Save the Queen than their footballing counterparts and watching the Italians belt out Fratelli D’Italia is as entertaining as ever with the emotion getting too much for Mirco Bergamasco who couldn’t halt the waterworks.

England kicked off and immediately won posession back and attacked with the ball being tossed about the backs and Delon Armitage was very close to scoring after chasing his own chip that was scrambled away by the Italians. A great response followed by the Italians who regained their composure after the early scare and created some pressure of their own in England’s 22 with commentator Nick Mullins and summariser Brian Moore enthusing that they were re-cycling the ball far quicker than they had in the previous week’s game in Dublin. After 5 minutes we’d seen both teams looking to ‘play rugby’ which unfortunately raised expectations that this was to be an entertaining game to compliment the two the tournament had produced the day earlier.

The game ‘settled down’ after this which is a term that implies some form of benefit but in reality it just meant it became a bit of battle between both packs and England’s backs kicking the ball poorly whenever they received it in their own half. With the score at 3-3 England won a penalty just inside the Italy half and Wilkinson stepped up to inevitably put it over the posts as Commentator Mullins told us ‘he hasn’t missed one when starting a game for England since 2003.’ Well just as I’m making the note ’18 – Jonny 3-6’ (how much does that look like a bible reference btw?) the ball falls short and we’re told that ‘it’s maybe because they're using the different Mitre ball.’

Just a couple of minutes later England win another penalty just outside the 22 and slightly to the side of the posts. ‘Jonny doesn’t tend to miss 2 in a row’ announces Mullins and then quite remarkably Wilkinson puts the seemingly easy kick wide. “I blame you” Moore tells Mullins. At this point DTVSr has to hold its hands up as for the second time in a few minutes I had presumptuously recorded that England had taken a 3-6 lead before the kick had been taken which as everyone knows definitely puts the ‘kiss of death’ on world class sportsmen.

Not to be outdone, teary national anthem singer Bergamasco then missed his 2nd penalty attempt for the Azzuri. ‘He slaps it like a set of bagpipes doesn’t he’ Mullins tells us of his unique kicking style which never having witnessed a set of bagpipes ‘slapped’ I’ll have to take his word for. For the next ten minutes or so, my most stand out moment was one of the Italian players getting injured as it highlighted to us that the Italian word for ‘physio’ is ‘fisio’ which is one for all you ‘language fans’ (© great mate, Richard Salguero) out there. Bergamasco made no mistake with his next effort and with the half coming to a close Italy were leading their more fancied visitors when Riki Flutey made a break from midway inside his own half leading to a penalty and ‘with a huge sigh of relief, Wilkinson puts England level at the break.’

Half time was mainly took up by the perennially grumpy Guscott and traditionally more-chirpy Davies agreeing that England’s kicking game isn’t getting them anywhere and they need to utilise the pace and skill of their backs a lot more. We were then told the fantastically entertaining news that Wales Flanker Andy Powell was arrested for drink driving a golf-buggy down the motorway after celebrating his teams win over Scotland the previous night. As Inverdale concluded this news item he impressively suppressed a grin that was itching to make an appearance but Davies and Guscott were unable to replicate this and both broke into a schoolboy-esque giggle.

The second half kicked off and for the first couple of minutes the England players carried on where they’d left off and continued to accurately kick the ball directly into the arms of Italy full back Luke McLean. Moore then enthusiastically linked Italian fly-half Craig Gower to buggy-gate and Mullins added that he was nearly the 1st international ever to be denied a spot due to the coach reading his Wikipedia entry and if we didn’t know what he was talking about we should check it out. I for one am grateful Mullins brought this to our attention as I can now report that one of Gower’s misdemeanours was at a charity golf event back in Australia where he ‘argued with several guests, groped the teenage daughter of former league player Wayne Pearce, chased Pearce’s son with a bottle before vomiting on him, streaked around the resort, wrecked a golf cart, held a butter knife to the throat of a Sydney radio personality and threw the knife at guests before being kicked out of the resort by security.’ In fairness we’ve all been there haven’t we lads?

Back to the game and a moment our half-time summarisers had been crying out for as a break from Ugo Monye from inside his own half and a couple of passes later Matthew Tait is touching down for the games first and ultimately only try. Again Wilkinson misses a seemingly easy conversion and again Moore has a pop at his commentary partner for ‘putting the mockers on him.’ 6-11. Another break from Monye leads to another penalty and with 3 more points and the sin binning of Mauro Castrogiovanni, England looked to be setting up to kill the game off easily.

Mullins then pointed out that sin binnings have had a massive effect on earlier games in the tournament with teams decisively taking advantage with the extra man and as if to further prove the ‘kiss of death’ nonsense correct, Italy took control of the following period and by the time their man returns to the field have clawed the score back to 9-14 and England are firmly on the back foot. The crowd sensing an upset are now getting behind their team with the familiar chant of ‘EE-TAL-YA, EE-TAL-YA.’

With nine minutes to go Bergamasco put another pen over to make the score 12-14 and with a full 15 players back on the field Italy are in sight of what would be their most famous victory in the competition and Brian Moore’s ‘never heard the crowd here so loud.’ Just when it looked like the upset was possible though England produce their best phase of play for a good 20 minutes and Wilkinson executes a relatively simple but nonetheless vital drop goal to give England the winning scoreline of 12-17.

In the couple of minutes after the final whistle McLaughlin interviewed an out of breath England Captain Steve Borthwick who was stubbornly defiant about his teams underwhelming performance. This did the relatively simple task of aggrieving Guscott who then described Borthwick as ‘brainwashed. His heads played a game his body hasn’t produced.’ Inverdale then seemingly hesitantly brought up the subject of Wilkinson’s poor performance, for whom ‘its hard to be objective about as he’s such a national treasure.’ Hard to be objective about a national treasure John? Nonsense! I’m objective about them all. The Queen Mum(God rest Her Soul), David ‘Del Boy’ Jason, HP Sauce…they’re all blinking marvellous!

Watch

Wales v France
Friday 26th February
BBC1 19:50

Italy v Scotland and England v Ireland
Saturday 27th of February
BBC1 13:00

Friday 5 February 2010

Afternoon Report - Transfer Deadline Day

Afternoon Report
Monday 1st February
Sky Sports News 16:00

Prologue

Now you may find this hard to believe but I watch Sky Sports News quite a lot. With only council telly (freeview) its my default channel if there’s nothing on or more than likely, something’s happened in the sporting world that I want to see the action and of course, reaction from. I know its faults. I know they provide umpteen stories a week that in no way constitute a story, I know it gives over-proportionate coverage to certain teams and players, and I know they choose many of the female presenters for nothing more than their aesthetic quality (phwoarrr eh lads…sorry, got carried away then. Sincere apologies to my legions of female readers.) With this tendency to broadcast hours of absolutely nothing, no event in the sporting calendar is more suited to SSN than the transfer window but despite this description I and I’m sure many of you find it compelling viewing.


Programme

Mainstay presenters Jim White (the Scottish one who looks exactly how you’d expect a ‘Jim White’ to look…unless you were thinking of the snookerer Jimmy White, then in that case he doesn’t) and Simon Thomas (young, catalogue-boy, Jamie Redknapp type) welcomed us to this decisive hour of the January transfer window. The graphic that has appeared on this channel throughout the month of January popped us to tell us there was “0 Hours 59 Minutes and 42 Seconds” left of the transfer window now and Thomas confirmed “clubs up and down the land have less than one hour to get their business done.” Then we were transported to various reporters introducing themselves with a Eurovision-esque feel about it except they looked to be very cold outside training grounds of various Premiership clubs rather than sat above the beautifully lit up skylines of Helsinki, Brussels or Minsk.

White then enthusiastically took over and wanted to ‘get straight on with the transfer news and James Cooper outside Manchester City’s training ground.’ Cooper told of a ‘day of mixed fortunes’ as City were denied a work permit in very odd circumstances for fantastically named Kenyan McDonald Maninga but expected to complete the signing of run-of-the-mill named Middlesbrough winger Adam Johnson. Cooper then kept us ‘up to speed’ with any movement from the other North West clubs and I realised that each reporter across the country would do this as well as the one whose training ground they were outside.

White, equally as enthusiastically then introduced David Craig from Sunderland’s training ground. Craig told us that Sunderland had signed Alan Hutton on loan and let Nyron Nosworty go to Sheffield United, also on loan. I have to confess at this point I was already quite bored by SSN’s coverage of deadline day and not even the news that Newcastle had signed Coventry’s Leon Best for an undisclosed fee could re-ignite my interest. The hype and excitement was becoming too much and I just wanted ‘facts.’ What’s happened, what hasn’t happened (a very big chunk of deadline day ‘news’) and what is likely to happen. You know facts! Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of hype and you don’t need me to tell you Sky Sports’ brand of hype is the best in the business but I found the World Cup Finalesque build up to seeing a middle-aged man with a microphone stood in the cold outside a training ground a bit tiresome.

Much of the same was repeated for the remainder of Afternoon Report with different reporters looking largely bored outside different training grounds and not a great deal of breaking news to report. We got to see an interview with agent and ex City player Barry Silkman outside Upton Park. He tells us that while ‘today is very exciting for fans and press its very frustrating for players and agents who have to work within these deadlines.’ I was going to comment on the buckets of sympathy I hold for players, him and his colleagues suffering this plight of deadlines but instead decided that I should tell you I think Russell Brand would do a great impression of his high cockney tones if he hasn’t already given it a shot.

One of my favourite aspects of Sky Sports News is the 3 different sections of information on the screen that you can choose to pay attention to if the main news ‘story’ at that time isn’t capturing your imagination. I bring this up as around this time, the ticker (yellow bar, dead bottom of the screen) caught my attention with news that Hull’s Peter Halmosi had moved to Szombathelyi Haladas on loan until the end of the season. Now not much excites me more than a foreign football team whom I’ve never heard of before and after 1 extensive minute of googling I can confirm ‘Hali’ play in green and white in the Hungarian first division and last season was their best ever, finishing 3rd. I’m sure you’re as intrigued as I am as to whether this shrewd acquisition will be the final piece in the jigsaw to capture that first illusive Hungarian League Title.

Next we were told the English transfer window closes at 5:00 pm. We knew that, that was why I was watching with a view to blogging it. But..ahh, a graphic pops up that shows us the different times the transfer window closes in selected countries finishing with midnight in Scotland. ‘Its always good at midnight in Scotland’ White tells us’….its always good anytime’ he finishes. ‘Hahahaha’ adds Thomas. Adverts.

After the break we go to Pete Calley outside Birmingham’s training ground who gives us a round-up of in and out-going transfer news for the west midlands club that I cant be bothered repeating here. We go back to the studio and Taylor now tells us about some players ‘who definitely wont be coming to the premiership.’ Fortunately he stopped after Klaas Jan Huntellar and Mattieu Flamini as I expected this could’ve turned into quite a long feature.

Amazingly with such a host of nothing to report SSN diverted its attention away from deadline day action to give us some other sports stories from the day. Being news this caught my attention and I found out Peterborough had sacked their second manager in a few months and that Nigel Clough (allegedly) kicked Billy Davies in the ‘fracas that marred’ the end of the weekends East-Midlands derby.

The highlight of the remainder of the hour was Gary Cotterill’s bitchy ‘If Mido can show the kind of form and keep to the kind of waistline he was showing today’ while stood outside Upton Park and then we got to see Big Ben at 5:00 pm to signal the end of the transfer window. The introduction of the transfer windows and creation of SSN must’ve done wonders for Big Bens profile as they’ve allowed him to treble his live TV appearances each year. We were now past 5:00 pm and technically the blog should end here as this is firmly ‘Evening Report’ territory. However I think I should tell you much the same happened in this hour expect for the confirmation of Adam Johnson’s transfer to City and news broke of Robbie Keane’s impending loan move to ‘boyhood heroes’ Celtic, much to the bafflement of great mate and father Big Dave.

At 5:17 we had the breaking and non-transfer ‘news’ that England Manager Fabio Capello would take the decision over whether John Terry would remain as England Captain ‘in light of allegations regarding his private life.’ This obviously required a 5 minute interview with Sky’s chief football reporter Nick Collins who ‘wasn’t surprised’ as Capello is ‘his own man.’ I’ve got a few pages of notes to account for the next 45 minutes of Evening Report but I’d just be repeating the same anecdotes you’ve just read.

As I conclude this latest review I don’t like the picture I’ve painted of my relationship with Sky Sports News, we’re largely very happy together and I hope the feelings of love are mutual but as in all relations we have our ups and downs. This wasn’t our best day together but it is my duty to you to review TV Sports as I find them.

Happy Viewing fellow enthusiasts. Dave

Watch


Afternoon Report
Sky Sports News
Weekday Afternoons at 3pm.