Late Kick Off

Late Kick Off
Monday 8th March
BBC1 (North West) 23:25

Prologue

One of the earliest football ‘magazine’ shows I can remember was Kick Off, hosted by Elton Welsby (or ‘Everton Wellbiased’ as an 11 year old future DTVSr scribbler found it hilarious to call him) on Granada (that’s ITV in the North West of England if there’s possibly anyone reading this who doesn’t know that or isn’t from there.) Broadcast early on a Friday evening you’d see goals from the previous week, a preview of the weekend games and features from North-West clubs from any of the 4 divisions. This would typically involve Clive Tyldesley interviewing Joe Royle about how much of a role the plastic pitch at Boundary Park is playing in Oldham’s promotion push or Rob McCafrey taking part in a penalty shoot-out after a Tranmere training session.

In the days when the only regular football coverage was Saint’n’Greavsie and a televised live 1st Division (that’s what you kids call the Premier League erm kids) match every fortnight or so I remember being excited when the programme hit our screens and rightfully so as it was un-missable for the young TV sports enthusiast. I can’t say I envisaged this current programme of a similar format would prove so captivating for a 30 year and present DTVSr scribbler, but this Monday I gave it a go to find out.

Programme

Face of BBC North West Sport and former editor in chief of the Daily Sport, Tony Livesey welcomed us in ‘an unprecedented week for North West football, to a special addition of Late Kick Off.’ Livesey was of course referring to the tragic death of Macclesfield Town manager Keith Alexander last week that has understandably had a huge effect on lower league football in the region.

We went immediately to Macc’s match at Hereford and saw the players coming out of the tunnel and the team with t-shirts baring a picture of their former manager. The brief match action showed Macc get an impressive 2-0 win and afterwards the players saluted the travelling fans who sang about Alexander. We then saw an interview with Chairman Andy Scott who understandably told that he was ‘glad to get the game out of the way now.’ Another interview followed with current player Matt Butler and then Alexander’s ‘friend and assistant’ Gary Simpson. Simpson wore the ‘trademark orange socks’ as his friend superstitiously had for every game and talked emotionally about how pleased he was ’that we managed to get a result for him today.’

Back in the studio Livesey asked guest and former Lincoln (one of Alexander’s former clubs) and Macc player Simon Yeo how Alexander would react to all the tributes being directed towards him. Yeo said that he would be baffled (my words not his) by all the ‘fuss’ (his) surrounding it.

On such a sad story to begin the programme Yeo did brighten it up in DTVSr’s eyes by regurgitating two of the most none-anecdotal anecdotes imaginable about his former manager. One centred around Alexander nipping off for a cup of tea and some biscuits as he was prone to. He would wind Yeo up by saying they were bourbon biscuits because Yeo loved bourbon biscuits but get this, they weren’t, they were ‘probably custard creams.’ The second was that he let them train in treacherous conditions at Lincoln once and chose to sat in his car and watch rather than join them. I understand its wrong to speak ill of the dead and I’m not, I’m speaking ill of Simon Yeo’s anecdote recital skills that I don’t imagine were befitting of the man.

The next feature was Bury’s centre forward Ryan Lowe reporting on his own teams’ game against Dagenham and Redbridge. As Lowe has scored 14 goals thus far this season he’s clearly quite good at being a centre forward. This is fortunate as based entirely on this, I don’t think he’ll make it as a TV reporter. Despite having a strong scouse accent Lowe spoke with very little tone or enthusiasm. When describing a missed chance, his timing was comical in a kind of primary school assembly type way: ‘a lighter first touch from me………would’ve improved my chance……….of an early goal.’ Unfortunately for Lowe he was denied a perfectly good goal not long after that as the linesman unexplainably flagged when he was clearly two yards on-side and unfortunately for us we had to listen to his account of it. The game finished 0-0 and Lowe then interviewed his manager Alan Knott, and the BBC Radio Manchester reporter for Bury, Bill Rice where oddly enough Lowe spoke more comfortably than at any other point during the report.

We saw a round up of the other League 2 games from the regions teams and when asked, the other studio guest, Blackpool’s Keith Southern said that he thought Accrington and Morecambe both still had a chance of getting in the play-offs. It seemed to me that Livesey had asked him this just to include him in the programme and I wondered if Southern actually had an opinion on this subject. ‘Not given it any thought and don’t really intend on doing so thanks Tony’ would I imagine have been a more fitting response.

League 1 goals then followed and a great irrelevant cliché opportunity didn’t go unmissed by Southern who upon seeing Tranmere’s debateable winning penalty said that he’d ‘take it at this stage of the season.’ Not to be outdone in the pointlessness stakes Yeo, when questioned whether Oldham’s draw at Exeter was a point gained or two dropped enthusiastically answered ‘oh a point gained, I’ve been down to Exeter loads of times and we’ve not come away with anything.’ So there you have it, the relative difficulty of all games will now be judged on how Simon Yeo has gone on when he’s played at that ground.

It was now time for ‘focus on,’ a section of the programme where one of the regions footballers is asked a series of short snappy questions and in turn provides short snappy answers. This week, Jim Bentley of Morecambe was the subject and the one answer I can remember him giving was that his favourite player as a child was ‘probably Kevin Ratcliffe or Graeme Sharp’. ‘My favourite part of the programme that’ Livesey then lied. I will happily stand up in court and argue that this man who provided a grateful nation with a near endless stream of hot naked chicks in a daily newspaper gets a suitable degree of enjoyment out of seeing a footballer telling us his main dislike is ‘smoking…people who smoke.’

If nothing else the following Championship goals review reminded me that Jason Euell now plays for Blackpool (he scored their winner against Ipswich) and when asked about his teams play-off chances Southern again played with a straight bat in saying they’ve been ‘written off all season and just see the aim as getting the 51 points and then we’ll go from there.’ After a quick look at this weeks fixtures Livesey told us ‘we end the programme where we began’ and a relatively lengthy interview with Bury’s Ben Futcher (who’d also played under Keith Alexander) followed. Again it was understandably an emotive issue for Futcher and he looked as if he was struggling to hold it together but as with those he’d followed he managed to do it.

Maybe an odd week to judge late kick-off as the programme was overshadowed by last week’s tragedy but with its unsociable scheduling and pretty limited content (the more interesting bits (goals) can easily be found elsewhere) I can’t really see it lasting and unlike the late 80’s/early 90’s Kick Off, I doubt it will be missed.

Watch

Kick Off
Monday Nights
BBC1 23.25

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

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

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.

Tottenham Hotspur v Leeds United

Tottenham Hotspur v Leeds United
FA Cup 4th Round
Saturday 23rd January
ITV 17:00

Prologue

The Cup is dead! Long Live the Cup! The cup was dead after the Saturday of the 3rd round (traditionally one of the highlights in the calendar of course), poorly attended fixtures with no giant killing left us longing for the days of Ronnie Radford, Sutton United and Tim Buzaglo to re-ignite the flailing passions in the grand old competition. The romantic British sporting public needed a hero of a similar ilk and just when it seemed all hope was lost we were blessed with 2! Step forward Jermaine Beckford and Rafael Benitez who were the stars of the subsequent 3rd round upsets and breathed new life into this year’s competition much to the delight of neutrals everywhere and relief of ITV sport executives.

Programme

Steve Ryder welcomed us and introduced the panel of ex Spurs and Leeds Goalkeeper Paul Robinson and familiar ITV face Andy Townsend. He immediately fell into the common trap of asking a footballer a question while giving him the answer at the same time by putting to Robbo that he must have split loyalties tonight. Robbo didn’t let us down: ‘Yep, split loyalties. Just hoping for a good game of football.’ Townsend then told us that since Leeds win at Old Trafford they hadn’t won another game since, all of which they’ve been favourites in but tonight, being underdogs ‘makes them dangerous again.’ More gibberish followed when ‘Appy Arry’ was interviewed and asked if it was going to be pretty straightforward for Spurs tonight. ‘Straightforward?’ he responded while half-laughing in bemusement. ‘I’ve never seen a cup tie that’s straight forward yet.’ This prompted me to wonder what he was doing for his teams 3rd round tie against Peterborough and if he wasn’t there why didn’t someone tape the 4-0 win for him?

Commentator Peter Drury gave us the team news and seemed most excited that Spurs included ‘a delicious full 1st team debut for Leeds United Academy product, Yorkshire’s own Danny Rose.’ In the few minutes before kick-off we got shown a few crowd shots and the camera focussed on a bare-chested Leeds fan before finding three more just a few moments later. At this point I decided that for your benefit I’d do a running total of shirtless Leeds fans we were ‘treated’ to but after numbers 2, 3 & 4 there was a resounding drought so unfortunately here’s where this ‘fun’ feature begins and ends readers!

A whirlwind start to the game where other than an opportunistic effort from round 3 hero and all-around livewire Jermaine Beckford, the famous Tottenham Hotspurs are absolutely battering their League 1 opponents. It’s not long before Spurs pressure looked to have paid off as Rose was clearly caught in the box and Allan Wiley, stood just yards away inevitably pointed to the spot. Defoe stepped up but put a decently struck penalty far too close to Casper Ankergren who made a good save. This predictably got the travelling four and a half thousand travelling support giddy but Drury was going somewhat OTT when he described them as ‘celebrating like they’d won the cup.’

Spurs continued to create chances and you could tell the home fans clearly thought they weren't in any danger of not winning as there wasn’t the discontent crowds get when their teams missed a pen with a game still at 0-0. I’m not saying this is particularly wrong as they’d fancy their chances at home to anyone and that obviously includes a team two divisions lower. I do have to be honest though, at this point (and all points since the draw was made) I found myself hoping Leeds United would win through this particular round of the Football Association Challenge Cup.

After another run and shot from Defoe, Drury tells us ‘Tottenham could be over the hills and far away’ and Spurs fans can clearly be heard singing their elongated version of ‘oh when the Spurs go marching in’ which (if you’re interested) I think is one of the best versions of a traditional classic heard in our stadiums folks. How Spurs aren’t in front at this point really is a mystery as Ankergren’s goal is being peppered from all angles. Great mate Shoegl, shamelessly pimping himself for a mention in this blog txt me at this point with ‘If this was a boxing match…’ which in fairness is a great cliché and subsequently he’s achieved his aim.

22 minutes in and Defoe is put clear through and when appearing to hesitate, gets tackled from behind by Leeds defender, Jason Crowe. Co-commentator and former Leeds fullback Jim Beglin didn’t think Crowe ‘got a huge amount of the ball.’ At this point I disagreed with him as on first viewing it appeared he’d cleanly taken the ball. The replay then proved why Jim Beglin is paid to give his opinions about football and I’m not paid to write mine down and publish them on a sparsely-read blog as it clearly should’ve been a 2nd pen to the lilywhites. Leeds best spell of the game so far then followed with chances for Robert Snodgrass and Beckford who were clearly their most dangerous players.

The Leeds fans then thoughtfully start singing ‘are you blogging Manchester?’ Which I thought was some nice recognition of my work although Drury seems to mistakenly think they’re singing ‘are you watching Manchester?’ In either case the answer is yes and it’s nice that they thought to enquire about my activities during such a big match for the fallen giants. Then, just as I begin to think they’re looking good to repeat the previous round heroics, Peter Crouch easily hits in a rebound after Nico Krankjar has a shot saved and dispels these thoughts.

The Spurs fans predictably break into their famous FA Cup Chas’n’Dave penned classic as half time approaches. No, not 1991’s ‘It's lucky for Spurs when the year ends in 1’(or to give the accent effect ‘Its Laaaaaarckey for Spurs when the year ends in wann!’) But ‘Ossie’s dream’ and ‘Spurs are on their way to Wembley’ reverberates around ‘the Lane.’ Jermaine Jenas leans back and sky’s what would’ve been a belting 2nd goal and that’s it. Half Time, Tottenham Hotspurs 1 Leeds United 0.

Leeds start the second half with real purpose and are gifted an opportunity almost immediately as Beckford intercepts a poor Jenas backpass but his touch is too heavy and it rolls out for a goal kick. Leeds manager Simon Grayson has clearly put something in his players’ half-time cup of tea as pressure leads to another corner, from which the ensuing scramble sees Beckford skilfully put the ball under Mario Gomez to equalise. ‘Rockingham Road, Old Trafford, White Hart Lane’ Peter Drury decides to shout out the grounds Beckford’s bagged at on the road in this years competition.

Leeds who really could’ve been beaten in the 1st 20 minutes are now on-top and seemed to be flowing with confidence. ‘By the way’ Beglin begins his point as if he’s going tell us he’s going for a pint after the game and ask if anyone fancies it ‘are Leeds up for this now!’ which was a rather disappointingly bland ending to his sentence/statement/question. It also seems the home crowd are becoming somewhat agitated which is welcome viewing as each misplaced pass or lost tackle is met with the not unfamiliar White Hart Lane groan. Beglin does however seem worried that his former club wont want a replay as another game could upset their promotion hopes. Fortunately for him a moment or so later Roman Pavlyuchenko produces a moment of quality as he dummies a pass which takes a defender out of the game allowing Defoe to put him though easily and he places past Ankergren to make it 2-1. In quite a unique celebration the goalscorer runs to the fans behind the goal, takes off his gloves and throws them into the crowd. I’m surprised that some 4 days after the FA haven’t yet issued a directive to referees that all glove chucking celebrations will now result in a booking.

In the same way ‘do-gooders’ watch programmes they know will outrage them so they can clog-up the switchboards and write to points of view, I watch Spurs cup ties (well any cup ties as it gets shown regardless) to get irked at mentions or clips of Ricky Villa and would you adam’n’eve it, on 78 minutes Peter Drury refers to ‘that’ goal. If your reading this Peter, I can do without the constant (once in 90 minutes) reference to a goal that still haunts me to this day (I should point out was only 1 year old at the time.)

Everyone appears content with Spurs seemingly progressing to the 5th round and Leeds on their way out but ‘having given a good account of themselves’ which appears to be the only thing you have to do as a lower-league underdog in a cup tie. Chances come to both Bale and Jenas to get the 3rd goal and put the tie out of sight and despite a lot of effort Leeds don’t look like creating the chance to get a second equaliser. Extremely deep into injury time Beckford gets the ball in the Spurs box in a one on one situation with Michael Dawson. Just as I’m urging him to shoot he runs at Dawson and lures him into a challenge that sees Beckford going to ground and appealing for a penalty. Wiley delays his decision and dramatically points to the spot which prompts me to shout ‘he’s give it!’ despite the fact I was in the flat on my own.

After a seemingly huge wait Beckford stepped up to take the dubious pen he’d just earned. This was a pressure kick yet Beckford showed composure ahead of his years to hit a perfect and unstoppable pen into the roof of the net. Predictably this sent the travelling Leeds fans into raptures and the game could only re-start for a few seconds more before Wiley brought it to a close and the Leeds players celebrated their unlikely draw and impending Elland Road replay. What a game! Its 2 in 2 for dramatic late goals on this blog’s featured games so far and lets hope this is a sign of things to come eh TV sports fans!

Watch

Crystal Palace v Wolverhampton Wanderers
FA Cup 4th Round Replay
Tuesday 2nd February
ITV4 19:30

Leeds United v Tottenham Hotspur
FA Cup 4th Round Replay
Wednesday 3rd February
ITV 19:30

1.FC Köln v Borrusia Dortmund

1.FC Köln v Borrusia Dortmund
Sunday 17th January
ESPN 16:30

Prologue

Why cant British press and media types get their collective head around foreign football teams calling themselves after the town or city they come from in their mother tongue? Really, ESPN advertised this game as ‘Cologne v Dortmund.’ Why? Were they afraid that viewing figures would be affected as British TV sports fans (which I presume you all are) wouldn’t tune in as they were confused as to which city ‘1.FC Köln’ represent? Why does it only affect certain teams as well? Later on that evening the same channel showed Napoli v Palermo. Surely if the insistence of using ‘Cologne’ were to set a precedent then our fellow euro-soccer enthusiasts would be treated to Naples v Palermo later that evening. Unfortunately it annoys me significantly enough to influence me to waste the 1st paragraph of my first posting. Just be grateful they weren’t showing Bayern Munich v Inter Milan loyal readers as this whole blogging nonsense could well have been over before it even started.

Programme

Commentator Steve Bower with whom I have a tenuous link (great mate Cheets worked with and speaks highly of the feller) welcomed us to this ‘battle of the west’ in ‘Germany’s fourth largest city’. It was the expected packed Bundesliga stadium with the usual smattering of away fans all around the ground bar Cologn..sorry Köln’s ‘end.’ I’m surprised how common this scenario is in Germany as I cant think of another country where there seems to be this complete non-requirement for mass segregation. Its not like they don’t have a hooligan problem, big supports or like a good drink beforehand but the average German seems more than content to sit next to a fellow sausage muncher wearing a different coloured scarf.

The home team started the better but didn’t really create any chances and were limited to a couple of long-range efforts. Dortmund’s keeper was the stand out player of the 1st 20 minutes, firstly in his attempt to appear on a future own goals and gaffs video by fumbling a weak shot and then by diving at the feet of Köln’s big centre forward in the way ‘goalkeepers don’t do anymore’ (© Old Bury fan at work). This act of old-skool bravery leading to him getting injured and being taken off. To be fair he clearly took a knock but you have to think Bert Trautmann would’ve continued.

It had been all Köln up to this point when out of nothing Dortmund get a corner and score with their first notable effort. The technical term is I believe ‘a clanger’ from the keeper who came for a cross and completely missed it leaving Dortmund’s centre half Mats Hummels to head into the unguarded onion bag. Almost immediately after Köln had a very good penalty shout (i.e. it should’ve been a penalty) turned down. ‘I’ve seen them given’ comments Bower which as a recent writer to WSC commented, is a ridiculous thing to say as we’ve all seen the most implausible decisions awarded. I have however seen them given.

Köln again are doing most of the attacking but the game calms down as we reach the 45 minute stage with the most noteworthy incident being Dortmund fans singing a song that sounded to my ears like a Deutsch equivalent of ‘my garden shed’ that Villa fans seem so keen on. Köln’s Lucas Podolski now seems to be in a right strop and gets booked for what would commentator worth his salt would call (I can’t remember if Bower said this or not…he probably did) a ‘cynical foul.’ The resulting free kick is lofted into the box where Hummels gets on the end to bag his 2nd after another week effort from the Köln ‘stopper.’

At this point I realise the major handicap this keeper is placing upon himself. He’s wearing trackie bottoms! When will our friends on the continent realise that wearing trackies automatically decreases your ability as a goalkeeper? There’s been overwhelming evidence over the years to highlight this yet many still ignore it and for this I’ve no sympathy for the hapless scally lookalike.

While on the subject of playing attire I should inform you that Dortmund are wearing the brightest possible yellow that does not cross the barrier into the category marked as luminous. Köln’s shirt is from the same Reebok template as Bolton’s but in red with red shorts and socks. I’m sure that back in the Toni Polster’s day Koln’s home shirt was white with red trim but Bower has already told us that they are ‘wearing the traditional all red colours’ so maybe I’m wrong, and more importantly maybe its not that crucial you know this.

As the game went on I got a bit more aggrieved by Bower’s commentary mainly due to him repeating the facts that Cologne is Germanys 4th largest city and that Kevin McKenna their large Canadian central defender had a spell at Hearts.

The game went into something of a lull after Dortmund had doubled their advantage with the only highlights being Podolski’s textbook petulant reaction to being subbed (chucks trackie top on floor, sulks off down tunnel) and the travelling Dortmund fans (actually Bower went on a few times about what a large fan base Dortmund have which didn’t need repeating and everyone knows that anyway) singing and bouncing away. Then with the visitors seemingly easing to a routine 3 points the team from the 4th largest German City got back in the game through a header form their tall Canadian former Hearts centre half, Kevin McKenna.

This re-ignited both the home team and crowd and the proverbial kitchen sink was now being launched at the Dortmund goal. Then with just 2 minutes left Köln’s Lebanese skipper Youssef Mohamad beat Dortmund’s keeper to a 50-50 and poked the ball into the net to send the locals into delirium. As it went in I was just scribbling ‘equaliser…brave’ down when Bower out-articulated me (and not many do that) with a passionate ‘what courage..what spirit!’ This caused another immense display of passion as Dortmund coach Juergen Flopp got in a right hissy-fit and was sent to the stand. He proceeded to climb into the stand and looked like he was offering all the home fans outside. Unfortunately no one took up the challenge as I would’ve loved to have seen someone stick one on him.

What drama for the 1st game of the 1st blog, bit of a local derby, dramatic comeback and child like petulance from players and management but it wasn’t over yet. Just into injury time after something of a scrappy build up, Dortmund’s Kevin Grosskeutz hit a speculative effort from outside the box that hit Kevin McKenna (he played for Hearts yer know) and left the newly nicknamed ‘Trackies’ stranded as it trickled into the net, sending what seemed like most of the ‘home’ stand behind into raptures. Dummy out of the pram specialist and Dortmund coach Juergen Klopp ran along the main stand in celebration in a manner that can only be described as ‘giving it large.’ How no one chinned him I’ll really never know.

The game finished shortly after and Köln will feel hard done by at the 3-2 scoreline and stay perilously just a point above the relegation zone. Dortmund are well in the hunt for a champions league spot after this result and have a huge game against fellow champs league pretenders Hamburg next Saturday in what looks like the most open of Europe’s major leagues. This a game you can watch on the same channel and I’d imagine Mr Bower will do another half-decent job of talking you through it although I’m sure he’ll repeatedly tell you what big clubs these two are and that Hamburg were of course managed by former Tottenham boss Martin Jol last season.

Watch

Next live Bundesliga coverage (both on ESPN):
Freiburg v Stuttgart
Friday 22nd January at 19:30

Borrusia Dortmund v Hamburg
Saturday 23rd January at 17:30

Intro

Hello and welcome to my blog that reviews sports programmes I have watched on the good old telebox recently. Now I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking ‘why have you decided to do a blog reviewing sports programmes you’ve watched recently Dave?’ Well the answer is this, I felt if there’s one thing the world needs its another blog! This is of course a lie, there are gazillions of blogs on the old interweb the majority of which no bugger reads and the creator has long since given up on. The real reason is that I love TV sports. I do, really. I love live sports as well (probably more than TV sports in all fairness) but I only get to see them a few times a month whereas I get to watch sport on TV nearly every day…and that’s just awesome and therefore deserves a right good blogging!

Anyroad, from now on I aim to update this blog with at least one review a week. This will largely take the form of football matches and football related programmes. There are a few reasons for this that are as follows:

1) Football is my favourite sport.
2) There’s more football on tele than other sports.
3) I only have freeview and ESPN (and not the TV sports enthusiasts eutopia that is SKY)and the latter shows getting on for 10 games a week along with some wonderfully bizarre ‘magazine’ progs.

That’s not to say it will be exclusively football centred, I hope to include amongst others Rugby (both codes), Cricket (although this may be difficult as Sky have all the live stuff obv), Darts, Aussie rules (if ESPN show it again this season), NFL and pretty much anything else I happen to bump into on my televisual travels.

The form of the reviews will be this. I’ll tell you what I've watched (who’s playing who etc), when and what channel it was on, comment on the actual contest, the coverage of it and anything else I feel it vaguely relates to. I hope it will provide you with the odd giggle, titbits of information and despite being a passionate follower of various teams in different sports, sincerely hope that all sense of neutrality is avoided and my preferences and prejudices come across clearly.

Happy viewing fellow enthusiasts, Dave.