How to be a football pundit
This is a bit off topic, if indeed there ever is a topic on this blog, which there often isn't - no wonder I'm not one of those brilliant professional journalists. Anyway, there's something that keeps rising up in me whenever I listen to people talking about football nowadays, an anger, a stench of bile.
It's generally when they come out with something like this, and I'm paraphrasing obviously, but imagine someone on the radio saying it, who sounds like Steve Claridge: "Course, they're a great team Arsenal, all that pretty football, but you look at their players, and they're not giants are they? Walcot's only five foot nothing, isn't he - how are they meant to play football? Didn't they realise it's only for really tall players? And as for Wigan trying to play football in the Premiership, that's just doomed to failure, it's all very well trying to play football, but look at West Brom - they tried and it didn't work. No, what you need is to smack the ball 90 yards upfield to a really tall player and that'll make everything all right. It's all right trying to play your fancy dan stuff but you'll get found out in this league, just belt it up there to someone really tall and that's how you play football in the top league in the world, forget about anything resembling skill or craft, just boot it up there, that's the best thing to do. You'll only get in trouble if you try and pass the ball around."
Do you know what I mean? There are only two times when I feel the need to throw the radio against the kitchen wall, smashing it to pieces: firstly, whenever Nicky Campbell or Jeremy Vine is having a phone-in and some barely conscious numbskull barks: "Well I don't know anything about the case itself or the details of the story but WHAT ABOUT OUR TROOPS EH? They don't go around complaining. Everyone else in the world should consider themselves lucky and has never been unhappy or experienced anything difficult ever, because they're not them. No-one else should ever have any money or anything or be allowed to have any semblance of fun because I said so, I pay my bills on time, why should I have to subsidise those who don't? I pay my taxes, why should I subsidise people who claim to be disabled who are probably too workshy? Why should I pay for anything except myself? Obviously except for when my house catches fire and then I'll expect the fire brigade to come around and I won't expect to pay the entire bill myself, but apart from that, and all other instances in which I rely on the state, I don't want to pay for anyone else, and the BBC, they're just grabbing my money, IT IS THEFT. If I STEAL from someone else THAT IS THEFT so how is it allowed for the BBC to collect money from me just for owning a television set? I don't watch any of their programmes anyway, except for all of them, and yes I do listen to radio phone-ins just so I can ring in about how much I hate everyone in the entire world, especially the BBC, but still..."
and the other time is when someone says that crap about football. It's as if there's a big unwritten rule somewhere that only a select band of football pundits know about, which basically says: "PICK LOTS OF TALL PLAYERS AND BOOT IT UP THERE", like that's the secret which has won every single team every trophy ever in existence and if you don't do it then you're sadly naive and don't really understand the English game, ignoring the fact that generally the champion sides have played the best football of all teams and haven't necessarily had to cram their teams with 11 freakily tall men to do it.
Seriously though. There really is more to the game of football than simply picking tall players and 'not playing all that fancy stuff'. I don't hear tennis pundits saying "Well of course, what Andy Murray's doing is wrong, what he wants to do is forget all that fancy stuff, spinning the ball, he should just hit it as hard as he can with every single shot, that's the way to do it, and probably be a bit taller, if he wants to win". Although I imagine there are probably some somewhere who think that way. I just want football analysis to be a bit more incisive than that. Is that too much to ask?
It probably is.
Related posts:
Buy my book, it’s great
Switch site
Donate
Recent Posts
- Cheerio, cheerio, cheerio…
- Children died
- The letters you never get around to sending
- Applying again
- I just sent Robin round – 2
Most Commented On
Recent Comments
- Iain on Applying again
- Roger on The letters you never get around to sending
- Dave Hodgkinson on The letters you never get around to sending
- droid on The letters you never get around to sending
- Rogue_Leader on The letters you never get around to sending
About Me
Hello. I'm a Bristol-based writer and soon-to-be-redundant journalist. You can read more about me and the Enemies site here, or follow me on Twitter. Email me if you like - antonvowl at live dot co dot uk
If you're struggling to read the site please use the drop down box below to increase the text size.
November 28th, 2009 - 15:37
My dream is that every week the schedule said Arsenal v Barcelona (alternating between The Emirates and The Nou Camp).
And it would be free to get in, by a random ballot of anyone who wished to enter.
And it would be shown on BBC1, at 7pm on a Saturday.
And it would be part of the National Curriculum.
And everyone would stop what they were doing and watch, and be in awe, and realise where they were going wrong.
And it would be A Good Thing.
*sigh*
November 28th, 2009 - 16:11
I'm reminded of a family I worked for where one of the siblings had previously faced a tough career choice – professional academic, or professional sportsman. He chose the former because he could continue to do the latter as a hobby, and together that makes for a fun, balanced life.
November 28th, 2009 - 18:20
First thing to do is never listen to TalkSport. The second thing is never listen to Alan Green.
November 28th, 2009 - 18:24
Crouch. Passes to Crouch.
Plays a square ball to Crouch.
Plays a long ball forward to Crouch.
Who heads it in!
Superb goal! That's his second hat-trick of the game.
Peter Crouch 6, Brazil 0, and it's not even half time!
November 29th, 2009 - 14:09
It is true that coverage by 5live is gunk (and you are right about the phone-ins too, I gave up on them), but it is the price of paying for live commentary, it has to be lowest common denominator unfortunately. The guardian's football podcast is very good though, and there's some decent footie journalism about too.
Best book on football ever "Inverting the Pyramid" by Jonathan Wilson. It's very good.
November 30th, 2009 - 12:40
Paul,
Peter Crouch just cannot, for whatever reason, score a goal with his head. He's a good player no doubt, but heading? That's less realistic than your fictional scoreline!
November 30th, 2009 - 15:38
Steve Claridge commentated on the Portsmouth V Man United game on Sat afternoon (yes they do still have 3pm kick-offs on a Sat) and 'no word of a lie' got at least FIVE decisions wrong. Not wrong in the post-match analysis sense, no this was mistakes he admitted to upon a second viewing. Penalties, Names, Rules, Which stadium they were at, What country they were in, and at times, the language they were speaking.
November 30th, 2009 - 18:04
the other side of this is apparent just as often. fans of teams with smaller budgets get to see average players have average games, with a mixture of passing, hoofing and all-out comedy rubbish.
then they get 30 seconds on match of the day, even when their games are interesting, except when they lose 6-2 to arsenal, in which case let's just listen to alan hansen talk shite about how they've no answer for the passing game, they can't cope with pace, all they do is hoof it, it's not even football, they're not a team for the purists, their best opportunities are going to come from set-pieces, which is cheating unless ronaldo scores one, because liverpool and chelsea don't even bother at set-pieces, it's never gonna get you on the cover of the next fifa game, there's only the Big Four and bloody fucking man city because they're a Big Huge Club who haven't won a fucking thing in 33 years.
i know it's now an annoying cliche to say modern football is shite, especially when the standard on the pitch is beyond anythign we've ever seen before, but at least modern football coverage is shite.
[sorry for ranting like a 5 year old.]
November 30th, 2009 - 18:12
Top rant, Richard. And I know exactly what you mean. Outside the 'Big Four' (or five, or six, or however many it is nowadays) all teams are assumed to be peasants who are more likely to pick up the ball and run up a church steeple than string two passes together. Whereas when Stevie Gerrard mullers the ball 90 yards crossfield to no-one at all, it's 'visionary'…
November 30th, 2009 - 19:42
What Steve Claridge (or whoever it was) was probably referring to was Arsenal's lack of physical strength compared to the other top sides (Man Utd/Chelsea/Liverpool). They can play football as good as any other team on the planet, but if a team wants to get physical with them they can get bullied a bit too easily. I think thats what would have been meant rather than they should just start hoofing long-balls (although i'm only going by what you say was said) – which is a legitimate point.
That being said, most football commentary metaphorically fucks the English language in the arse with a massive dildo every week.