Have football fans had enough of dumb ‘experts’?
I like football. I am not, though, a dribbling idiot honking kebab-vomit into a pint of lukewarm lager. This, I think, is an important distinction to make. It shouldn't be a distinction that I have to make, but I'm afraid I feel that football fans are treated as if we're all a bunch of gurning monosyllabic fuckknuckles.
Which is a shame, because I don't think we are. Don't get me wrong - some football fans are ignorant turds whom you almost want to applaud for managing to sit the right way throughout the entire game. But this football fan put it nicely during the World Cup:
Football fans, despite what the producers of Match of the Day apparently believe, are not idiots. Granted, anyone who has ever listened to a radio phone-in will know that there is an anti-Darwinism at the heart of every broadcast, a survival of the thickest as sensible voices are drowned out by braying morons. And yet football fans have never been so knowledgeable. The regular coverage of European leagues on satellite television has allowed us to gaze upon a world outside the bloated hyperbole of the Premier League.
Yes, that's it. What you've got now is a situation where fans, including armchair fans, are more able than ever to fill up on knowledge about the game. We can read more about European football than we ever could before the internet; we can see more action from outside of the UK than ever before, too. But punditry hasn't kept pace with this: instead, it's come to the point where fans are becoming more knowledgeable about players and teams than ex players who, while being good at putting the ball in the net in their day, are not so good, it would appear, at doing any research whatsoever. As Tom English so memorably put it, also during the World Cup:
Before the Algeria versus Slovenia game in Group C on Sunday, Shearer seemed to be speaking for the entire BBC panel when he said, "Our knowledge of these two teams is limited." Limited! What the former England striker was saying was that he hadn't done his homework, that he hadn't spoken to any of his vast array of contacts in the game, hadn't tapped into the BBC's huge research machinery, hadn't even bothered, seemingly, to peruse the internet for some background on Algeria and Slovenia or even flick through a newspaper or a magazine. Shearer was content to sit in front of the cameras and tell the viewers that, really, he didn't know much. Hardly a revelation to those of us who have groaned our way through his anodyne commentaries in the past, but embarrassing all the same.
You might have hoped that someone might have had a word with Shearer after this kind of carpeting during the World Cup, but it either didn't happen or Shearer isn't listening. Jonathan Liew of the Telegraph let out a weary sigh of despair after watching the "Yul Brinner/Weetabix"-haired expert proffer his opinions at the weekend:
You may, or may not, have heard of Ben Arfa before he moved here, but then you aren't paid to talk about him on television.
"No one really knows a great deal of him," Shearer asserted confidently as he introduced highlights of Ben Arfa's performance against Everton.
It was an astonishingly deficient piece of analysis, for which his earlier golden nugget of insight – "It's weird seeing Birmingham wear red, isn't it?" – curiously failed to atone.
These 'experts' know about the things that relate to their playing days, but when it comes to actually finding out about things, they're not so sharp. You may say that pundits are not necessarily there to provide expert analysis but rather a bit of colour - look at the bewildering ramblings of Eddie Jordan on the BBC's Formula One coverage, often far more exciting than the races themselves; or Michael Vaughan on Test Match Special, like Geoffrey Boycott but without the insouciant charm - but that seems somehow unsatisfactory to me. I want these people to tell me something I don't know and make me see things that I might not otherwise see. Is that too much to ask?
Surely the very least you could do, as a commentator and analyst on English football, is to find out about English footballers, and keep an eye on what's going on in Europe so you have a good idea about World Cup and European Championship qualifying, players coming to the Premiership in the future, and so on. No...? Well, no, apparently not. It's even got to the stage now where Gabriel Marcotti, someone on the BBC who had a clue, has jumped ship for ITV - ITV! - while Robbie Savage and Steve Claridge lock their antlers of bluff shouty fuckwittery on Five Live on a regular basis.
I'm sitting there listening, thinking "Oh will someone please kill them both", but then I remember that would mean more of Alan Green - who himself delighted in telling his listeners he couldn't be bothered to look up the Bulgarian team before they played England in a European Championships qualifier, yet somehow knew that England should be better than them.
I think it's this kind of arrogant ignorance that gets people's backs up. By all means we can all agree or disagree about football - it's one of the marvellous things about the game that we can all watch the same match and take something different away from it - but it's getting to the point now where viewers are becoming more aware of what's going on than the presenters and pundits who are meant to be there to offer an insight. Now I don't mind people being well paid, off the licence fee or not, because I'd be tempted to think "Well, they've earned it" if they're any good; but it's hard not to think that some of these faces are just coasting along on their footballing glories without bothering to put the work in with their day jobs. But please, can we just have some people who actually like finding stuff out? Who want to know about new players, because they're interested? Who offer something other than just a lot of pub bore opinions? Please...?
No, probably not. But I can't help wondering if the rumblings of discontent from fans are getting a bit louder.
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.
September 22nd, 2010 - 13:37
Yep, totally agree. Doing analysis on MotD on Saturday Alan Shearer said of Ben Arfa after his debut for Newcastle ‘No one knows anything about him’.
No Alan, just because you don;t know anything about him because you spend all week playing golf and working on your tan that doesn’t mean ben Arfa appeared out of the skies. For others who didn’t know anything about him, it might’ve been of interest to say Ben Arfa was a prodigal talent, predicted to be the new Zidane, who despite winning championships with Lyon and Marseille and French caps before the age of 21, is considered to be a hothead and unmanageable – the bad boy of French football (and that’s saying something) hence being loaned to NUFC. That *might’ve* been of interest to fans and would’ve required a modicum of knowledge or research. Shearer is rubbish. Bring back Brian Glanville!
September 22nd, 2010 - 23:47
See, I have no interest in football, but the way you described this Arfa chap just then made it sound genuinely interesting. I doubt I could sit through the average episode of MotD (to me it comes across as a collection of potatoes in shirts exchanging in-jokes and belly laughs), but if they talked more like this *points up* about players who sound like fascinating people, I could totally be converted. Much like in the 90s, when I had no interest in computer/video games, but would read Digitiser on Teletext religiously, simply because it was so well written (and bloody funny, chal nub etc).
September 22nd, 2010 - 13:47
Agreed. At least on F1 Eddie Jordan has a role – he’s pretty good at grabbing other team supremos and getting them on camera but I’ve given up listening to a lot of 5Live football coverage as they often get things I know wrong which just pisses me off. Marcotti was one of the only people worth listening to – shame he’s gone to ITV.
September 22nd, 2010 - 13:51
Marcotti has also gone back to talkSport as well, which is where I first heard him years ago.
He’s EXACTLY the kind of person MotD should have on. he’s intelligent, knows what he’s talking about, and has expert knowledge in certain areas, particularly italian football.
Shearer’s knowledge doesn’t strech much further than Gateshead.
I haven’t watched MotD once this season, preferring to fund Murdoch’s pension with Football first for the highlights, then Sunday Supplement, then only decent football discussion programme on TV.
September 22nd, 2010 - 14:10
It’s not just the punditry, but the interviews. MOTD post match interviews are done by numbers these days:
1. Ask if the manager is happy (if they won or drew against a better team) or disappointed (if they lost or drea against a worse team).
2. Pick out a player who had a good game and ask for a comment.
3. Ask where we go from here.
And even that it more enlightening than the pointless practice of running onto the pitch to interview players the second the final whistle blows.
September 22nd, 2010 - 14:39
I’ve recently added Jonathan Wilson’s Guardian column to my RSS feeds and just wish there was more football writing of that quality around – his book Inverting the Pyramid is a fantastic read for all football fans looking for a bit of intelligent analysis. Once the newspaper writing gets up to scratch then hopefully TV pundits would follow suit. Having a go at Alan Shearer without having a go at Andy Townsend is a bit unfair though – Townsend makes Shearer look positively full of football knowledge.
September 22nd, 2010 - 17:45
James, you might be interested in adding http://www.zonalmarking.net/ to those RSS feeds as well. Wilson-esque analysis and the guy also writes on the Guardian’s Chalkboard sections. http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/michael-cox
Anton is dead right, without Sky even I can read reports on big games in Spain, Germany and Italy as well as look up highlights on YouTube. I could even download the games to watch after the event if was a bit mental. The pod teams at The Football Ramble and Football Weekly also cover foreign leagues as well and not in 2 minute section at the end of their allotted time.
September 22nd, 2010 - 20:19
Not everything Wilson writes is good.
September 23rd, 2010 - 15:09
True.
But everything Dr Sid Lowe writes is good.
September 22nd, 2010 - 14:56
It’d be hard to bring back Glanville, since I can’t ever remember him doing television. Wouldn’t be his forte, anyway.
I don’t know if this in some ways can be seen as part of the cult of success, which is an outgrowth of treating free market economics as some kind of God-given truth. You’re not judged by your opinions, you’re judged by have you done it in practice….and this leads to the point where your opinions, too, are judged on have you done it in practice.
Sport tends to work this way anyway – it’s an environment where people are expected to button it if they’re not at the top. So it’s liable to reproduce that pattern in its punditry, unless a serious proportion of the Great Unwashed indicate that they expect better than they’re getting.
That’s why we started football fanzines back in the Eighties, because we wished to indicate precisely that – and I wonder if in a perverse way, fan-opinion has become so ubiquitous that it’s been channelled into phone-ins, comments boxes and and so on, and football punditry itself has ceased to feel under pressure to be good and just regressed back to its former, normal state.
September 22nd, 2010 - 15:47
Couldn’t agree more. The way the MOTD pundits have dismissed Blackpool has been a disgrace. If they can’t be arsed to be impartial they should get off the telly. They are not paid to make gushing statements about the big four, they are there to analyse the football. The only reason that the BBC pundits are still employed is basically because the ITV commentary is so shit. BBC management must see this and think, “If they can get away with that, then we needn’t bother changing anything”. Don’t get me started about that idiot Colin Murray. His trendy ironic coverage of the darts almost made me shit myself with rage.
September 22nd, 2010 - 16:09
Colin Murray’s darts coverage may be bad – but I’ve heard him commentate on poker. Now THAT is shit-inducing.
September 22nd, 2010 - 15:49
All true but does anyone else breathe a sigh of relief when MoTD starts and Lee Dixon comes into shot?
One of the few ex-pro/pundits I actually want to hear on the game.
September 22nd, 2010 - 20:29
Yep, I’m probably biased as an Arsenal fan but Dixon is probably the best MOTD currently has. Speaking of which, it’s pretty clear just how Alan Hansen has jumped the shark when he ripped into Theo Walcott for not having a football brain after he scored his hat-trick against Blackpool and had done perhaps one thing wrong all game.
More than anything, Shearer is simply embarrassing. Everything is either “incredible” or “unbelievable” which are overused enough as it is in football commentary, yet if we listen to Shearer it seems every single game/player can be described in those terms. And as for that utter cunt Robbie Savage, at least a couple of weeks ago he confirmed what we already thought we knew: that Mark Hughes had explicitly told his teams in the past to put the boot in.
All this said, Talksport is even worse based on the commentary of the Arsenal game last Saturday. Listening to Stan Collymore’s view of the game I was under the impression that Song’s sending off was certain and that it was never a penalty, something which MOTD later corrected. Almost makes you wish for Alan Green; at least his commentary on the Stoke game last Saturday which focused on those outside the ground climbing trees to get a view of the match was entertaining.
September 24th, 2010 - 11:03
See, I like Dixon most of the time, but I do find him terrifically biased when it comes to Arsenal. Regardless, he is the best MOTD currently has to offer.
The less said about Robbie Savage the better. And woe for us lower league fans, we have the less-charismatic-than-blacmange Manish…
September 22nd, 2010 - 16:18
There was an Article on F365 today that made me long for American football coverage. I can’t claim to have seen any but http://www.football365.com/story/0,17033,8750_6393188,00.html does make a good case.
On the Liew article, i foolishly strayed onto the BBC 606 forums and the inability of some of the Newcastle fans (which i am) to accept that he’s a shite pundit was just disapointing.
September 22nd, 2010 - 18:52
I couldn’t agree more, in fact, it has got to the stage where I no longer listen to nor watch football related programming as it is insulting dross of the highest order.
All the football-related information I need is ably serviced by a legion of superb blogs and websites and frankly puts the BBC and ITV et al to shame.
The sad thing is, it’s had a knock-on effect on my enjoyment of football and I find I’m watching less and less of it on TV as a result. The World Cup was the last straw.
Compared to the quality of the cycling coverage on Eurosport and ITV3 – football is in the dark ages.
September 22nd, 2010 - 19:59
Hear hear. I think the comments below (the ones so far at least) show that there’s a desire for a better quality of analysis from our national sport. Apart form anything else, this absence of any kind of research form some pundits is a slap in the face to the people who pay to watch or listen to them.
September 22nd, 2010 - 20:01
What was said about Glanville is straight to the heart of the matter. I can remember my English A-Level Teacher too many moons ago rhapsodising about BG in the Sunday Times saying that there was a person who loved the English Language for its own sake and could make football poetic in itself.
By contrast all Arsehole Green cares is pointing out how shite the referee his and how he could do a better job, (though I could doubt it with the Porklife he carries – It involves a fair bit of running around the field Alan and not just to get your Fish and Chips) and daring anyone to complain about him (Remember poor old Mark Saggers). Last Saturday he complained about one decision and then said the Referees name – and then said “enough said!” as if that explained everything.!!
Why don’t we torture Alan Green and play him broadcasts of the lamented Peter Jones in his prime – a man who really knew how to make the Beautiful Game be Beautiful!!
September 22nd, 2010 - 20:28
It’s even worse when pundits don’t even know the laws of the game. I remember seeing an incident where a goalkeeper handled the ball outside the area but in a position where he did NOT deny a clear goal scoring opportunity. He quite rightly received a yellow card for deliberate handball.
Mark Lawrenson though was incensed, absolutely convinced that a goalkeeper handling outside the area was an automatic red card. And he’s not the only one to consistently talk shit like that.
September 23rd, 2010 - 15:03
Spot-on. Shearer did this on Saturday night – “Well if the ref sees Fulham’s keeper handle the ball outside the area it’s a straight red, and that would really change the game.”
It’s only a red card if the keeper denies an clear goalscoring opportunity by deliberately handling outside the area. But even the former England captain doesn’t know this, and he’s now being paid by the BBC to provide “expert” analysis of games.
Every week the guy behind me at the City Ground blathers on and on and on about how the opposition ‘keeper should be booked because he’s been holding onto the ball for more than six seconds. At the back end of last season I pointed out that said rule had been ditched the best part of a decade ago, but he told me that Alan Green had mentioned it the previous Saturday. Grrr.
September 22nd, 2010 - 20:52
Does anybody know who or what Sid Lowe is Twittering about, as regards somebody on the Daily Star who’s apparently completely making up interviews?
September 22nd, 2010 - 21:32
if you think our lot are bad, american coverage of football is horrific, arsenal v spurs, the other day the commentator was convinced that arsenal had been 1-0 down for much of the game, when in fact they were never behind, being too lazy to research is bad, but too stupid to remember the game youve just been watching thats just unbelievable
September 23rd, 2010 - 07:28
Couldn’t agree more with this. I’ve never been a fan of Gordon Strachan, but when he was on MOTD (or MOTD2 maybe?) he was able to offer some insight beyond what I could easily work out for myself.
The current anlysis either leaves me going ‘yeah, and?’ or else it just frustrates me with the inability to tell me anything at all.
September 23rd, 2010 - 07:47
It has been a revelation to me recently to listen to commentary on Rugby (League & Union) from here (Sky, ESPN) and abroad (bought-in from S. Africa & NZ). Knowledgable, articulate & often witty, these guys have actually added to the the experience instead of making me want to throw things. People like Lawrenson, Shearer and others just can’t be bothered & it won’t do.
September 23rd, 2010 - 08:01
I watch a lot of Spanish football on Sky – the standard is great and the coverage is free from all the “Best League in the World” bullshit that we have to wade through to watch Premiership football.
I remember a moment a few years ago when an English team were playing Atletico Madrid in Europe. The ITV pundits were talking about Sergio Aguero as though this was the first time they’d heard of him – “he looks like a good prospect.” He was voted that season the third best player in the world. Yeah, good prospect… Maybe one day, he’ll really make it big and play for Chelsea.
That was genuinely the last time I watched any punditry. I now record MotD and fastforward between games. If I’m watching a live match, I just switch over for twenty minutes at half time. Like you say, they’ve nothing to add. Why bother?
September 24th, 2010 - 17:05
That said, it’s probably better to watch Spanish football on Sky than it is to watch it on Spanish TV, where the commentators are among the biggest arses on the planet.
I not uncommonly turn the sound off or switch channels for commentary in Catalan, a language which I do not speak or understand.
September 24th, 2010 - 17:09
Oh, and on La Sexta, where the stupidity is probably at its highest, they can never introduce a game in La Liga without referring to it as the best league in the world.
September 23rd, 2010 - 08:25
Eddie Jordan may frequently be bewildering (his dress sense certainly is) but he’s sharper than he often appears, makes good use of his contacts in F1 & his ability to steamroller his way into a garage & force interviews out of the otherwise reluctant is unmatched.
All in all I think the beeb’s F1 coverage is superb, and is clearly put together by a team (both on & off camera) that obviously love the sport & like to convey their knowledge & enthusiasm (mind you, after years of watching Jim Rosenthal & Steve Rider, anything was bound to look good in comparison).
Spot on about the football pundits though – I don’t even like the sport, but find myself banging my head in frustration at the moronic knowledge of the ‘experts’ on the odd times I see it.
September 23rd, 2010 - 10:57
The punditry in the World Cup made me hate football. Actually, so did some of the football. But I knew it was going to be bad when everyone on TV started claiming that Switzerland’s defeat of Spain was one of the biggest upsets in World Cup history – it was Switzerland, not Guinea-Bissau.
It’s not just football either. Athletics coverage is pathetic on the BBC too. You know, well done Colin Jackson/Sally Gunnell/Denise Lewis, you were quite good at your sport once – but you are patently not that intelligent, cannot communicate coherently and have slim knowledge of any athlete outside the top six in the world at any event. Please go fuck yourself for the good of humanity.
September 23rd, 2010 - 15:06
The USA beating England in 1950, now that was an upset. As you say, Switserland beating Spain is nothing like that. But that is a trend that is not unique to sports coverage, I believe, that lack of historical perspective. You see the “biggest this or that in history” phrase smattered all over the media, and I’m guessing or hoping it’s mainly used by 22-year olds who really mean “biggest this or that since I started paying attention to current events 7 years ago”.
September 23rd, 2010 - 14:55
The thing that bugs me most is how none of the “expert” pundits appear to know what the actual rules of football are.
September 24th, 2010 - 10:22
They still keep banging on about there needing to be ‘daylight’ between the defender and the attacker in cases off offside, despite the fact this has not been the rule for so long that it wasn’t even the rule when they were still playing. Utter dicks that they are.
September 24th, 2010 - 23:52
I refuse to watch BBC coverage, it just gets me angry. What you should do, if you are looking for expert analysis, intelligent conversation and debate and phenomenal knowledge from the pundits, you should listen to the World Football Phone in on BBC 5 Live. it’s on late but you can podcast it.
It’s entertaining and it’s great to hear about players from other areas.
September 25th, 2010 - 02:20
As an experienced host of a sports show on radio, I say experienced, I lasted 8 months. I say host, I was the co-host. I say radio, it was local radio. But still, with its core fan base, and community feel – it was fantastic to see a massive enthusiasm for sport at that level. From the local women’s basketball team or the chairman of the darts league, to the latest goals in the Premiership and the latest putt in the Ryder Cup; we tried to cover it (We did have three hours to fill, and worked a lot by request.
However, after using 6 lines to get to the point, it was voluntary. Between the two on-air presenters and one live feed to a local game, we usually put in about 40 hours between us. Now, for hypothetical sake, can you imagine Shearer and the cliché crew have put in 40 hours, between them, since they moved from pitch to punditry? I doubt whether Shearer ever studies the squads, or tactics or reserve team players or benches or local fanzines or many of the amazing blogs out there…
Sports production bosses need to stop paying for the reputation, and require any ex-players to sign a contract dedicated to putting in a few hours where they could spend time with a dedicated stat or research individual and try to tell us something we don’t know. Or at least try, just don’t be repetitive – and in Lawro’s case, STOP FUCKING MOANING.
October 1st, 2010 - 00:02
Totally agree. Worst moment of the World Cup was Shearer shouting down Roy Hodgson who was making a particularly interesting point about defensive cover, to say “he’s got to be doing better than that” or some such banal bollocks. Also, why is Robbie Savage doing every pundit job going on Radio 5 at the moment?
October 8th, 2010 - 02:04
What has to be remembered here is that the vast majority of footballers are up their own behinds. They are an insular bunch of (for want of a better word) “Twats” and the pundits are no different with there in jokes and smug comments, they still think in the same tardy manner that got them through their footballing careers and consequently the only qualified comments they are likely to offer are ones that would get a 2 1 in “Stating the bleeding obvious” at the university of shite.
October 13th, 2010 - 14:49
There was a terrible weekend not so long ago when I thought Robbie Savage was actually somehow managing to stalk me through the radio and TV; he was on Match of the Day then 606 then was the co-commentator on the next game I listened to. Not once during this time anything of interest escape from this insight black hole, although there was at least one notable comment:
“What do you know about Arsenal’s new signing, Squillaci, Robbie?”
“He’s got a funny name.”
Right.
The BBC’s World Cup punditry was staggering in its complacency and ineptitude, and it doesn’t seemed to have learned anything from it, judging by the subsequent (over) employment of this mediocrity working so hard to be a “character”. He is loud, self-obsessed and a bit thick, but he creates a reaction. This is, in media terms, a good thing. In the absence of anything happening, 24 hour news has to deal with a lot of ‘reaction’ to things or in creating a ‘reaction’ itself. I can’t help but feel that every complaint about Savage being a dim, preening egotist gets a thumbs up by his employers because it means people are ‘reacting’ to BBC Radio 5.
And as for Shearer – man, just get off the telly. You can’t need the money. I’m a Newcastle fan and idolised Wor Alan, the flinty-eyed bastard, but even I can see there’s precious little difference in charisma and punditry between him and his famously creosoted fence. It is interesting to see how much of the MotD sofa he and Lawrenson can put between them without one of them falling off the end.