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Posted: July 7th 2008
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What a great Tournament…
No, not Wimbledon, the European Championships of 2008. I know we in Britain are being accused of going overboard about this and I did fully expect to enjoy it, but isn’t it nice to have one’s expectations met for once!
It was, for me, heightened by its last week sharing the air with Wimbledon, every time I saw any of that I begin to pine for Gary, Alan et al.
It wasn’t just the tournament itself, a new regime of walking into work meant that I got into podcasts, the Guardian’s football daily and Fighting Talk were great and while I still think Danny Baker to be smug and overbearing, his return to the 606 phone in provided a reminder about how entertaining it used to be. Are you listening Greenie, Spooney?
James Richardson has carved a place in football folklore by being the first football presenter to genuinely embrace irony during his stint on Channel 4’s Football Italia, with the Guardian’s podcast he charts familiar territory, but is a comforting presence nonetheless. The real star is Irishman Barry Glendenning, whose voice sounds like a combination of liquid treacle and Guinness. I’ve no idea how old he is or how sober, but he makes a nice counterpoint to the elfish Richardson.
Since discovering that I could download episodes of Fighting Talk and find past episodes by lurking on the teenagers’ best friend Face Book I now have an almost daily dose of this most unlikely hit radio show. At its best its has me laughing out loud in the middle of shopping malls, startled shoppers avoiding me like the psychotic dribbler I possibly am! The recent Euro 2008 specials were hit and miss, but German comic Henning Wein’s mad reading of the txt number and stalwart veteran John Rawling’s declaration that Cristiano Ronaldo was a Cock (11am Saturday morning!!!) were radio gold.
The contrast of the two tournaments running in tandem last week was instructive, though I should declare that I’ve learned to loathe Wimbledon and am therefore not an entirely objective witness. I think Tennis is ok, definitely a sport and viewed in a bubble (or with the sound down) it’s occasionally breathtaking. Turn the sound up and you reveal the real target of my venom…the crowd.
I know there are people in large football crowds who know nothing about football; most of them sit near me! The big tournaments have a fair smattering of tourists, but despite the over use of the White Stripes’ Pixies-esque 7 Nation Army, a band and a song I’ve never enjoyed but strangely appropriate for Germans on the march, there’s not much chance of the crowd diverting your attention from the game (and I speak as a man who once witnessed John Burridge getting thumped by a punter!).
So why, for two weeks a year, do middle class sport loathing Britons go potty. Queuing endlessly, paying a fortune for everything, helplessly obsessing over a dour, monosyllabic Scot who might well prove to be as good as the last British nobody at Tennis, but worst of all…shouting.
Why must they shout between the points, why declare your ignorance. It renders the whole thing virtually unwatchable. To make things worse, the very same people who bellow, bill and coo inbetween the points will make a point of standing and applauding the umpire for asking the crowd not to use flash photography…before getting their phone out and begin happily flashing away…grrrrrrrr!
There were even stag do’s at Wimbledon this year…what kind of man has his stag do at Wimbledon!!!
Apologies I went off on one there.
The lack of English/British presence does appear to improve the quality of the actual sport in both instances. Even in my misanthropic stupor I still recognise that the final was a real sporting classic and I defy anybody to convince me that Euro 2008 wasn’t the best football tournament in my lifetime.
I read some faintly derisory reports of the final, but I thought it a fascinating game. Spain were magnificent but there was always the looming sense that the Germans would equalise and inevitably go on and win it. As well as they played and as comfortable as they looked…I wasn’t.
Despite every newspaper, pundit and commentator’s attempt to big up any semblance of an English connection…Liverpool’s Fernando, Arsenal’s Cesc, everybody’s Kazim Kazim…the lack of England was the clincher. Take away the bunting, hype and dizzyingly pointless patriotism. The Football was better. England’s propensity for reverting to the fearful, negative and blunt wasn’t missed here and it’s not surprising that most England footballers declared that they would not be watching the tournament so hurt (or maybe ridiculously rich) were they.
Those unwilling to learn from history are damned to repeat it.
The BBC ended up having a good tournament, mostly by only having the hapless ITV as competition, but John Motson retired, that has to be a plus (can they get Lawrenson to go too? He now sounds like someone’s letting the air out of him). They survived the news that lovely Adrian Chiles has split from his wife…for career reasons? Even Linacre, Hanson and Shearer started to sound like, well, pundits…why? Well not because they improved, became funny or displayed any kind of tactical foresight…or hindsight for that matter. No, the BBC came to their rescue by finding someone so vacuous, so lacking in insight, imagination and vocabulary that one wondered if illegal substances might be involved…
…TIM HENMAN MAKES ALAN SHEARER SOUND LIKE GORE VIDAL!
Roll on August the 9th.