bradley headstone
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Posted: March 20th 2009
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A word of warning, I am about to savage a former England captain and League and European Cup lifting leader…there are no sacred cows here.
Saturday afternoon television has been transformed. Once upon a time, when the world was still mostly black and white, strange cardiganed and blazered beings introduced Crown Bowls, Wrestling and that great TV sport, Squash, whilst waiting for the one real moment of excitement, the vidiprinter. Frank Bough and Dickie Davies have long gone and with them the whole concept of Saturday afternoon sport.
But we are richer. Yes World of Sport and Grandstand offered variety, but they failed to build on that one key component, the vidiprinter. The staccato dance of flattened characters angled round our goldfish bowl televisions as we marvelled at Frank’s ability to read upside down. It was magic television and when that great saviour of British football, Sky, decided, albeit through desperation, to throw their financial muscle at ‘owning’ our national game they discovered this magic door to the nation’s heart.
If you’d walked into a television company and pitched a programme where you watched four blokes watching televisions you can’t see whilst another bloke attempts to elicit ‘banter’ from them…well, I’m not sure that you would have got past the word watched! But, after a few faltering first steps, it has become an institution, not least because of the anchorman genius of Jeff Stelling. Whether it is Countdown, Soccer Saturday or Darts, this everyman is a consummate pro and the jewel in Sky’s lopsided tiara.
Soccer Saturday works because Jeff is the best, the most intelligent, the most quick-witted and the most self-deprecating man on it. It helps that his guests are self–absorbed, inarticulate, preposterous and don’t appear to know much about Football. Sky is blessed here as 90% of ex-footballers have these characteristics. It would be ok if they didn’t as you could trawl any pub in the land and find four as-likely candidates.
It’s easy to laugh along with and indeed at them, almost universally, even the most ridiculous have some kind of amusing trait that reveals itself during moments of high excitement…even Merson’s dribble on the chin. I say almost universally, for there is one man who is an exception. This man, whose lack of comprehension, self-awareness, humour and almost certainly mirrors, lobotomised a no-brainer piece of television.
Who is this man, this wrecking banter-ball? Phil Thompson. Pinocchio himself. A man steeled against personal criticism by years of touchline abuse from every opposing fan and possibly a few home ones too!
Scousers are famed for their humour, well...scousers believe themselves to have the aforementioned ‘cracking sense of humour’. Personally I’m only aware of it while they are winning. Whenever you see a close up of a cheeky Liverpool fan in the crowd it’s fifty-fifty that there will be another close up at the end of the game because that same happy go lucky la is weeping uncontrollably…cue a chorus of ‘Cry on the Telly’.
Thompson is a regular on soccer Saturday; he’s obviously considered good value. I’m sure that the producers are happy to let him make a dick of himself week in and week out. But recently even the sainted Jeff has shown signs of losing his patience.
Like many Liverpool fans I’ve met there’s no sense of proportion or indeed self-awareness to Thompson, you cannot criticise Liverpool or champion any of their rivals in his presence. Like many brought up in the years of success he believes in the divine right of his beloved team’s continuing success. Trouble is we’re all laughing at Liverpool. The antics of Benitez, the board and some of the more boorish elements of their fans open them to ridicule. They are a team being carried by the low forehead of Gerrard, the pretty face of Torres and the pretty passing of Alonso.
Last Saturday should have been a great day for Liverpool fans, 4-1 away at Utd, what a day, the Premiership wide open again, a great day for all of us really. New Year’s day, 1992, that was the last time a team won 4-1 at Utd. Who’d have thought Dennis Bailey (the hero of that day) and Fernando Torres would occupy the same sentence let alone the same plaudits. It still might have been great; I’d stopped watching half way through the build up. So pointlessly argumentative, obnoxious and unpleasant had Thompson been whilst those around him tried to construct a decent conversation, I just gave up.
I think Stelling was trying to give up too! I reckon he was seconds away from throwing down his pencil and shouting ‘oh f*** off Phil’!
You can’t laugh at him, with him, about him, just plain breaking an unbreakable format. I couldn’t care less which of the ‘big 4’ win, there’s enough to dislike about all of them, but by sheer force of personality Thompson has pushed Liverpool out in front of the rest. I really hope Liverpool don’t win…if they do Soccer Saturday isn’t going to be worth tuning into for a while.
Jeff Stelling’s ‘Jelleyman throws a Wobbly’ is published in April