Wednesday’s Champions League meeting between Chelsea and Napoli encapsulated everything that’s great about the competition.
A clash of styles and cultures, a seesaw dynamic crafted by the two-legged system and some technically superb goals. Floodlit theatre of the highest order.
At times the football was ragged but it was never less than compelling. This is what we miss, where we need to be.
As one of four Liverpool fans who enjoy watching Didier Drogba (we meet on Wednesdays in the Pilgrim) it was a bumper night for me. The game encapsulated everything bad/good about one of football’s most brilliantly complex characters. Executing a perfect diving header, exhorting the crowd to back his team with an intensity which verged on threatening, indulging in the kind of blatant play-acting guaranteed to rile the po-faced majority desperate to be outraged at someone cheating at a game.
Drogba in excelsis, for perhaps the final time on these shores. Even if he’s spirited off in a solid gold plane to China or Russia in the summer, we in Drogba Club will always have Napoli.
Paused sufficiently to call me a traitor/idiot/twat on Twitter? Right, let’s continue.
It was a genuinely thrilling night of European football, with an unlikely turnaround that nevertheless felt inevitable, and it offers the prospect of Chelsea (but not Drogba) being gratifyingly humbled by Barca or Real at a later stage. So all’s good, yeah?
Well, no. Unfortunately for those of us watching on ITV1 there was a significant bugbear, one which grew more and more irritating as the night wore on – the commentary team of Clive Tyldesley and Andy Townsend.
Essentially the duo set themselves up from minute one to be uncritical Chelsea cheerleaders. At every turn and in every situation the home team were backed to the hilt.
This happens a lot, and it’s odd. By definition, many of Chelsea’s biggest fans will have been elsewhere – at the match, for example, or at least packed in to a pub where the atmosphere drowned out the commentary.
It would be interesting to see the figures, but I’d wager more fans of the other 19 Premier League clubs were tuning in at home.
So Tydlesley and Townsend were essentially playing to a gallery which didn’t exist, or if it did was full of people throwing rotten fruit at them.
Why? Well, there seems to be a longstanding belief at ITV that the whole country gets behind our brave lads against Foreign Types. That when the chips are down, we can all set aside our differences and appreciate how JT and Lamps try REALLY hard to win games when they like the manager and they’ve been picked in their favoured position and people don’t look at them funny.
It’s like when Cameron or Clegg talk about ‘UK plc’, as if British business is one big mass we all support, taking pleasure in the success of cake shop and arms dealer, newsagent and hedge fund alike. It’s a platform of bollocks, on which loads more bollocks is artfully constructed.
There’s something else at play here, though – the development of the commentator as all-round expert, ego inflated to breaking point.
At some point the idea emerged that commentators – not co-commentators, not analysts, not presenters – should have views, opinions, observations and a ‘character’.
Rather than contributing the occasional mention of a player’s name and the odd stat to add colour to the occasion, today’s commentators are hell bent on adding their own perspective to things.
During Middlesbrough v Leeds on Sunday lunchtime the BBC’s Guy Mowbray was at it. At one point Luciano Becchio skied a presentable chance in front of goal. Mowbray greeted the effort with derision, concluding Becchio ‘really should have kept it down’.
Is this not the job of the co-commentator, in this case Martin Keown? He may be a joyless wet wipe of a man – evidence here – but if you’ve employed a former professional footballer, presumably you’ve done so on the basis that he makes the judgements.
Who to blame? Perhaps we could start with radio commentator Peter Jones, whose ‘and Smith must score!’ line in the 1983 FA Cup final set something of a benchmark for the names and facts man gegging in on opinion territory.
Or maybe we could point the finger at Alan Green, whose commentaries represent nothing more refined than an endless account of things he thinks the officials/managers/players/kitmen have got wrong that day. The ego thing is even more egregious on radio, leaving as it does vast swathes of the play entirely undocumented. At least on telly we can turn off the sound and let the pictures do the talking.
It’s a shame to see Tyldesley, a man more than capable of turning a decent phrase whose diligent pre-match research often shines through during commentary, following the herd and abandoning the idea of neutrality even when his beloved United are out of the tournament.
Still, cracking game though.
Watched it with a commentary team of Martin Tyler and Gary Neville here in de States. Same guff from these lads though, but the thing that truly frustrated me was listening to them justify Drogba’s “play-acting” in winning free kicks. When he does it against Johnny Foreigner, he’s doing whatever his team needs to win, such an unselfish player.
Unsurprisingly, I hear none of that sort of support when Suarez goes down too easily, nor do I hear the same massive plaudits heaped on him for being able to carry on under the weight of all this silly racism stuff, unlike the indomitable English Lion that is John Terry.
Spot on Steve. The worst offender has to be ESPN’s Jon Champion-he can’t go 30 seconds without making some sort of pithy comment, usually about a foreign player. The scorn he used to reserve for Rafa in his last season was unbelievable.
I was watching LFC TV the other day and they showed the 1995 League Cup final with Brian Moore (RIP) commentating. I really enjoyed just the simple, enthusiastic way in which he described things. It felt ten times more professional than the sneering, cynical tone adopted by most commentators today.
Moore, Barry Davies and even John Motson in the days before he went senile were a cut above. Martin Tyler does a fairly decent job, but does like to throw his opinion about now and again.
Sadly, the likes of Champion, Alan Parry and the aforementioned Green are spoiling our enjoyment of the game by contributing mainly hot air.
I have on videotape somewhere coverage of the 1978 World Cup when it was repeated as a compilation with the music of the time as a soundtrack in 2000. In one of the matches, Brazil vs Austria, there was a chance for a Brazilian player to score, but the ball took an age to come down and he mis-timed it so the ball went sailing over the bar.
Barry Davies then said “Oh for goodness sake, he had half an hour!”
Spot on again. There is a Brian Clough interview somewhere with John Motson, he basically rips him to shreds saying he talks too much and why should he have a point of view when he is more qualified. Great piece of footage.
But I agree, the love in with team in Europe has been going on for years. I remember Utds win in 1998, they celebrated as if the England had won the World Cup, wereas in reality you had Utd fans over the moon and 99% of the country gutted that they won it.
Still, the TV era marches on with even more crap to fill every second we have outside of watching the game.
Keep it up!
Agree entirely. Just commentate. But they have more competition now , the role has taken to itself a new level of competitiveness.
AND ITS LIVE. Yeh we know that Martin, that’s why we’re watching.
Great article though I disagree with peoples comments about Alan Green – for me he is the only mainstream commentator nowadays that says what he feels rather than what he thinks people want to hear.
Couple of examples – 2007 Athens (sorry to mention it but) a Manc came on 606 going on about how happy he was Liverpool lost – Green sarcastically said “oh how magnanimous of you” and promptly hung up.
More recently after the invisible handshake occurred he was the ONLY person (not on the Anfield Wrap or me) who said how disgusted he was at Fergie’s comments after the game as it is none of his business what to do with a player on another team and how hypocritical it was of him to make any such suggestions considering the infamous players he has managed – everyone else seems to talk Ferguson’s comments as Gospel and it makes me sick. I’ve always wanted to be Knighted (I’m a big fan of Edward the Black Prince and the Order of the Garter – thank you Liverpool Uni History Dept) but the fact he was Knighted disgusts me considering the bile that comes out of his mouth at times. Sadly, his trophy cabinet “speaks for itself”…
Andy Townsend – what a bollock of a man. The talentless gobhawk had the effrontery to pass comment on the skills of Edison Cavani for fucks sake. And his high pitched semi-whiney Cockney voice sets my teeth on edge. The less said about Mr ‘That Night In Porto’ Tyldesley, the better.
I recall I foreign journalist asking John Peel if he was disappointed by Utd’s defeat to Galatasary. Peely replied that disappointed was not the word he would have used
They misread their audience in the pre-match interviews too, “So John [Terry], following Arsenal’s departure from the competition, England expects…” Did we fuck!
99% of the time I agree with you, Steve, but listening to Ian Darke and Jason McAteer during the Derby talk about how Tony Hibbert looks like Vladimir Putin did make me buzz. “You’re right Ian, but I’d have to say Putin was slightly more dangerous…”
Regarding the co-commentator these days…I can accept a lot of their BS if they have been there, done that but when you have mediocre ex-players slagging off top current players for poor performance, that gets right on my tits. On the premier league coverage in middle east we have to listen to Efan Ekoku, Dean Sturridge and the god awful Craig Burley. I think Craig Burley hates every one but his employers seem to love his ‘tell it like it is’ style.
Either live on proper telly or streamed online, it becomes excruciating listening to gobshite commentators on Liverpool matches these days. “Colour” commentators are often worse: almost always some dour Scot moaning about zonal marking or something and most of them really know bugger all about what they’re covering.
Worst of them all is Jon Champion – a snide, arrogant commentator who has got an axe to grind against Liverpool and no mistake. What’s worse is that he seems to have a curse on us – we rarely get a string of decent results under his watch and when we do slip up, he’s the first to gloat. Fucking hate him…
Interesting read;
especially when you realise that there is some frustration with the way games are commentated these days notonly in your own country!
I´m from Austria, and when I watch our Bundesliga, I regularily switch the sound to those who commentate for blind people because it makes me mad listening to our so-called experts.
The problem here is that at times you get the impression that the commentators watch an absolutely, totally different game than you, and they also love to stop commentating at all,and you ask yourself-hello,did he go for a piss, or is he playing sudoku or is he just bored??
tbh, I don´t pay to much attention on commentators when watching Liverpool games because I watch them in my local pub so the noise around spares us all from wanna-be egoists!
One word regarding co-commentators and how to irritate and be not funny at the same time….Lawrenson ! And in the words of Andy Gray ‘ I hate saying that’ oopsthat’s another biased hates Liverpool oh and sexist co-commentator. For me ultimate daddy of all commentators is David ‘and Newcastle were un-dressed they were stripped bare’ Coleman. A truly great master of his art who was also at ease with other sports as with footy, not like today’s one trial ponies.
Have to agree Sticky W. His basic commentary during the 70’s was simply “Toshack. Keegan. One-nil!” and let the pictures do the talking. The only other commentator I enjoyed listening to was Barry Davies who appreciated quality football no matter who was playing.
Have a look a Brian Clough telling John Motson the same thing… http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/16039736