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Search: ' Mark Lawrenson'

Stories

A presenter’s nightmare

wsc301 Commentators and pundits on Britain’s flagship football shows make for awkward viewing, writes Simon Tyers

One could make a list of the things Gary Lineker is really good at – goalscoring, smiling stoically through undignified photo opportunities, keeping Mark Lawrenson awake and being a popular subject of pub conversations that begin “a mate of mine’s friend works for a paper and he reckons…” You would not necessarily put lightning-fast improvisation skills high in the list.

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Critical mass

wsc300 If referees are as awful as claimed, we should help them out with some some extra body parts – or a microphone. Ed Wilson reports

There are some sections of society that it is difficult to feel sympathy for, even when you know they have been treated harshly. Reality TV stars fall into this category, as do Tory MPs – Edwina Currie is the point of intersection in that particular Venn diagram. Previously, I would have lumped referees into this demographic too. You only need to hear the enthusiasm that greets a referee falling over to grasp their standing among most football fans. But in recent months, my attitude to them has softened. I no longer see them as slightly absurd pantomime villains. Referees are people too.

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Thursdays on channel 5

wsc300 Cameron Carter looks at the stature of the Europa League’s coverage on Channel 5, while Roy Keane tries to make it as a pundit

Some job descriptions change so gradually, the subject barely notices they are being exploited. This phenomenon, known in business circles as “task curving”, explains why the ashen-faced train manager punching your ticket is also the voice telling you “carriage haitch will not platform at Dawlish” and the figure humping boxes of Carlsberg onto the buffet car at Exeter. Channel 5 make the most of their staff in the same way.

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New studio, no difference

wsc299 Simon Tyers reviews the BBC’s change of studio and whether it has made any difference to Match of the Day

Whisper it, for fear of TV columnists suddenly finding themselves surplus to requirements in these financially straitened times, but viewers of highlights shows don’t really care about what happens for much of each programme. As long as the action is plentiful and well edited – and the bits in between don’t inspire mass acts of seppuku – you can by and large get away with it.

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Cheap and easy

Cameron Carter bemoans shallow and immature football programmes

Some day, all programmes will be made this way. 20 Football Transfers That Shocked The World (ITV4, October 18) was a list programme that raised several questions. Was Manchester City’s acquisition of Steve Daley the worst business of the 1970s? How did Brazil’s World Cup-winning captain Socrates come to play for Garforth Town? Has Fabio Capello nothing better to do than add his comments on a list programme? Surely if he were at a loose end between qualifiers, the FA could give him an experimental side project, such as trying to kill white mice simply by scowling at them from a technical area.

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