Search: ' Richard Murray'

Simon Tyres rises early on a Sunday morning to review the football-related programming

Sunday morning television is an odd thing. If it’s not soap omnibuses or Tim Lovejoy operating a whisk, trying desperately to make out that this is how he saw his career going all along, it’s ethical debate shows in the old God slot featuring panellists chosen for their lightness towards universal tolerance. Turning on BBC1 to find Terry Christian taking the moral high ground, any moral high ground, makes you wonder if the last two decades of broadcasting progress were in vain.

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Dear WSC,
I’m sending out a plea to WSC readers to see if they can tell me of a top goalscorer who was less popular with his own club’s fans than Bournemouth’s Brett Pitman? As Steve Menary’s entry for the Cherries stated in your Season Guide (WSC 283), he was always the first to be moaned at by the Dean Court crowd despite banging in 26 League goals last season (not to mention the 30 before that since making his debut as a teenager in 2005). Granted, Brett was hard to love. His body language was a combination of seemingly uninterested slouch with an unathletic, head-lolling waddle. His reluctance to jump for or chase down over-hit passes was an obvious crime in the eyes of the average football fan. I guess his arm-waving, sour-faced tantrums when not receiving the exact ball he wanted from team-mates cemented his distant relationship with the fans. I can’t recall a single chant about Brett – an astonishing feat when less talented strikers like Alan Connell (13 goals in over 100 games) were lauded on the terraces. Pitman had been at the club since he was 16 years old, scored spectacular goals ever since and never demanded a move – hardly the sort of pantomime mercenary or hapless donkey that usually attracts the ire he received. After signing for Bristol City, his valedictory interview with the local paper was not a fond farewell: “Pitman Fires Broadside At Cherries Boo-Boys” read the headline. So can any other readers suggest a less-loved goalscorer at their club? Not just one that left for a rival or did a silly celebration in front of his former fans when scoring for his new team – but one with a consistent record of excellence met with lukewarm indifference at best?
Simon Melville, London

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Taylor Parkes explains why watching the centrepiece of ITV's primetime World Cup programming was not an enjoyable experience

The separation of football and the intellect isn’t always a wholly bad thing, but too many people make a career of it. Put that thought to the guilty men – including almost everyone who works in television – and the chances are they’ll scoff. “It’s only a laugh – that’s what footy’s all about, isn’t it?” Well… no, that’s not what “footy” is all about, not exclusively.

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Dear WSC
In response to my letter published in WSC 275, Mark Brennan Scott accepts that we send someone to each of the weekend’s Premier League games, to commentate live, but not unreasonably asks whether Match of the Day commentators ever “re-record bits they are unhappy with”. Not exactly, but the beauty of an edit rather than a live game is there is scope for tweaking both the sound and visuals by transmission time. Every now and then, a commentator will, for example, misidentify a goalscorer and then correct themselves, in which case we have been known to remove take one in the edit. I’ve found a copy of a letter I had published in WSC 240 in which I said: “If a commentator gets something wrong at the time we may even spare him his blushes at 10pm by removing the odd word.” That remains the case, but most of the time the commentator’s natural reaction works best. If it takes a couple of replays before they identify a deflection or suspicion of handball, that will nearly always feel more authentic than trying to look too clever after the event. In shortening a game for transmission, we may occasionally “pull up” a replay or remove a few words, but would almost never re-record any section of a commentary unless there’s been a technical problem. Furthermore, in all cases the commentators go home after the post-match interviews and a producer back at base edits the pictures and sound recorded at the time. In early days of the Premier League, only two or three games had multi-camera coverage and commentators present, so there were occasional attempts to add a commentary to single-camera round-up games, for example, for Goal of the Month. However, not every commentator was a convincing thespian and one or two “Le Tissier’s capable of beating three men from here and curling one into the top corner. Oh my word, he has…” moments did slip through. With multi-camera coverage and a commentator at every game, that no longer happens.
Incidentally, call us old-fashioned but there was a degree of pride in this office in MOTD’s recent use of “crashed against the timber” as cited in Steve Whitehead’s letter. Better that – or maybe “hapless custodian” – than some unpleasant modern notion like “bragging rights”.
Paul Armstrong, Programme Editor, BBC Match of the Day

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The Lions' share of football glory has been fairly minimal down the  years and pre-season hopes were low, while Carlisle were play-off semi-finalists in May. Yet there has been a reversal of fortunes since August, even if a good run for Kenny Jackett's Millwall has been punctuated with nasty defeats. David Stubbs reports

As I enter The Den, the strains of Sonny and Cher’s I Got You Babe resound around the stadium from a PA system so tinny they could be better off making their announcements from the one at nearby South Bermondsey station and hoping the wind carries them. The cine-worm of Groundhog Day immediately squirms to mind – that was the song Bill Murray woke up to every morning. This being a cold evening – all gloves, big cups of coffee and visible breath – you half expect Murray and Andie McDowell to come running out of nowhere throwing snowballs at you. 

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