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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Stories
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Reading fans’ accounts of their first visit to a stadium, it seems most are struck by two things: the pure greenness of the pitch (which seems odd given how ungrassy most pitches of two or more decades ago look by comparison with modern football) and the intensity of the noise.
Relegation to League One, administration, Kevin Blackwell – Luton and Leeds share quite a lot. So why not add the points, too, when the teams meet at a packed-out if still fairly charmless Kenilworth Road, asks Neil Rose
There is something exciting about having Leeds United in town. Irritating though the whole concept of clubs being “big” or “small” is, there is no denying that Leeds have an aura about them. It’s an aura that attracts by far the largest league crowd of the season to Luton, as well as more police than every other home game combined. It generates an edgy atmosphere at times, punctuated by the odd, quickly subdued fight at both ends.
To suggest that the French midfielder has an attitude problem would be like saying Tewkesbury has been a bit damp of late. James Eastham reports on a career that has gone nowhere, via pretty much everywhere
Stéphane Dalmat scored a glorious goal in the Champions League last season. Playing for Bordeaux, he picked up the ball on the halfway line, breezed past an opponent and lobbed PSV Eindhoven’s goalkeeper, Gomes, from 25 yards. In the Sky TV studio, Jamie Redknapp, Dalmat’s team-mate at Spurs in 2003-04, described the midfielder along the lines of being “one of the most skilful players I’ve ever seen”, but labelled his attitude “shocking”.
Neil Wallace on the year Bolton hit a ton, Man City managers came and went, and the players' union threatened a strike
The long-term significance
Expanding revenues from television became a source of conflict, with footballers pushed towards industrial action for the first time since the abolition of the maximum wage. In the summer of 1996, the Football League sought to reduce the share of the new TV deal that would go to the PFA. With over 90 per cent of the union’s members voting for a strike in October, the League finally agreed to their demand for five per cent of the income; the Premier League came to a similar agreement a year later. In 2001, however, strike action was threatened again before the PFA succeeded in holding on to five per cent of the next, hugely increased, Sky deal. And with the figures becoming ever greater, the strike threat of 1996 could recur again and again.X