THERE was a time when broadcast sports coverage was like everything in
newspapers as well -- anonymous.
''By our Ping-Pong Correspondent'' would suffice. The radio possessed
a similar shrinking from the avid publicity now endemic in the media.
The wireless might have suggested a name, but to this day, I have no
knowledge of what David Francey actually looks like, though on the Day
of Reckoning, I will yet hear his cry of ''Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,''
and have indeed dined out on several stories concerning this legend of
the airwaves. One equally remembers Peter Thomson and George Davidson.
Television was then, in my infancy, in its infancy. And when the Lone
Ranger first strode across the cathode ray thingumy, so did sport. My
family had not the cathode at all until advanced years.
I say all this because I confuse lots of the current incumbents on the
sports desks of telly shows.
David Coleman I mix up with David Vine. I shouldn't really because Mr
Vine always seems like a gentleman; one who fell into the business and
earns a decent enough ear of corn, but does not believe he should.
Coleman sounds like the Bob Monkhouse of sports journalism.
Truth to tell, there are but a few sports presenters who should not be
sent to re-education centres. And there is a reason for this. The
cause
lies in the history of it all. TV coverage of sport is exceptionally
about footy, which takes up so much of your time on the sports box. The
last wee while though, I have come to enjoy the soccer on telly,
particularly from Italy.
Now I am told by certain chaps that Italian soccer is not the stuff.
Say some of my informants: ''It is too slow. Not exciting enough. Them
players would never survive in Scottish fitba.''
All I can say is that such Scottish football fans would not survive in
the Italian -- or any -- education system. I have been watching the
Channel 4 and Sky Italian stuff and it seems to me that even the goalies
can dribble like Tom Finney with four pints of Theakstons in him, and
they score goals which look as though they were designed by Fra
Angelica.
Their managers appear a combination of Machieveli and Mussolini.
British managers would pass for Sir Oswald Mosley, written up by PG
Wodehouse. In short Italian footy still has skill and the Italians know
it to the extent that they have consistently employed just about the
only decently skilful footballers which Britain has thrown up over 40
years.
I do not care if Gazza is a scion of Dunston, is no bright, and
overweight. The Italians recognised what many a fan fed on the thin
pabulum of British football, did not. Gascoigne is a wonderful player.
But we do not have wonderful commentators, presenters, telly sports
journalists. Frankly, I rather enjoy the amateur journos who used to be
pro footballers. It has taken a long time to get the right ones. When
Wee Jinky and Wee Willie Henderson were tried out on STV, for their
couthiness like, there was no denying that we were witnessing two of the
greatest players of the post-War years who couldn't string a noun, let
alone a sentence together.
In recent years we have seen some ex-players who, despite some
syntactical grotesqueries, can come across with genuine authority. I
spoke to big Gordon McQueen not long ago, at a wee social gathering of
the Scottish Sports people and he expressed some doubt over his
grammar.
I was glad to patronise the big fellow.
''Gordon,'' I said. ''I seen you the other day on the box but you
done
it fur Scotland.''
And so he did and still does in telling oiks like myself what actually
happens on the field. Big Derek Johnstone has had the advantage of
poking the ball in international nets in the past, which is more than
some of the more vapid interviewers have ever managed.
Nobody could ever call Gerry McNee vapid, though one is distressed at
the frequent changes of hair colour which this now Scottish football
telly supremo seems to have affected over the years. Gerry is now a top
star in the Sports presentation biz.
I am glad he has changed his image, though Gerry must be the only chap
in Britain who has shaved off his beard and looked older. His partner
in
Scottish, Jim White, is now, thankfully beginning to look older as
well.
This is just as well. For some years I, suspected that James wore short
trousers 'neath that desk.
And then there is Hazel Irvine, who was my research girl at Radio
Clyde when she was about 11, if I recollect. She still looks about 11,
if you ask me. But, crivvens, she does not sound it.
I saw her on Ne'erday, and she is as good as you get. And what is
more, I have only scratched the surface of this exegesis on sport. So
far I have only talked football. Watch this space next week. Watch
what
I say about the other sports.
Hazel is in it too.
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