Listening to the Forest/Reading match on R5L Extra. If you want to hear a proper match commentary and excellent expert analysis have a listen to Radio Nottingham's Colin Fray and ex-Forest John McGovern. Proper commentary, no stupid chatter.
Such a shame that football has truly "sold out", but I have learnt that you can't have your cake and eat it. If we want to watch the best players, we also have to suffer the commerciality of football. I even find myself staring at my own hypocrisy; I have all the time in the world for McNally and yet, at base level, he is simply a highly experienced marketing and sales specialist who (deservedly, IMO) earns a fortune by being very good at what he does.
Colin Fray provided proper commentary last night, the sort of continuous, move by move description that allowed you to follow what was happening on the pitch all the time. He didn't keep interrupting the flow with irrelevant personal stuff about players, allusions to past games, etc. etc., just kept focussed on the game unfolding in front of him. He waited until there was a natural break in play to bring John McGovern in for his comments, which when he gave them were pertinent, balanced observations, spot on and illuminating about tactics, bits of play, little insights into a particular bit of skill or weakness in play. Compared to the usual self-important, patronising and barely literate rubbish you get on a regular basis on the main channels it was, as I say, a breath of fresh air. Chris Goreham and the others on Radio Norfolk largely adhere to the "we know you can't concentrate continuously on one thing, such as the actual football, so we'll keep interjecting what we think are interesting but are in fact distracting bits of non-information the only result of which is that someone scores while we are telling you about how many different coloured boots are on show on the pitch" style of non-commentary. Commentary apart, Forest/Reading was a great game, 2:3 to Reading in the end. Didn't sound as if the disciplined defending we see in the PL was much in evidence in that game. Wonder how average goals per game in the Championship compares with the PL.
McCreary played well against his old club. Created the first Reading goal by cutting inside his full-back at pace, getting to the by-line inside the box and squaring for Pogrebniak to side-foot in. carrabuh would have approved.
I've been thinking this so much lately. On the radio you need that constant narration, obviously, and it usually is but on telly there will be 30 seconds to a minute where the commentator says nothing! It's ridiculous! These people get paid to talk and they spend half the game sitting in silence. If you look away for any length of time they'll suddenly shout and it'll be a goal but they seem incapable of actually talking their way up to the goal. It's just pointless having them there! You might as well have a loud noise that sounds when a goal is scored, then you can watch the replay!
