Re the comedy, Speight (Alf Garnett) and Feldman (often working with people like Barry Took and others IIRC) were/are respected writers. As my link to the Feldman piece indicates, his football commentary sketch was published in the Listener, which was then (still is?) a high brow journal. I doubt Davidson or Chubby Brown, have ever received the intellectual kudos that Speight/Feldman did/do. Mind you, just because an intellectual rates something, doesn't make it necessarily better/funnier than more 'low brow (perceived to be anyway) stuff.
Correct. As you & HBIC have said, the difference was that Davidson was just a racist idiot, who in reality, was about as funny as a wet bank holiday.
alf garnett once told the story of a man who came up to him in the street and told him he loved the way he was always taking the piss out of black people - garnett told him it wasn't black people he was taking the piss out of but people like him
Exactly, though brave of Warrren Mitchell the actor (who was a Spurs fan BTW despite his on screen West Ham persona) to say it to someone like that. As I say I tended to laugh both along with and at Alf, but plenty of people took him as Speight's mouthpiece for racism (or imagined Alf wrote his words himself My long departed Nan loved Till Death Us Do Part, and definitely thought Alf was bang on the button in most of his comments. The satire went right over her head I reckon. But TDUDP wasn't just about race, it was about working class culture in general. It was great to have a family you could relate to that was soooooooooo like the families I knew as a kid. My Dad became Alf Garnett in later life, it was almost a seamless progression as he hit Alf's age in the series. The arguments about football, the 'silly moo', 'I'm going dahn the pub', 'yer darling Harold', the 'Scouse git', the sensible daughter, it was just soooooooo brilliant, and we never missed an episode once we found out about it. I think it was number one in the ratings at one time, it certainly got people talking, even at school we talked about it, though it wasn't particularly a 'children's programme'. The programme really spanned the generations, and when there was only three channels got enormous viewing figures. Of course when I see it now, I look at it through a different perspective, and some of the stuff makes me cringe, satire or no satire. But there's a very strong case for saying it was and is a valid work of art, it was certainly bloody funny and complulsive viewing in its day.
Mmm Jim Beglin, everytime I settle down to watch some footy on ITV and the voice of Jim Beglin pipes up, my heart sinks a bit. For a start if I came up with that kind of analysis at work I wouldn't last long and then I wonder how much Beglin is being paid for his analysis of the obvious. There is no analysis with Beglin. All we get are phrases like - "if he'd hit that shot harder it might have found the net", " if he'd have passed to his team mate, they might have scored", if his left foot was as good as his right foot, he might have scored" if he was 2 foot taller he might have headed the ball and scored", "if he could run as fast as Bolt, he would have beaten his man and might have scored", "if the defender had closed him down earlier, he might have prevented the goal".."if he'd have put his laces through it rather than trying to place the shot, he might have scored" ...the list goes on and on. He appears do do no research at all before a game - and relies totally on his co-commentator to come up with something vaguely interesting. It has been on my mind for some time to see if Beglin irritated anyone else and googling "Jim Beglin rubbish" came up with a number of dissatisfied viewers. Does ITV really think that Beglin adds anything to televised football? On a more positive note, I do think that Andy Townsend is a really good pundit and co-commentator for ITV - which is why ITV give him the better games. This must mean that they have realised that Beglin is a bit poor?
Townsend is a clown. Mind you, most of them are. Let's face it, football is a fairly simple game. Idiots like Townsend (and Gray, and Hansen, and Lawro, etc) who try to turn it into some kind of science do so in order to lend what they do with some degree of merit. In all all the years I have been watching football, the best team is the one whose entire field of players (a) closes down the other side quickly when they don't have the ball, and (b) moves forward quickly as a complete unit when they do have the ball. Sure, we can talk about formations, and all kinds of other little things, but those two basic principles cover just about everything you need to know. When I hear that smug git Townsend spending a couple of minutes telling me something that is blindingly obvious to an 8 year old, whilst managing to miss the two fundamental principles, I switch off.
i want to know why we have to have these pundit's telling what we can see for ourslves.then they say what should have happened.what's that saying,we can by wise after the event.i'd rather t.v, got rid of them and show a bit more of the game's.
If Spuds ever win the European cup (never going to happen, ever) then they might ask an ex Spud to commentate.
[video=youtube;oqAZsoF-ghw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=oqAZsoF-ghw[/video] Brian Clough makes the point on pundits.
What does winning trophies have to do with being a capable commentator? As a number of our ex-players and ex-managers commentate regularly, you're clearly talking out of you arse, too. Never let an opportunity to mention your past go by though, eh? Shame about the present.
And that isn't saying very much at all I hate it when Gray, Townsend, et all rake over defensive errors, or strikers shinning the ball over the bar. What they're really saying is, "if that had been me, I would have buried that ball in the net" or "you won't have found me wanting in that tackle" etc. Like either of those twats would have stood a chance in today's game
