I remember coming back from Old Trafford about 15 years ago and listening to David Mellor, I think it was a Chelsea fan who rung up and simply said "David i think your'e a ****" then hung up. We all found it highly amusing.
Savage was on Final Score the other afternoon and the cameras showed Ed Balls in the crowd....Gaby identified him but Savage protested that he'd never heard of him, so she asked him if he knew who the Chancellor of the Exchequer was.....surprise, surprise he didn't know that either. Thinking about it I'm jealous of him being so thick yet able to earn good money winding people up with his ignorance
To be fair, I met some seemingly pretty thick people in Uni. When they were out of the comfort zone of their narrow channel of knowledge they appeared to be entirely lacking in IQ. But they achieved exceedingly good degree passes thereafter - annoyingly better than mine. My abiding memory of that time was being snowed under with work because I ended up teaching them how to use PCs and Macs, as this was around 1995 and many/most of them were computer illiterate. So Savage isn't unusual.
When you look at pundits for most other sports, they are usually those who have been right at the top of their respective sports. Nearly all the cricket commentators are ex England captains. Rugby much the same. Formula 1 ex world champions or very respected knowledgeable articulate individuals. Football, we get Robbie Savage & Jamie Redknapp. Either because they are "characters" (they are not) or "eye candy" (which I'm sure most women find patronising in the extreme). The only defence the media can have for rolling out idiots like that for football is they think many football fans are thick and can't understand big words.... ... they probably have a point.
Hate to say it, but I suspect cricketers are more intelligent and erudite than the average footballer.
When living in Kent, I sold to and installed a computer for Dean Headley and he was just your average chap. I think sports persons can often reflect the people who support them.
It's also true that you have to employ well informed people who can talk in an entertaining manner to cover a 5 day match like cricket where there are frequent pauses. whereas you just need someone who knows the rules and can recognise players to cover a 90 min football match.
Should people who say "Uni" be allowed to go to university and if they persist in saying it once they have been what does it say about their degree?
Fran That is a good point yet I think that followers of football are becoming much more discerning. Whilst I don't doubt that there are some pretty thick people who follow the sport, I would also suggest that the media generally under-estimates the knowledge of their audience. For me, Robbie Savage is indicative of a person employed to suit the lowest comment denominator whilst also lacking the most rudimentary social skills. He can be provocative and interesting for 30 mins but any more than this you end up with the impression that he is simply being controversial for the sake of it. There is a lot of really good writing now available about football whether it is in the form of historically researched accounts of the game in the Victorian era or biographies of footballing careers in a less commercial era. Away from books, periodicals like "What Saturday comes" offer insight and different perspectives of the game at local, national and international level. Even Radio 5 is capable of insightful commentaries and sports programmes that delve deeply in to the sport. Against this background, the employment of Robbie Savage is a bit of a slap in the face for the football fan and totally disappointing if you want in depth analysis and an intelligent appreciation of a match. I just think he is probably the least successful of all the pundits and I would totally concur with the closing article in this month's WSC which incidentally focussed on the short-comings of Mr Savage and his oft-used excuse that "you have never played the game" as a put -down to many of the callers on 606.
