The point is Clive, the main thing we have against you is that you CAN’T FVCKING SHUT UP about “that night in barcelona” so mentioning it in the first answer is hardly going to change anyone’s mind on you, is it?
Furthermore, radio fivelive, much as I have been grateful for your commentaries whilst I’ve been at work during matches, PLEASE teach Chris Waddle how to say the word “PENALTY” correctly rather than saying “pelanty” before it drives me round the twist.
Also can we put David Pleat and Graham Taylor in a room somewhere together and lock the door and never go back to it. And can someone get Lawro a big bottle of Prozac, he sounds like he’s run out…
ALSO also whilst paperbased-bl*gger alistair campbell has a couple of half decent points his argument is flawed by this:
Let us agree that it is the right approach that all but match commentators should be former players
No, no Ali dear, we DO NOT agree about this. Get Pat Barclay in, James Richardson, people who can construct an argument, rather than people (shearer, wright, townshend, even gullit) with no descernible skills beyond kicking a ball. This is why O’Neill and Strachan are so good, they aren’t just repeating platitudes (O’Neill even puts “ally” on the end of words, eg “he played fantastically”). I’m not quite sure why Campbell misquotes Reith with “inform, explain and analyse” when “inform, explain and ENTERTAIN” would be a far far better thing for our pundits to aim for.
The BEST thing that any of the pundits have done in the last few weeks though was squirrelled away on the BBC highlights (although it is viewable again for UK people on the World Cup Daily on the right and involved Ian Wright going round the Art Gallery that the studio in Berlin is perched on top of. It was ace, he proved he could THINK and EXPRESS OPINIONS and everything, bless him. Maybe they should get Brian Sewell and Matthew Collinge in to be pundits next time…