ITV football coverage just does not work! Tonight we faced Reading v Liverpool in the English Cup. There were other possible games to choose to televise, Notts Forest v Birmingham being the obvious, but Liverpool are one of ITV's favourites. The must produce a large rating for them, and ratings come before football. How then I ask, if ratings are so important, how is it we are offered such a poor coverage?We endure, far too often in my book, Clive Tyldsley commentating. His love of England and Manchester United is well known, he also loves to fill the screen with his voice and I can see no reason or benefit from this. The constant flow of meaningless words is needless as we are actually watching the game! Less is more from the commentators is the order of the day, not banal ramblings about a players career since he was a 14 year old at Manchester United or Chelsea. Who cares? On the odd occasion a statistic is required, but not during the game, concentrate on what is happening and SHUT UP! After Church scored he went on blabbing about tomorrows headlines and Liverpool facing defeat with almost SEVENTY minutes still to play! Tabloid hacks who care nothing about the game in front of them and only look for a cheap headline ought not to be on TV. Football is too important for this.
Not that we can concentrate on the game of course. With Clive's mouthing we also have banality from the co-commentator, always an ex-player and rarely someone with personality on ITV. As individuals these ex-pro's are quite acceptable, as for giiving an understanding of the game in front of us my grannie could do better, and she died in 1945! A manager, employed or otherwise can give us a clear understanding of the game,and explain why certain players take up certain positions, Chrsitian Nade excepted of course, and David Pleat and Graham Taylor I find helpful here. Clearly Jim Beglin is cheaper! The other slight problem I have is all television directors love of nothing important! Are they all women? An incident occurs so they ignore what is happening on the field and give us a long lingering close up of the back of someone's head, why? Tonight we saw the back view of a linesman, then Gerrard, then Kuyt, for why? I watched a game few weeks back, that's last year to you, and not once did I concentrate on the back of the fellah's head after the ball had gone. I wanted to watch the game, so why watch something that has NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS? As it turned out the game was not too bad, although Liverpool were! What a shame Reading are not up to scratch these days as it would have produced some fun had they managed a winning goal! Still they did not deserve to lose so a draw and replay is OK.
Did anyone listen to the half time debate? I didn't. I wandered off into other channels until the game restarted as I could not endure the banal half wit comments that would arise. Not that there is any time for sensible comment as they have so many adverts, often for their own programmes, to shove before us. Please, please, take football in England, away from ITV and give it, by law, to the BBC. They have many faults shared with ITV but have an overwhelmingly better product. Watching football on the Beeb also stops them offering us yet another soap opera junk programme.
Something good for once! Help the really hungry by spending time developing your vocabulary on the Free Rice link to the right. This is a wonderful way to test your knowledge of words, (using an American dictionary I suspect,) and improve your already extensive vocabulary. Simply decide which of the choice of four words given is the meaning of the word offered and if correct rice is donated to those who require it. There are many level and I assure you mine is not that high! There are other choices also where you can test your knowledge of the world and other interesting topics. I have discovered that my huge knowledge of the world map is not quite what I had hoped! Well do you know your 'Benin' from your 'Togo? The capital cities are not as easy as I thought either. There are other options and they are all well worth a go I say, so do it now! The link to the right will give you hours of fun (well minutes then!) and provide for those who do not require to buy books on dieting!
