Sometimes I wonder if the entire world is going completely mad. Especially the football world, for it seems Sky Sports’ gross monopoly on sport and indeed our lives has grown to new levels. Levels we can’t imagine. Geoff Horsefield’s underpants sort of levels.
On Christmas Eve as I sat in the pub with friends, darting around like karate kid to avoid the thousands of elbows that were a’swinging near my face in the scrum at the bar. On the television was, of course, Sky Sports News. It’s easy to stick that on. If the sound is off (it was) then you can read the really interesting statistics that scroll around Simon Thomas’ face (I didn’t). It’s simple, it’s safe. It being on in the background means when conversation goes silent you can divert your attention to the screen without getting fully engrossed in it. Brilliant. Until you realise what the hell they’re on about.
I don’t know if you saw it, but the feature of the evening involved the presumably bored and under worked reporters going around the grounds and asking what Christmas entailed for the likes of Sam Allardyce, Harry Redknapp, Eddie Johnson (yeah, him!) and many more. Not that they needed to travel the length and breadth of the country, seeing as they all gave exactly the same answer.
‘Probably just wake up, come into training, do some light work, then go home, spend time with the family, eat the dinner, sleep [insert chuckle here] then spend the night in front of the telly or on the coach to the away game’.
Insightful. Honestly, if I hadn’t been told what Allardyce was doing on 25th December, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep, open presents, eat my dinner, nothing. At all. Thank you, Sky Sports News. You’ve got a monkey off my back by boring it to death.
But oh, they’re not finished.
As if the excitement of their Christmas Eve offerings were not enough, they also had Christmas Day covered too. I couldn’t make out what time they stated (I’d fainted with dreariness) but sometime in the morning, they were sending poor cameramen out to film Tottenham training. Training, correct.
Would it be cynical to say nobody wanted the morning shift on Sky Sports News? And to say it was somewhat a TIME FILLER UNTIL SOMEONE FANCIED GETTING TO THE STUDIO? Oops, that last bit was put in capitals by accident. Actually, fuck it, I’ll keep it to enhance the bellowing factor.
Who in their right mind wants to watch Tottenham training, and for that matter any other team? As if we would be watching the Fulham vs. Tottenham game the day after and judging every set piece against how they practiced it at Spurs lodge. This is a frightening vision, truth be told, of where the Club channels (MUTV, RangersTV etc) are heading. Hours and hours of football. Next year; round the clock coverage of Sam Allardyce asleep after his Christmas dinner. You’ll watch. As will I.
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