Survival Sunday blazes a trail for football TV analogies

'Survival Sunday’. It may sound like the producers of Lost have taken control of English football for the weekend but, for idlers familiar with Sky Sports News, the phrase has become synonymous with 24.

Before any ‘exclusive’ with, say, Gareth Southgate regarding the fight for Premier League survival, we are faced with the flickering digital graphics and beeping soundtrack of the long-running action series’ opening credits.

In a week where tension has risen like Michael Martin’s blood pressure, the severity of Sky’s tone suggests that the strain of the Premier League’s final match day would overwhelm even Jack Bauer himself.

Jack Bauer: Taking aim at Alan Shearer. Maybe.

Conveniently, tomorrow will be the 24th of May, but I think the parallels should be drawn beyond this coincidence.

There should be split-screens throughout Sky’s coverage; switching from Sunderland to Hull and other relegation-threatened teams with the sound of a ticking bomb lingering in the background.

Tension will reach unbearable levels not as our protagonists look to thwart attempts on a presidential candidate’s life, but as they strive to retain Premier League status.

Hearts will miss a beat not at the sight of flying bullets but of Newcastle defenders flinging their bodies to block a scuffed shot from Emile Heskey. Jeff Stelling could even narrate.

Personnel will play an important role in replicating 24’s relentless action. Elisha Cuthbert may not be present at any of the stadia, but the Villa Park crowd will at least have the eye candy of Iain Dowie, at whom they can gaze lustily amid the chaos.

The role of sinister, serially-telephoning nemesis would be amply fulfilled by the agent Kia Joorabchian, as he plots Carlos Tevez’s next move from the directors’ box at Hull’s KC Stadium.
With 24 potentially so well represented, it’s a shame TV analogies aren’t encouraged more in football coverage.

With the bottom half bursting with adrenaline, it seems the more predictable top four would be best represented by the steadier entertainment of a cartoon. Wacky Races, which invariably begins with an exciting exchange of the lead before ending with the same victors, seems a fair illustration of a season at the Premier League’s summit.

Perhaps the struggle for mid-table bragging rights could borrow from the battle for gang supremacy in the projects of The Wire. Appointing Stringer Bell as Wigan Athletic’s chairman would certainly liven up a Monday night fixture against Bolton.

Giving teams fictional alter-egos could attract new fans as well as appease current followers. West Brom? Think of them as football’s answer to the O.C. or 90210 – aesthetically pleasing but with little beyond the attractive surface.

Fulham, meanwhile, could bolster their modest attendances by rebranding themselves as the sport’s Channel 4 News; friendly, middle class and steadily growing in stature and popularity.

Capital capitulation

I had hoped to wake up on Monday morning to find that the previous day had all just been a bad dream.

Unfortunately, Cardiff City’s seventh place in the Championship’s final league table stared blankly at me from my computer screen, an unforgiving reminder of Sunday’s monumental collapse.

With four games left in the season, the Bluebirds had automatic promotion in their sights but wilted under the pressure to succeed like a daffodil in a blast furnace.

They mustered just one point from a possible twelve, conceded twelve goals and threw away a golden chance of becoming a Premier League club.

Dave Jones' expression is rumoured not to have changed since May the 3rd.

As I searched desperately for reasons to be cheerful – well, a possible trip to Hull next season – I tried consoling myself by thinking of sport’s other spectacular capitulations.

“I would love it!” is the infamous Kevin Keegan quote which will forever be synonymous with the 1995-96 Premier League season and, in particular, dramatic self-destruction.

Despite being 12 points clear at the top in January, a jittery run-in saw Newcastle surrender the title to Manchester United.

The Magpies never truly recovered, and now face the ignominy of joining the legion of underachievers in English football’s second tier.

Eclipsing Newcastle’s capacity to crumble under pressure is quite a feat, and one that the English cricket team has repeated on numerous occasions.

Most memorably, the second test of the 2006-07 Ashes at Adelaide signalled not only the turning point of the series but also the end of the briefest of golden eras, ‘The Class of 2005’.

Having declared on a mammoth 551-6 in the first innings, the tourists were poised to level the series at 1-1 when they were 69-1 in their second innings.

Once Andrew Strauss fell to England’s perennial tormentor Shane Warne, however, they imploded to gift Australia an unexpected win and, with it, a platform for a crushing 5-0 series triumph.

When the Ashes start in July, I’ll be in Cardiff hoping that the England and Wales Cricket Board XI can upset Australia and, in the process, spark a collapse that I can actually enjoy.

As written for Leeds Student

Nicknames and snooker's identity crisis

As cricket’s ‘sexed-up’ alternative, the Indian Premier League, begins in its temporary home of South Africa, another quintessentially British sport has faced calls to reinvent itself.

Thousands of miles away from Twenty20’s pyrotechnics, the World Snooker Championships have been progressing to the calmer sounds of rustling sweet wrappers and coughing pensioners.

The Crucible’s gentle atmosphere, however, belies the tumult of the sport’s identity crisis. Those in charge at World Snooker have announced plans to trial a shorter format of the game, using six red balls instead of the conventional ten.

The decision is perhaps a reaction to Ronnie O’Sullivan’s request in January for the “entrepreneurial skills of Simon Cowell” to help inject some life into what the world number one claims to be a “dying” sport.

After all, the closest snooker has ever come to sexy is Kirk Stevens’ Saturday Night Fever-inspired white tuxedo.

O’Sullivan may have had a darts-styled introduction of a pub venue and bikini -clad women in mind but it seems that he had overlooked the unique glamour which snooker offers.

Tournament emcee Rob Walker is the man given the dubious responsibility of stirring excitement in the arena. If his cry of getting “the boys on the baize” fails to stir, however, he can turn to a rich source of nicknames.

Quarter-finalist Mark Selby has been dubbed the ‘Jester from Leicester’, a moniker which suggests a maverick cueman with a penchant for practical tricks at the table. In reality, though, Selby is a pale, wiry Midlander whose expression seldom changes from a look of deep gloom.

One of the sport’s newcomers, meanwhile, is the proud owner of a feistier pseudonym. Mark ‘The Pistol’ Allen has been referred to as a ‘street fighter’ by commentators but his contrived fist pumps make ‘Tiger’ Tim Henman’s self-motivational exercises look like the growls of an irate Romanian weightlifter.

There is one player who seems above the frolics of novelty alter-egos. According to the BBC, Ronnie O’Sullivan is a man so enigmatic that his profile pieces are required to be shot exclusively in slow-motion with the accompaniment of incongruously serious classical music.

O’Sullivan’s routine threats of retirement at the end of defeats are predictable but, without indulging in his melodramatic reflections, the BBC would have no icon on which to focus their coverage.

While snooker may have a dearth of brooding enigmas, we can be content with the plethora of wilfully naff nicknames, such as Stephen ‘The Wonder of Wiltshire’ Lee, Ali ‘Captain’ Carter and the, er, unforgettable Alan ‘Angles’ McManus.

As written for Leeds Student

Dick seems not to know Best

It was announced in a recent governmental investigation that the FA’s ‘Fit and Proper Persons Test’ for prospective football club owners will require a tightening of regulations. After Dick Best’s appearance on Sky Sports News today, though, television producers may also need to rethink their screening procedures for pundits and contributors.

Best was speaking ahead of today's announcement of the British and Irish Lions squad for this summer's tour of South Africa. Asked why he had picked Delon Armitage ahead of Tommy Bowe in his Lions starting XV, the former England coach sniggered in the interviewer Phil Edwards’ ear, “You’ve always got to have a coloured boy in the team!”

As if the episode could become any more cringeworthy, the camera turned back to the studio, where the anchor Mike Wedderburn happened to be black. Visibly embarrassed, he uttered an uncertain “Yeeesss” before swiftly moving on to the next story.

The reaction was decisive but unconvincing. Wedderburn’s fellow presenter Millie Clode later apologised: "[Best] made remarks that he thought were off-camera. We would like to apologise for any offence this may have caused."

Sky appear to think that the real offence was having this racist remark made on camera, that a similarly offensive comment would have been acceptable away from our screens. Best’s casual racism was left to look like nothing more than a rugby club old boy’s joke. Armitage and Wedderburn might not find it quite so funny.

With such limp excuses, Ron Atkinson springs to mind. Atkinson’s commentary career came to a halt after calling Marcel Desailly a “lazy nigger”, yet instead of an earnest apology, there was only talk of the comment being meant for off-air discussion.

More recently, Carol Thatcher referred to tennis player Jo-Wilfred Tsonga as a “golliwog” while in the green room of the BBC’s The One Show, an incident which led to her being dropped from the programme. Thatcher, however, maintains that her comment should have remained private, that the remark was a “joke”.

Off-record or not, casual or malicious; racism should not be cast aside as jovial backstage chit-chat, and certainly cannot be brushed under the ever-bulging carpets of TV bosses.

Sheepish Sky sweep Shearer's past aside

There will be an eerie silence when Gary Lineker next invites ‘expert’ analysis from the Match of the Day couch. Viewers would usually ready themselves for a cliché splurge from the BBC’s preacher of the bleeding obvious, Alan Shearer, but these insights will now be confined to the walls of St James’ Park, now that the former England striker has been appointed Newcastle manager.

This appointment seems familiar. In January 2008, Kevin Keegan was heralded as Newcastle’s ‘favourite son’, ready to restore the club to its rightful place... twelfth place in the Premier League. King Kev’s tenure, however, lasted only eight months and sparked a period of disorder and drama turbulent enough to make Jacqui Smith wince.

Having gambled and failed with a fans’ choice, club owner Mike Ashley called on Joe Kinnear and Chris Hughton before buckling once again to supporter pressure. Inevitably, Shearer has already been lauded by the Toon Army faithful as the ‘messiah’ required to save them from relegation.

With the news coming too late on Tuesday evening for the majority of newspapers, it was left to Sky Sports News to expand on the hilarity at St James’ Park.

As well as its usual bombast, how the rolling news channel really entertained was by maintaining its tradition of pretending that anything happening away from their cameras does not exist.

Formula 1, the Six Nations and autumn international rugby union are a rarity – they are sports events not covered by Sky. Therefore, it seems rational to Murdoch’s minions to view these as pure fiction and, consequently, afford them no recognition.

When looking at a chronology of Shearer’s career, the presenters became noticeably quiet as they discussed his activity after retiring. Having read one disgruntled fan’s email demanding Shearer to “go back to the screens”, the anchors mumbled inaudibly before moving swiftly on to their next Sky Sports News ‘exclusive’.

An unsuspecting first-time viewer of sports broadcasting may have wandered why such sheepish behaviour surrounded the mention of a player’s relation to television. What could these people be hiding? I’d imagine a discussion between the channel’s researchers and producers sounding a little like this:

Researcher: “At least we won’t see Shearer on Match of the Day anymore.”
Producer: “What’s that?”
R: “You know, the Premier League highlights package.”
P: “You mean Football First?”
R: “No, Match of the Day – it’s on a Saturday night on the BBC.”
P: “On the what?”

In such moods, tuning into Sky Sports News is like watching a broadcasting corporation collectively stuffing its ears with its fingers and repeating like an unrepentant schoolchild, “lalalalalalala!”

Somebody, somewhere at the BBC must be delighted. Match of the Day may now even produce a soundbite containing a semblance, however small, of interest. That is, of course, if the programme even exists.

Coming down with Wordsworth and Human Traffic

Comedowns are an inconvenient reality. Whether they are alcohol or drug-induced, or merely the realisation of a natural high’s termination, the after-effects of a good time tend to taint enjoyable experiences.


William Wordsworth, a poet preoccupied with notions of the sublime and solitude, pleasure and pain, formed a model of what we might now call ‘post-session depression’ in his poem, ‘Resolution and Independence’. Although written in 1802, the lyric poem is relevant to anybody who has ever experienced a low that follows a high:


But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the might
Of joys in minds that can no further go,
As high as we have mounted in delight
In our dejection do we sink as low;


This passage from the third stanza encapsulates Wordsworth’s exploration of the immediacy between joy and dejection; that to experience the pinnacle of pleasure is to automatically become despondent.


Human Traffic may not necessarily be the most obvious contemporary cultural reference in relation to poetry of the Romantic period, but the film does bear some ideological resemblance to Wordsworth’s verse.


The film follows Jip (played by John Simm) and his friends as they indulge in the drug and club culture of the 90s and, when Simm’s character discusses ecstasy, his sentiments are reminiscent of Wordsworth’s: “We risk sanity for moments of temporary enlightenment.”

Jip then turns to the fragility and temporality of joy detailed by Wordsworth, “The last thought killed by anticipation of the next.” Although Wordsworth is sober and Pip under the amphetamine's influence, the two have in common a delight in the present but also an awareness that this dream-like state will at any moment switch to despair.


It is not only an eternal search for enlightenment which the Romantics poets and clubbers of Human Traffic have in common. Where natural delirium fails to ignite, both have sought alternative highs, primarily of the chemical variety.


Samuel Taylor Coleridge, composer of ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, famously pushed the self-destruct button when searching for inspiration later in his life; his alternative high, opium, eventually contributed to his death. Compared to Coleridge, Pete Doherty looks less a tortured soul, more a mischievous schoolboy sneakily sipping on his parents’ sherry.


‘Resolution and Independence’, however, is not concerned with the pursuit of an intoxicating escape from reality but, rather, a natural clarification of matters of joy and dejection.


One doesn’t necessarily need to be recovering from a drug’s side-effects to endure a comedown. For example, having experienced the rapture of a concert or the rush of a last-minute winner at a football match, once the immediate joy has passed, it seems that the only way for our spirits is down.


The culmination of expectations and ecstasy of the moment mean that, even in perfect sobriety, we have entered the highest point of pleasure and, as a result, we immediately enter a state of decline.

Tomatoes, chimneys and seagulls: An introduction to sporting philosophy

Post-match interviews and press conferences are often seen as the pinnacle of sporting figures’ capacity for dullness. Brian O’Driscoll, the Irish rugby union captain, however, bucked this trend in peculiar fashion during this year's Six Nations championship.

In a press conference held before Ireland’s match against England, O’Driscoll was asked about playing alongside Martin Johnson for the British and Irish Lions, and facing him as opposition. The centre’s reply was wilfully cryptic: “Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.” It is unconfirmed whether this turn of phrase was a part of O’Driscoll’s team talk.

Meanwhile, flying the flag for footballing idiosyncrasies is Juventus manager Claudio Ranieri, who when faced with the sack at Chelsea in 2004, remarked, “Before you kill me, you call me the "dead man walking." I must buy you an espresso. But only a little one - I am Scottish!”

This particular trail of managerial misquoting is one blazed by many before Ranieri; none more so than Kevin Keegan, who said of decision-making processes, “It is understandable that people are keeping one eye on the pot and another up the chimney.” Read this sentence repeatedly for a day, and the word “understandable” still seems somewhat misplaced.

O’Driscoll’s enigmatic assessment is reminiscent of Eric Cantona’s famous foray into philosophy. Addressing the press in the wake of his kung-fu kick on a Crystal Palace, the former French international said that, "when the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea." As of yet, the forward-turned-actor’s profundity is one which has yet to have been matched by anybody at Old Trafford.

The aforementioned examples should illustrate how sport and philosophy are not as incongruous a pairing as one might first assume. To those still unconvinced, the great Algerian philosopher Albert Camus offers a definitive final thought: “All I know most surely about morality and obligations, I owe to football.”

As written for Leeds Student