Is genuine football punditry dying?
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Tuesday, 10, Apr 2007 05:30
When Jimmy Hill first came up with the excellent idea of fronting football highlights shows with a panel of pundits who would expound their considerable knowledge and insight in relation to what the less well-informed - but eager to learn - viewer had been watching, one presumes that he envisaged something that was both didactic and firewood for a more open-ended public (and indeed pub) debate.
And so it - arguably - proved. Until the subtle, but by the same token seismic, shift detectable in the substance (or void) of what passes for analysis today.
Genuine insight and acuity of explanation has, for my money, been criminally replaced by a thirst for pandering to the red-faced fist-shaker that supposedly sits within the average supporter of today.
Much has been made of modern pundits' abilities to say absolutely nothing of value or partiality - but what they do say appears to fuel only the tabloid-purveyed vitriol, with sensation preferred to genuine tactical insight.
Refereeing standards, in particular, are the subject of widespread conjecture and debate among football supporters. And it has always been so, you may argue, and rightly so - but it is arguable that television is today obsessed with the minutiae of officialdom. So much so that television stations opt for what effectively turns into a subliminal entreaty to witch-hunt ahead of any genuine tactical insight.
The average half-time or post-match analysis frequently points away from the football and firmly to, well, the finger-pointing itself.
The most tenuous of penalty shouts, player X possibly flicking an arm at player Y, the crowd's faint consternation and someone failing to receive a yellow or red card - these appear, if you believe what you watch, to be the issues most pertinent to the football observers of today.
Sod the football, forget the fact that there are generations of fans out there wanting to love and/or understand the game - let's froth at the mouth in high seriousness about perceived flashpoints which are no more or less special than their equivalents of yore.
There is an excellent article in this month's Four Four Two magazine, in part profiling the changes obvious in the rite of passage for travelling supporters that is the 6-0-6 radio phone-in. Among the opinions voiced is that of Danny Baker, the show's first-ever presenter, who laments that the fun, the ephemera, the levity seem to have escaped from shows such as this and been replaced with an avenue for the venting of discontent, fury, the lot of the hard-done-by, the wronged and the bitter.
And to this end it appears that the analysis presented on television stations, in particular, is contributing to what today seems an interminable circle of loathing - teaching people to become unhappy at the smallest perceived indiscretion and promoting indignation ahead of enjoyment.
Do not get me wrong. I am not rubbishing the issues themselves of inconsistent officialdom, petulant footballers and the like. All have their place for discussion and, while that is not in this article, will provide an ongoing seam for important debate both now and in the future. But an emphasis on dissecting what are to all intents and purposes non-footballing, and fairly standard, incidents ad nauseam smacks both of constantly reinventing the wheel and simply wasting the opportunity to inform.
The majority of today's pundits are little more than bland cartoons, but you wonder how much of a say that have in what they peddle.
Banal as he might be, Alan Shearer would hold far more gravitas speaking about how Arsenal's third goal came about instead of pondering whether or not Baptista struck Ferdinand from three different angles.
The new deal which will see ITV and Setanta take over FA Cup and England rights from the BBC and Sky has the opportunity to provide a breath of fresh air and actually bring the joy of appreciating football back to the viewer - but one can't help but fear that we're in for further rafts of flotsam and jetsam which completely miss the point of what football punditry should provide.
Nick Ames