I have been out of the country for the past few months. During that time, I have missed out on one (well, many) of life's simpler pleasures, namely, watching The Premiership on a Saturday evening on RTE (The Premiership is preferable to MOTD because it's on earlier - for me, this is an important part of the lazy-Saturday routine). An hour and a half of football highlights, hot off the press: what's not to like?
I called my local Chinese takeaway just before 7pm, and got myself settled in for an enjoyable evening of sloth. My food arrived at around 7.15, but when 7.30 rolled around, the time when the Premiership normally starts, nothing. I shouldn't have been so quick to assume, but after many years, it is easy to grow accustomed to certain routines in life. The Premiership at 7.30 was one of them. Consulting the TV guide, I discovered that a show calling itself Premier Soccer Saturday was instead scheduled for 9 o' clock. That would have to suffice.
It seems that I missed some sort of rebranding of RTE's football coverage during my Parisian exile. Let me offer some belated commentary on it now. Premier Soccer Saturday is the worst name for a football show I have ever heard of. It sounds like a cheap imitation of the real product, much like when supermarkets pitch their own brand cereal as 'corned flakes' or 'wheat biscuits'. Better still, it is like regional Irish fast food outlets who hanker after even the most tenuous connection to a legitimate chain such as McDonalds or Burger King and thus, in certain parts of the country, one can frequent BurgerMac's if sufficiently tanked. But I digress. Premier Soccer Saturday seems like contraband.
Once it began, at the New And Improved time of 9pm, I discovered that in fact, nothing had changed. Same old Darragh Moloney presenting. Same old Ray Houghton and Trevor Steven offering 'analysis' before heading back to the pub to hit on teenage girls (probably). And the same old Jimmy Magee 'commentating'. Fuck.
In a utopia, some RTE executive would've taken Jimmy aside, thanked him for his 'years of service' (that's the most diplomatic way I can put it), and given him some spiel about how Premier Soccer Saturday was a fast paced and dynamic new show which, at age ninety-seven, Mr Magee couldn't possibly be expected to relate to. Give him a golden handshake (and a cockpunch) and send him on his way. The powers that be at RTE didn't do that, of course.
So, I'm bloated with Chinese food (middling, as usual - I need to find another takeaway in close proximity), and confronted with the Sunderland-West Brom game, Jimmy on commentary. I haven't heard the man's senile ramblings in a few months, and quite the culture shock it was. Darragh Moloney introduced the game, informing us that Magee was behind the mic. They then cut to the game.
There forllowed a silence for twenty seconds. Had the old fella kicked the bucket right there and then? Finally, his voice croaked up, informing us that the player in possession was Cisse. Of course the problem was that Cisse was pretty much the only player in possession during that opening passage of play having taken the ball on a long run. Jimmy normally doesn't take this long to label players. Surely he could've piped up that it was Paul McGrath while he rummaged through his notes. Naming one coloured player is usually good enough for him when another is on the ball.
However, what really annoyed me was Magee's analysis of Andy Reid's goal for Sunderland, which I will have to paraphrase from memory here as I was in such a murderous rage when I heard it that I temporarily blacked out and cannot remember the rest of the night (I woke up in a ditch somewhere outside of Wicklow Town). Magee commented that 'Reid is not known for being a great header of the ball [note: his goal was headed] but he can pass, he can shoot, he plays the guitar, plays the banjo, has a great singing voice, and can head the ball. He can do everything, except get in the Ireland team.'
Seriously. There is so much wrong with that sentence that I don't know where to start. In most advanced cultures, this man would have been put out to pasture long ago. Can't we just sack him and blame it on the credit crunch?
1 comment:
For once, I am in complete agreement. The man is a trollope. One of many at RTE...
He clearly knows very little about football. Someone (everyone, even?) in RTE thinks he does because he can recite all the players on the North Korean team that beat Italy in 1966 or some useless trivia to that effect.
But again, he is just one of many at RTE. Have you noticed how they all talk to politicans using the term "we" as in, "we, the taxpayer." RTE staff are not regular media campaigners. They are civil servants. They won't lose their job if they're shite. Look at Pat Shortt. He has a medium to churn out fart jokes for the rest of his life.
And their fake concern is appalling. Like they're suffering from the downturn in the economy. There's not a fucker in Montrose earning under €150,000 a year. Ann Doyle gets that for reading the news. READING THE NEWS! We can't find someone cheaper?!
It's the largest cosy cartel in the country. Look at the "Independent Productions Unit." Note the word "independent." And then note how everything they make is produced by Miriam O'Callagahn. And the IPU is based in RTE. Don't expect anything of quality from that old boys club.
That was an old school rant. Really went of the point, spat a lot and knocked my pint for good measure.
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