Great
sports commentaries of our time and the rising stars of ‘new punditry’
My mate Declan is obsessed with commentary. It’s rare that he and I discuss a sporting
event (and we discuss many) without talking about the words broadcast alongside
it. Not surprising, really. In the same way that a piece of music or an
evocative aroma can transport us back to a specific time in our lives, so
sports commentary has the ability to paint vivid pictures, augmenting the
moment as it happens and allowing us to relive it for years after. Think Harry Carpenter’s “Oh my God, he’s won
the title back at thirty-two!” – which accompanied Muhammad Ali’s incredible win
over George Foreman in The Rumble In The Jungle in 1974 – or Martin Tyler’s
rather more primal “Aguerooo!!!” as Manchester City snatched a last-gasp title
victory in 2012.
Dec’s all-time favourite, by the way, is David Coleman’s legendary call
of the Coe-Ovett 800m Olympic final in 1980, in which Coleman described Ovett
as follows: “those blue eyes like chips of ice.” Beautiful.
Here are a few that have stuck with me.
“The
Crazy Gang have beaten the Culture Club.”
If one of your mates said this down the pub, you’d tell the offender to
sod off for being a smart-arse. But this
was John Motson in his pomp!
A naked, child-like love of the game coupled with an actuarial
commitment to research have made Motty the perfect companion to countless games
for over forty years. He’s one of
us. The nerdy train-spotter of the group,
yes, but one of us nevertheless.
The occasion for this particular commentating gem, you’ll remember, was
Wimbledon’s victory over Liverpool in the 1988 FA Cup final. I’m prepared to accept that it wasn’t exactly
an off-the-cuff remark. Indeed, if I
were feeling impish, I’d entertain the theory that Uncle John had written the
epithet the other way round and swiftly repurposed it. But who cares? It’s a piece of poetry that I’ve remembered
long after the event itself had faded like this morning’s half-sleep dreams.
And isn’t that what sport’s about?
Creating memories.
“He
batted all day for two hundred and ninety-one.
All lordly command.”
John Arlott, author of the above, is entitled to a list all of his
own. With his razor wit, lyrical
Hampshire burr and unparalleled linguistic flair, Arlott was to cricket
reporting what Don Bradman was to batting.
Anyone who can write the following – “England carried Underwood, like an
umbrella, in case of rain” – is a genius in my eyes. Yes, that was a shameless way of including an
additional Arlott quote.
The “lordly command” one, though, is unusual. Not so much a contemporary description of the
event itself as a retrospective fifteen years on. I confess: I’ve cheated. These words were spoken by Arlott not from
the commentary box but his wine cellar, an introduction to a VHS (it was the early
‘90s) of some of his best-loved cricketing heroics.
But it’s glorious, isn’t it? He’s
talking about Viv Richards’ landmark innings at the Oval in 1976. I cannot think of The Master Blaster now
without remembering Arlott’s sensational words.
Those memories again…
"I was watching Carol Vorderman on
Countdown and I got aroused…”
Peter Alliss is a man who
divides opinion. For some, the undisputed
voice of golf, for others an unreconstructed throwback (fair to say Dec’s not a
big fan).
Perhaps this quote of his
encapsulates the man neatly. Bordering
on the tasteless but deliciously mischievous and cleverly constructed. I’ll never know why the conversation that day
had turned to Countdown and, frankly, I don’t care. And, oh, that pause:
“I was watching Carol
Vorderman on Countdown and I got aroused,” mused Alliss, drawing sharp intakes
of breath from his colleagues. Then,
after letting them sweat for several long seconds, “Seven letters wasn't a bad
score, I thought."
“Wide (do birds suddenly appear?)”
I’ve mentioned Test Match Sofa before but I make no apology for doing so
again. They represent a new breed of
broadcasters with an admirable punk-ish, do-it-yourself approach. Set up in someone’s Tooting living room, TM
Sofa was just a bunch of cricket nuts who fancied making their own
programme. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a
lover of Test Match Special as a quintessentially British institution. But there must be room in our diverse media
landscape for runty little cousins like Sofa.
And, boy, did they deliver some colourful words to accompany England’s
games.
One of the great features on TM Sofa was their catalogue of
jingles. When Steven Finn came on to
bowl, for example, they’d play a version of Manfred Mann’s Mighty Quinn with
Finn’s name crudely inserted over the song title of the chorus. Graeme Smith had an altogether less
complimentary musical introduction, Maroon 5’s Moves Like Jagger becoming Moobs
Like Jabba.
My favourite, though, was the music reserved for wide balls. Commentary would run something like this:
“And there’s a filthy delivery down the leg side for one of these…” You’d then hear the opening bars of The
Carpenters’ Close To You and a millisecond of the famous first line: “Why d…”
So I was saddened to see,
following TM Sofa’s acquisition by The Cricketer magazine, that the ECB had
pressurised them to shut their doors – something to do with unique broadcasting
rights. But, be still my beating heart,
the format apparently lives on at guerillacricket.com. And that has to be a good thing. A chap called Craig Burley (not the
ex-footballer, judging by his Twitter headshot) tweeted the other day, ‘Thank
you @guerillacricket and your
Test Match Sofa predecessors for what you've done to democratize and diversify
cricket commentary.’ Couldn’t agree
more, Craig. Apart from spelling
democratise with a ‘z’, that is.
“He couldn’t train ivy up the wall at
the minute.”
If you haven’t listened to
the Final Furlong podcast, you really must.
Horseracing is constantly looking for ways to appeal to a wider, more
mainstream audience. And, although this
show is incredibly detailed in its analysis and opinion, the style of
presentation is a million miles from the stuffy, old-fashioned image sometimes
associated with the sport.
The regulars are presenter
Emmet Kennedy and At The Races pundits Kevin Blake and Vanessa Ryle. There’s a lovely relationship between the three
of them and they clearly revel in each other’s company. The two Irish lads gently rib Ryle for being
“drunk as a lord” in various racing-related situations, and generally for being
a bit posh. She, in response, is not
averse to telling them to “go f*** yourselves”, prompting much sniggering and a
bit of eye-rolling from the producer (Deirdre) who has to comb through the
podcast bleeping out all the F-bombs. It’s
basically like hanging out with the funny people in the boozer. Crucially, they also know their stuff. Like inside-out.
Blake is often the one to
introduce a nice turn of phrase. He
describes horses using wonderful oxymorons like “shocking impressive” or even
“woeful impressive” and it was he who pointed out, earlier this season, that
“Jonjo O’Neill couldn’t train ivy up the wall at the minute.”
Great punditry can blend with
the sporting action it describes and influence the way you experience
particular events. For example, the
Final Furlongers are always banging on about “gravy”. When they talk about a horse they fancy, they
might encourage you to “load up the gravy train.” If a panellist is being cagey, Kennedy will
likely say, “If you’ve found gravy, you’ve a duty to share it with the group.” So when Cause Of Causes (a tip from Blake) won
the Kim Muir at the Cheltenham Festival recently, I naturally roared him home
with that single word: “Gravy!” Not
something I’ll be forgetting in a hurry.
Nor indeed will those who were standing within 30 metres of me in the
Guinness Village at the course.
So thanks, Final Furlong. Here’s to more gravy-laden memories.
