"We've got to get behind this team," says the latest numbskull caller to TalkSport, a radio station that knows its audience (the thick) and plays to them beautifully. The caller, let's call him Terry, is angry that he heard someone on TalkSport criticise the England football team's performance in their 3-1 win over Mexico.
"It made me feel rubbish," he explains, before adding his 'get behind the lads' rhetoric.
Apparently, with the World Cup coming up, it is the duty of everyone in England to 'get behind' the England football team. I do not know what this entails, but I suspect it involves car flags, Stella Artois and joining facebook groups called "IF U DONT LIKE R COUNTRY AND IT'S FLAG THEN GO BACK WERE U COME FROM!1!!!!1!1!111!"
Even if getting behind the lads just involves watching the games on TV and cheering, I fail to see how that can make any difference to the team's chances of success.
Will Steven Gerrard have a better chance of slotting home a winning penalty if Gary Brown from Cheltenham has put up a Daily Mirror World Cup Wallchart in his bedroom?
But dipsticks like Terry are encouraged to share their views, because it's cheap radio. Get two presenters to argue for conflicting sides of an argument, then invite listeners to call in and call one of them a muppet.
It's not just TalkSport, either. BBC FiveLive's 606 phone-in is just as bad. Two or three times a week, the airwaves are opened to the nation's plumbers, students, accountants and sales assistants to explain exactly why they are more knowledgeable about football than the previous caller - and quite frequently than Champions League-winning managers. Why should we care what Joe Public thinks of Theo Walcott's development, or Rafa Benitez's transfer policy - in fact, why should we care what a retired footballer or broadsheet journalist makes of such subjects?
I blame Sky Sports. Remember when Sky first started covering the Premier League, with Richard Keys and his hairy hands filling hours of airtime with the help of Andy Gray and some fridge magnets? The technology has moved on, but the waffle remains. Now there's live football on the TV or radio almost every day of the week - and between the games, the broadcasters struggle to fill time with talking heads, analysis, rumours and round-ups.
The fans no longer go to matches. Instead they watch on their enormous HD-ready TVs, or go to the pub (in their chosen team's shirt, obviously, cos they have to get behind the lads) where they can tell each other exactly where Arsene Wenger is going wrong.
And this is the only version of football today's kids know. When they come to choosing their team, it won't be their local League Two club, it'll be the most successful or attractive team they see on TV. And it might not even be Manchester United, Liverpool or Chelsea. There's just as good a chance of a young English kid choosing to follow Real Madrid, or Bayern Munich, or Milan. Football has become a TV soap opera - and where does that leave the Hartlepools and Yeovils of this world?
I like football. I really do. I like to play it, I like to watch it and listen to it. Clearly I also listen to the phone-ins, because they're so darned addictive. But I don't subscribe to the over-analysis of every incident. Sure, show us a replay of the goals, fouls and near misses, but lets not keep banging on about it.
Let's just try to enjoy watching the football, shall we?
And for goodness sake, get behind the lads.
Tuesday 25 May 2010
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