The mind-numbing stupidity of football pundits strikes again

 BREAKING NEWS

Before I even had a chance to finish this blog it has been announced that Andy Gray has just been fired by SKY. Good news I am sure you will agree.....

So in case you haven't seen/heard it :-



So in summary, we have Sky Sport's A-team football punditry duo Richard Keys and Andy Gray, saying some rather naughty things about women officials, Karen Brady, Sian Massey and well, women in general. This meeting of great minds took place before the weekends Liverpool/Wolves game, which Liverpool went on to win comfortably 3-0. 

"coming up on sky sports - women and why you should know your place"

Once again we are seeing the fall out from what is commonly known as a 'microphone gaffe' - the act of saying something inappropriate or offensive in an area where the general use of microphones, recording equipment and live television feeds are commonplace. Like, for instance, a television studio.

One example of where the true stupidity lies in this story is that this oversight in common sense is by no means an anomoly. Remember when Prince Charles called Nicholas Witchell an 'awful man'? Remember when Gordon Brown called that woman a bigot? Remember when Ron Atkinson called Marcus Desailly a 'lazy f--king n---er'? Well I certainly do - and if I am ever fortunate enough to be in a television studio I would certainly be sure to keep my controversial views to myself, regardless of whether I thought I was off-air or not.

Now at They All Count, we love a bit of irony as much as the next two-bit football blog, and this particular  microphone gaffe fiasco has it in spades. Lets examine Gray and Key's pre-pre-match comments in some more detail :-

Keys : "somebody better get down there and explain offside to her"
Gray : "women don't know the offside rule"
Keys : "of course they dont"
Keys : "I can guarantee you there'll be a big one today. Kenny will go potty."

Wow. I mean - WOW. Now we are all im sure used to brain dead football pundits reeling out the same tired cliches week in week out. Modern classics such as "He has got a good touch for a big man," inexplicable assaults on the English language "Drogba has literally murdered the Arsenal defence today" or Andy Gray specials such as "he had no right to score from that distance" where he actually questions the players 'right' to score, from the distance that he quite clearly just scored from.

What makes the above discourse between Keys and Gray so amusing is that, 36 minutes into the first half, Raul Merieles makes a piercing run through the Wolves defence latching onto a ball through the middle - cue from the crowd, commentators and yes, even me, shouts of "offside." Play although continues without interruption, Merieles slides the ball to the edge of the six yard box where Torres tapped in a simple finish for the first goal of the game. Upon examination of the instant replay, it turns out that the crowd, commentators and yes, even me, where quite quite wrong, as Merieles was played onside by a wayward Wolves defender. So which eagle eyed official spotted this? I think you know...

Keys : "See charming Karren Brady this morning complaining about sexism? Yeah. Do me a favour, love"

"The irony in that statment? I think you know..."

 So what have we learnt from all of this?

What we can certainly learn from this, but more importantly we can learn from watching almost ALL televised football is that ex-footballer football pundits are generally of a very poor quality. I think it should be looked at in the same way as becoming a football manager, it doesn't matter how good a player you once were, if you aren't a good manager of a football club then you shouldn't bother, same goes for television.

Just because you were a football player does qualify you to be on television, for any reason. I studied history at school for a large part of my life, but this does not qualify me to appear on tv to comment on its nuances.

Footballers are hardly well known for their eloquence, some struggling with even the most basic parts of the English language. Alongside this they are often renowned for both bias and prejudice (especially against referees) which Mssrs Gray and Keys have certainly demonstrated. Leave the punditry to people who have based their entire careers around intelligent football analysis. Thanks!