I like a poem. I’m particularly primed by verses that rhyme.
Just not before every televised football match.
Pre-game poetry is a tradition as old as Sky Sports itself. One of the essentials of a Super Sunday is a super sonnet from some urban laureate with an ode to spin. I don’t know about you but I don’t need telling why I should get excited about Manchester United versus Arsenal.
For those of you that missed the ham sandwich Sky served up before yesterday’s game, let me share some literary gems…
No sooner had Bet365 made their final attempt to get you to waste some money on the outcome of the match (although Joshua Zirkzee to fail to retain possession at any stage of the first half was tempting even at 3/1)…than the stage was cleared for Sky’s anonymous poet of the week to ask you to waste some culture.
Trust the process, they gently say, as storm clouds gather, darkening the day
With doubt like stones that weigh us down, hopes flicker and fade, lost in a frown
Now, just in case we thought that someone had accidentally left a microphone open on Peter Drury composing his opening comments, the catchy couplet was illustrated by images of United and Arsenal in fevered action with accompanying quotes from Messrs Amorim and Arteta imploring us to ‘respect the process’ and accept ‘the long project’. Any timeframe on that, guys?
Each stumble and fall a stitch in the seam, bearing the weight of a fragile dream
Have faith in the plan, let growth find its way. It’s not a quick race, but a careful ballet
Context is everything. The importance of the first encounter between Leandro Trossard and Noussair Mazraoui has now been thematically captured for us all to anticipate with quickened pulses. Nice!
Every scar every bruise tells a story so bright. Marks of the fight that have guided our flight
Embrace the unknown, let it carry you right in the heart of the struggle, you will find the light
Cue Dave Jones. Now, I’m no judge of good prose. I haven’t written a poem since Year 6 at school…wait a minute, that is the poem I wrote in Year 6!
There are special occasions in every football season that deserve some considered reflections and sage words to set their scene. Fourteenth versus second in the Premier League is not one of them. Sky have hired the so-called Poet Commentator. Leave it to MC Peter to capture the moment.
Clive Tyldesley: ‘I might be crap but I’m not biased; you are.’
We all have a tendency to want to over-write our parts, but I’m a firm believer that the commentator should provide the narrative that brings the gladiators into the arena. The grand entrance of the teams is still a piece of theatre worth watching for me. It gives me the same tingle as lights down in a theatre or concert hall. It deserves words and Peter Drury has got a thesaurus of those.
He might not choose and use the same words as I would but he has chosen them…and carefully. There is one of our brethren that regularly garnishes the walk-out with “and here come the teams”. Oh really!… the guys in the natty shorts and luminous boots are the teams?! You’ve only had three days to think that up. Wordsmith!
Or often those shots of the players’ grim game-faces filing either side of the camera are punctuated by some final crass predictions from the unseen studio panel or a verbal tease of what you can watch a week on Thursday on this channel. Airtime is precious, let the commentator paint the picture.
Football is naturally dramatic. It doesn’t require any help from hyperbole. The modern pyrotechnic light shows too often drown out the pent-up roar that should greet the first glimpse of our heroes. I haven’t paid 60 quid to be the hands beneath a tifo or a brick in a collage. I want to give the boys a throaty”‘come on, get into these!”
Peter Drury gets that. He’s a football man that spends his week around football people thinking about the backdrop and meaning of the game he is about to call. Let him write and narrate the foreword, not some blank verse poet.
Last season, Sky’s prelude to a Manchester derby featured a well-produced piece of video content fronted by local rapper, Tays.
Pep might come from Barca, but he’s a Manc now he’s built his armour…
Tays’ target audience is about a third of my age and when I whimsically tweeted that I could have lived without his rhetoric, I was understandably invited to ‘shut up, grandpa’ by a few of my followers. Fair.
Except I then did a bit of due diligence on Tays and soon came across a recording of his track called ‘Outta This World’. It is crude and misogynistic. If a sports broadcaster published a single line of it, their career would be cancelled in a wave of disgust. I don’t know who commissioned him to appear but I can only hope they had never heard Tays’ back catalogue.
I might be ancient but I am partial to a bit of Mike Skinner. Original Pirate Material and all that.
When last year’s BBC Sports Personality of the Year created a film to honour the achievements of Jude Bellingham, it was not unnatural to choose the music of a fellow Brummie for the showreel. And ‘Blinded by the Lights’ is one of Skinner’s most powerfully brilliant musical creations…but it is about a stoned and drunk kid trying to find his girlfriend in a night-club. Maybe not a perfect match for slow-motion images of Jude’s effortless athleticism.
You might think I’m being pedantic now… that I’m nit-picking over a stylish attempt to frame a 21st century superstar in a contemporary light that will somehow open an annual institution of broadcast sport to a new, young audience…keep it current.
If any of Tays’ fanbase were watching Sports Personality of the Year, it was not in the hope of catching a few rhymes. Good content is relevant primarily to the core audience. Our first duty as communicators is to connect with and entertain the viewers that have joined us. To know our audience and apply strong editorial judgment on their behalf. To give them what they want.
The most topical and sharpest poetry heard at Old Trafford yesterday was not recited by the Bard of Banality or even Peter Drury.
It was a day of profound protest by a significant group of Manchester United supporters that provided a constant undercurrent to the afternoon.
So, when the travelling Arsenal fans burst into a chorus of ‘we want the Glazers in’, the essence of football culture was captured more vividly than any scripted line. It was spontaneous, cutting, mocking, communal street eloquence of the kind that only football can create.
Leave the soundtrack to football to football people.
