Gary Lineker: Finding his voice?

It might not have been the tweet "heard around the world" but the impact wasn’t bad for a brief bout of sermonising in the aftermath of a nondescript football match.

Thousands of retweets and replies, questions immediately put to the England manager, hundreds of news articles.

In fact it took Gary Lineker more than a tweet to express his dismay at England’s performance on Wednesday night.

Just three tweets though. 415 characters:

 

Don't like England playing this system. So easy to play against. Brazil will thrash us if we line up the same way. Predictable and dated.

Even though results haven't been great, felt tactically England were maturing, but this is a step back to the dark ages of 2 lines of 4.

It's not about playing in straight lines, it's about playing between the lines. Depth gives flexibility, passing alternatives, creativity.

A former England captain having a dig at the current England team is nothing new and England’s performance against Ireland was distinctly lacking.

But the domestic season is done and dusted and column inches still need filled, even after a dullard friendly. So Angry Gary, 52, from Leicester, made headlines.

That Roy Hodgson, his blazingly red proboscis perhaps hinting at sunstroke, cited largely unseen comparisons to Borussia Dortmund and then asked for a definition of "dark ages" prolonged the teacup’s localised storm.

Silly season. All good fun for the detached observer.

The real shock was that this was maybe the most extensive punditry I’ve witnessed from the usually conscientiously mild Lineker all season.

Even previous Twitter "spats" have involved broadcasting rivals and Joey Barton rather than a discourse on tactics.

Amid the cloying cosiness of the Match of the Day studio, Lineker the ringmaster lets his mates get away with it, even now apparently too mindful of his switch to presenter to challenge Al, Alan or Lawro with any insight of his own.

His verdict on England might not have been the most incisive dismantling of an England performance but it tops almost anything Alan Shearer can offer about a Premier League game.

Maybe Lineker is one of those "typical twitterers" we used to hear about, sitting in his underpants being brave behind a keyboard only to revert to inoffensive conformity when he leaves the house, hawking anodyne puns and bags of crisps, existing in a state of constant complacency brought on by not being Adrian Chiles.

Saying not a lot and always looking a bit too confident of his place in the affections of the nation, little more than a Walkers branded Queen Mum.

No longer. Something finally snapped on Wednesday evening.

Alan Shearer thinking that simply being Alan Shearer is enough will no longer be tolerated. Alan Hansen thinking that simply being a parody of Alan Hansen is enough won’t wash anymore. Mark Lawrenson thinking that he just about knows where on earth he is just won’t cut it.

From next season there’s a new Lineker in the studio, a new mantra for Match of the Day:

"It's not about playing in straight lines, it's about playing between the lines. Depth gives flexibility, passing alternatives, creativity."

The mouse has roared.

Euro 2012: Clive and kicking

England expects. Again. To an extent.

The last quarter final of Euro 2012 sees the heroes of Albion face Italy in Kiev this evening.

A strange tournament for England, the late appointment of Roy Hodgson robbing the build-up of the normal outpouring of patriotic fantasising.

So the team has quietly progressed, the odd flirtation with ineptitude covered by a general attainment of underwhelming competence.

Which may or may not be enough of a foundation to sneak past Italy tonight.

England's progress allows the BBC and ITV from remain resolutely steadfast in their main narrative focus of the tournament.

Whatever's happening in any given game we know Gary Lineker and Adrian Chiles are just itching to switch the half-time action to Gaby or Gabriel in Krakow for the latest update from Roy's boys.

These trysts with the press must give Hodgson hope. If his tactics rely on an iron socialist will, a belief in the triumph of the collective rather than sparks of genius from the individual, then the way in which Steven Gerrard, Joe Hart and the rest can hide any hint of personality in these less than forensic bouts with the media point to a squad prostrate at the feet of Chairman Roy.

It doesn't give Chiles and Lineker much to work with though. The internet has helped make all the world a critic. And how we like to criticise our broadcast hosts and their pundit sidekicks.

If some of the abuse is unfair, if the constant bleating is becoming as offensive as Alan Shearer's crotch-clinging slacks, there remains something heartening for the medium of TV: it can still unite the nation, even if the threads that now bind us are a loathing for Adrian Chiles and a communal disdain for the way Mark Lawrenson has married a distaste for modern football with a love of bad puns to create a world weary style of disengaged, uninformative co-commentary.

How would the nation's major broadcasters cope without England?

In 1978 they had to do just that. Clive James, the greatest of TV critics with, thankfully, less of a foot in the grave than The Mirror reported this week, suggests modern football didn't invent inept TV coverage:

Once England’s hopes of competing in the World Cup had vanished, it was an understandable case of transferred nationalism that the English, instantly restyling themselves as the British, should heap Scotland with the burden of national expectations. But it was hubris to be so confident that Scotland would do well. Television, during the past week, has not been as bad as the Press in pouring scorn on Ally and his army, but it was at least as bad in the way it built them up in the first place. The best you can say in mitigation is that the Scots themselves showed less judgment than anybody.

Anyway, you had a choice of channels on which to view the unfolding disaster. For the connoisseur of high drama, the BBC was, as usual, the better bet. The Saturday afternoon preludes to the Scotland-Peru match were referred to by Dickie Davis of ITV as ‘the build-up to and coverage of the big one’. Unfortunately Dickie, after announcing the build-up to and coverage of the big one, disappeared from the screen, resurfacing only to provide links. On the Beeb Frank Bough was there all the time. ‘What a day it must be to be a Scotsman,’ he mused ecstatically. There was no getting rid of him. When Jimmy Hill and the experts showed up, Frank was right there with them.

Videotape of past triumphs was resurrected, principally in order to demonstrate a quality known as Scotland’s Power in the Air. There were awed voices-over from the assembled experts. ‘Dalglish … I don’t think any player but Dalglish could have got in there … I don’t think anybody in the world … Dalglish.’ The experts, referred to by Frank as ‘some great characters’, were unanimous.

Out in Argentina, David Coleman chimed in, telling us, with no apparent sense of impending doom, that Ally MacLeod had described his own goalkeeper as ‘one of the best in the World Cup’ and his own midfield as ‘one of the best in the world’. The tune began changing when the Peruvians, one goal down, suddenly revealed an ability to run faster with the ball than the Scots could run without it. When Peru levelled, the Scots back home must have been regurgitating their haggis.

‘We are really watching a fascinating game of football,’ said Frank at half-time. For once he was right. On ITV Kevin Keegan said: ‘I think they’ve got problems.’ Referring to the Peruvians, Paddy Crerand said: ‘They’ve frightened the life out of me.’ The charming Andy Gray looked equally distraught. A disarming trio, these, but I craved the madder music of the Beeb, switching back just in time to hear David say: ‘Dalglish, who’s so far made little impression.’

After several mentions of the hole in Asa Hartford’s heart, David referred to him as a ‘whole-hearted player’, but managed to get in an apology before the BBC switchboard broke down completely. David, at least, was on form. So, alas, was Peru. They saved a penalty – another sporran-chewing moment for the watching Scots. The second Peruvian goal must have had them hitting each other with cabers. ‘Sad the way this match has drifted away from Scotland,’ murmured David. I suppose there was a Roman commentator saying the same kind of thing at Cannae. ‘Sad the way this battle has drifted away from the legions.’

‘You’ve got to admit the best team won,’ said Keegan on ITV. ‘They could have by a lot more.’ It was agreed that it was ‘unfortunate that there are so many short players in the Scottish team.’ The mysterious evaporation of Scotland’s Power in the Air was thus explained. Back on the Beeb, Ally MacLeod bravely spoke to David, regretting his team’s ‘pure performance’. There was no point in asking him to be mure specific. That it was indeed a pure performance was not to be ignured.

Read more at CliveJames.com

From the book Clive James on Television

2010 World Cup: BBC - Lazy Does It

If you wanna be the best,

and you wanna beat the rest.

Oo-ooh! Dedication's what you need.

So the late Roy Castle reminded us each week as we were growing up.

The BBC's football team have remained the best at this World Cup and they've beaten the rest. But they've left many of us questioning their dedication.

The major problem the BBC have suffered from is laziness.

With little competition from commercial channels and no great threat coming from his fellow BBC pundits, Alan Hansen has become lazy.

He used to be one of the best pundits around and, at times, he still can be. But for the main part he prefers to slump in his seat giving the impression that he's thought very little about football for about 15 years.

By failing to keep Hansen motivated the BBC have lost their best asset. But it's the corporation's own laziness that has proved most wounding to their football coverage.

There is no excuse for the continued employment of Alan Shearer as a pundit. You would encounter more passion - and learn more about football - listening to the station announcements at Waverley for a day.

The BBC chose to stay with the team in South Africa after evening games rather than attempting to replicate ITV's James Corden car crash. That led to some decent features that at least made an attempt to link the tournament to its surroundings.

But it would have taken a dozen Pulitzer quality reports to atone for the decision to send Alan Shearer to a township to find out more about the legacy of Apartheid, a report so bad that my eyes and ears are still given to spontaneous bleeding.

To have such a prominent role at TV's biggest event and leave with your reputation further tarnished and yet more people convinced that you are all but devoid of redeeming features is quite a feat.

We can only stare in wonderment at how conclusively Shearer pulled that off.

In all of this Gary Lineker performed quite well. At times he was even moved to give his own opinions, appearing less awed by the autocue than he does on Match of the Day. The result was an improved Lineker who looked more relaxed than his ITV counterpart Adrian Chiles. The over reliance on bad jokes remains though and, like many of his colleagues, he has a tendency towards the smarmy.

Joining Hansen and Shearer, Lee Dixon seems over promoted in the role of main pundit. It was left to Jurgen Klinsmann and Clarence Seedorf to show how it could and should be done. Emmanuel Adebayor looked a token inclusion that added little to the party.

The great difficulty the BBC team seem to have is not coming over as unbearably smug, as the sort of self satisfied blokes night out that you'd move away from in the pub.

At times they failed. At other times they just about got away with it.

It's up to the BBC to improve on this. History tells us that the ITV are hardly going to lift their game for Euro 2012.

They need to find a way out of Alan Shearer's contract, avoid all British panels, persuade Gary Lineker that he was once a top class footballer.

And find a way of getting Roy Hodgson, the great success of World Cup punditry, on screen for much, much longer.

Ears to you, Gary

Who'd have thought we'd be applauding Gary Lineker?

The jug-eared ladies man who has managed to turn insipid blandness into a lucrative second career.

The rather smug purveyor of obesity inducing fried snacks who made a funny face when Paul Gascoigne cried in 1990.

Suddenly he's a hero.

Well, not quite. But Lineker's decision to quit his column at the Sunday version of a newspaper that sounds very like the Waily Wail should be applauded.

The Match of the Day autocue reader has felt the need to act after the distasteful sting operation on Lord Triesman and the ensuing fall out for England's 2018 World Cup bid.

I've no great interest in England hosting the 2018 World Cup.

But I've got some sympathy for Triesman. A man guilty of stupidity perhaps but not much more than that. Stupid for talking out of turn and stupid for being the sort of man who is attracted to the sort of woman - even if only platonically - who takes a tape recorder in her handbag when she's going for a meal.

A question for the Mail on Sunday though. Is "uncovering" that stupidity in the public interest? I fail to see how. And will the Mail on Sunday take any responsibility if the England bid fails? Or will they simply blame the committee that they have done so much to undermine?

An English story with no relevance to a Scottish football blog? Perhaps. But it's my blog.

And there is a knock on effect. The level of distrust between those involved in sport and the media will only grow while we sit back and leave this "journalism" to fester.

That robs the fans of insight and it increases the distance between punter and player. That is not healthy for any of us.

So hat's off to Gary Lineker. A principled stand that deserves a little recognition.

Before he annoys the hell out of me during the World Cup.

What he says

You can read Linker's explanation for quitting here.

Again I've no real interest one way or the other in how England perform in South Africa. But Linker's point about the press "undermining" the build-up to big tournaments is valid. There's a schizophrenic element to the English media that I find fascinating to observe. Almost wholly destructive, yet uniquely critical, any success that an English sporting team has is despite the attentions of their media. Given the role they think they hold at the centre of national life it is a bizarre position for journalists and editors to pursue. England's welcome to them.

What they say

Roy Greenslade has blogged on the, fully deserved, backlash against the Mail On Sunday on The Guardian's media site:

The MoS is trying to escape from its responsibilities in this matter. It made a severe error in publishing a story obtained from a woman who, as the London Evening Standard revealed, was recently treated for mental health problems.

David Bond, incidentally, raises all sorts of questions about the story's provenance in his Monday blog that require answers.

The MoS would do well to own up to its mistaken editorial judgment. Its readers, and England's football fans, deserve an apology.