CHAMPION OF EURO 2008
Don’t think England are NOT at this tournament. Oh no - oh no, no, no, no, no, my naive little poppies.
England are everywhere. Everywhere. Should Croatia win the tournament, for example, we’ll be told this proves England could have won it. Yes - you read right; England should have won the tournament BECAUSE they were knocked out in the qualifiers. That’s how the on-screen, miked-up “thinking” will work. For the last three weeks of June, The lowest common denominator-ratings war will indulge in logic more twisted than the blood of the full-backs marking Ronaldo.
Howard Webb’s every refereeing decision will be fully suported by the commentators in their bid to make him the first St George’s cross official to ref a major final since Jack Walker gave a dodgy penalty against Wim Jansen (Oscar for Bernd Holzenbein!) in the 1974 World Cup decider.
And, of course, any crowd trouble in the shadow of the Alps will be leapt upon with voracious glee. “See! - it’s NOT just us!”
But come on. Am I not starting to sound every bit as clichéd, smug and downright xenophobic as the very pundits and journos I seek to slate? Scottish couch tatties like myself slagging the Anglo-centric commentators are every bit as predictable as any of the standard little acts of bias I’ve detailed above. And, really, until I learn another lingo and spend some serious time abroad, there’s no way of truly knowing that the English broadcasters aren’t the best of a bad bunch of World Cup-winning nations who all feed their public the self-interested drivel 90% of TV football fans want to hear.
On the train from Munich city centre out to the Allianz Arena for the opening game of the 2006 World Cup - possibly THE most polyglot experience of my life that train ride; it really did feel as if the entire planet was descending on this one game - I heard an Austrian girl explaining to some Americans that the German commentators were so full of the Deutscher Nationalmannschaft’s right to win every tournament that the Austrian fans watching German TV always cheered on whoever the Germans were up against.
A Scottish girl would have been telling those Yanks exactly the same tale about us and the English Broadcasting Corporation or ITVera Lynn. A friend of mine taught English in Italy and maintains the RAI coverage of the olympic games is astounding. They pay absolutely no attention to events Italy are unlikely to win - even if those events happen to be the marathon or the 100m sprint final!! - and cover up any narrow failure to win gold in, for example, the rowing or the fencing by blaming under-hand officiating or changing the subject to ” yeah, but our guy is MUCH better looking!”.
In the case of the Germans I’ve always wanted a second opinion. My experience of German sportsmen (Steady on, Gunter! Don’t give me the green eyes! I’m just talking about INTERVIEWS I’ve READ or WATCHED ON TELLY!!! Och - what are you like - you’ll make it happen if you keep going on like this … you will MAKE IT HAPPEN, Mr Jealousy …) is that the hang-over from the Second World War is ever-lasting: Modesty and a lack of arrogance is not just the best way to stay focussed on the job but the best way to present yourself to the rest of the world.
But - hey - maybe the Teutonic commentators are different from the competitors.
Anyway, we can’t slag the English broadcasters too much on this blog. First and foremost, we resident Scots couldn’t see the games this summer if it wasn’t for the English and, if we could, we all know how dire the Scottish coverage would be.
Listen, this is the time to leave Rangers off the front pages of this blog for a few weeks. We all need a rest from the most intense season of our lives. We’ll do that by absorbing ourselves in EURO 2008 but one last mention has to be made of our run to the last UEFA Cup Final.
ITV4 Loyal.
Yup. Those of us who didn’t manage to the Sporting Lisbon or Fiorentina away games - two of the most amazing nights in the last four decades of our history - did NOT watch the games on STV. We all watched them on ITV4. Because it was just SO MUCH MORE PROFESSIONAL and, to be honest, they actually sounded like they fucking CARED more. Archie McPherson is a legend but he’s gone - he has gravitas to burn but he just can’t keep up. He can’t finish a sentence before the next moving image has carried him into his next painfully truncated phrase. I love Archie but he should fall back into studio punditry now. And, more than that, I think STV and the AWFUL Paul Mitchell on BBC Scotland are so close to the affairs of Rangers that they don’t actually realise what’s going on in a wider context.
ITV4, on the other hand, knew how to give us our place and properly express just what kind of miracles we were working in reaching a major European final. They actually gave us too much of a place by declaring us the first British team to reach a European final .Apologies to Birmingham City and the London XI of 1958 for that oversight by the independant broadcaster but if they were willing to overlook the achievement of two ENGLISH sides to big-up The Teds then my opinions of ITV4 certainly need re-examining.
Which leads me to …
John Champion. I gave John Champion a TERRIBLE time on here in the summers of 2006, 2004 and 2002. My major tournament diaries have obsessed with anglo-centric commentaries or - more to the point - anti-German commentaries by English commentators. And John Champion has, I’m pretty sure, been called a NAZI on the pages of this here blog.
Yup.
A Nazi.
What a dick.
Me, that is.
I love my international football. I love the world game. I hate seeing it cheapened and shrunk into a Little Engerlander mind-set of bitter jealousy. But I owe John Champion an apology.
Or, more accurately, I owe him a huge “forgiving”. Because? Well …
I didn’t hear what he said at first, when Nacho slotted away that penalty in Florenece. I couldn’t hear it because, when it was happening, live, I was jumping about my front room shrieking like a love-lorn ginger gorilla - but when I rewound the video for the first of many re-watchings, John Champion’s “They won’t need visas - They won’t need passports …” is one of the warmest, loveliest, most tear-jerking phrases of my entire life.
There was just something so bloody NICE about what he said and the way he said it. It was all the nicer because it was coming from someone outside the Scottish game. It was coming from someone who almost didn’t have to care or even pretend to. Like the change in the roar of the Ibrox crowd when Nissey’s silly volley takes that crazy bounce over the Brugge keeper, every time I hear John Champion’s commentary to the sight of all-white Rangers players tearing down the pitch and over to section of Scottish supporters behind some Florentine perspex, I get chills and I get goosebumps and - fuck it - the auld eyes well up.
Yes, he was talking about Chelsea and Man U fans worrying about how they were gonnae get to Moscow for the Champions League final but he was dismissing the import of their logistical conundrums in the face of this rapturous moment for Rangers FC and their fans - guys like you and me, mate. He was using what he knew about his own game to communicate what he was feeling about ours. He was using his own PERFECTLY NATURAL English bias to express just how brilliant he knew The Bears were feeling and - strike me down if I’m wrong - just how chuffed he himself was for us.
A man not called Moses McNeil shared his favourite moment of the 2007/2008 season with us last night, on the thread under my last rant. If I’m pushed, Moses, I might have to say that moment of commentary was mine. I didnt even hear it live, I didn’t know what was being said at the time. But every time I play it back on the auld video, it gets to me like no other moment of joy in a season of never-ending emotion.
So, the best international football tournament of them all is about to begin. By “The Best” I mean the most concentrated quality, the least amount of no-hopers, the least number of stick-on favourites for the cup and a settling of things without it being over too fast or going on too long. Three weeks of no-holds-barred quality. EVERY team has a chance to do something special in the 16-team Euros. Since Denmark in 1992 and Greece in 2004, we know once and for all that the Euros is not a closed shop, like yer World Cup. I wouldn’t be surprised to see ANY of this summer’s contenders lifting the Henri Delauney trophy in the Ernst Happel Arena on June 29th.
Well, if it was Austria I’d fucking shit myself but, that apart …
The best international tournament is about to begin and I want Germany or Greece to win it and have bets on both … as well as a saver on Croatia … and Mario Gomes to be top scorer … hey - that’s JUST HOW TIGHT A TOURNEY IT IS - I’m betting against myself already!!!
(No, Eck - that’s how SHIT a gambler you are)
But, whatever happens from this Saturday onwards, I will be trying my damndest to calm down on my anti-pro-England stuff. And even if I don’t, I’ll certainly be giving John Champion every bit of leeway I can possibly muster. For now, after Florence, he is no longer the voice of Imperialist war-mongering bigotry I once thought him. Now he’s a reminder of one of the loevliest footballing moments of my puff - arguably THE Most. So if John Champion says it, I’ll be more prone to agree with it than ever before.
Hey - you could even say my commentary about the commentators will be a bit biased.
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- Published:
- 06.03.08 / 9pm
- Category:
- News
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