SIR ALEX AND ARSENE

So Sir Alex Ferguson breaks his seven-year vow of silence and agrees to chat to the BBC, nobly ending the famous seven year rift. Hats off to Mark Thompson. According to The Guardian, the BBC Director-General went to Manchester in person to seek an audience with the great man. Wonderful father, husband and trophy-winner he may be, but Ferguson is notoriously thin-skinned and prickly with the wrong sections of the media. The BBC, in his book, goofed inexcusably in 2004 with the screening of Fergie and Son, a documentary looking at transfer shenanigans and pointing the finger at his boy Jason in what was “a horrible attack on my son’s honour”. No post-match MOTD utterances since, the nation and football’s loss, having to make do with the mighty Mike Phelan.



It’s difficult to get too excited about Thompson’s coup. Man who presides over era of cutbacks and dumbing down at temple of broadcasting cuts deal with bolshy, tantrum-prone football boss who is, frankly, old enough to know better. Can Thompson now sort out Syria?

With nervous MOTD hacks now in line to quiz the maestro, can we expectsome probing off-pitch stuff about bedroom antics that went wrong? "The lad Giggs is stilll a champion shagger..."   Methinks not. I for one would like to know what Sir Alex, the man from Clydeside who backed the Miner’s Strike, makes of the disturbing, stratospheric salaries on offer at rivals Manchester City. But Ferguson, like others, has been disappointingly supine in confronting football’s culture of excess and selfishness. Perhaps someone out there could set up ‘Fergie nd Fergie’, handing over interview duties to the Duchess of York, another public figure much-maligned by the media who could bring out her namesake’s more cuddly side.


In a perfect world, Ferguson would have gone before the BBC’s intrepid mike-wielder after a humbling home defeat. But life isn’t like that. In fairness, there was no crowing or hurling of pizzas afterthe 8-2 demolition of Arsenal's Second XI, , but some quite kind and gracious stuff about injuries and Arsene Wenger being a worthy adversary. But what odds another bad mood Fergie moment before Xmas?

I have greeted previous Arsenal disasters with smug relish. Particularly fun were the shaming FA Cup exits at York City (1985) and Wrexham (1992), ‘Nayim from the half-way line’ and the League Cup meltdown against Luton in 1988. I meanly punched the air in celebration after Tony Adams was sent down for drink-driving. Then again, I did see Crystal Palace go in 1-4 down at Highbury on the first day ofthe 1990s. Those days of Arsenl-baiting and hating are long gone. It would be unseemly now to empty the salt cellar into open wounds . Sort it out, Arsene.

MCJ IS NO CMJ

It's always a relief to rediscover a lost copy of Marcus Berkmann's The Rainmen and feel again that instant kinship with cricket-watchers from an era long before England's over-hyped climb to the cricketing summit. Berkmann's book is brutally, but beautifully nostalgic. You can almost hear 'Soul Limbo' by Booker T and the MGs bursting out as he reminds you of the mid-order collapses and routine pastings that haunted English cricket and the BBC's men at the mike who documented all this.

Overbearing Test Match Special devotees always made a point of turning down the TV commentary and pumping up Arlott, Johnston, Swanton, Trueman et al as a point of principle. I am still fairly happy in the company of the their TMS successors, Aggers, Tuffers and naughty but nice Blowers, but do miss some of the TV stalwarts, loving recalled by Bekmann. It's difficult to remember that Jim Laker is 25 years in the grave. I now wince at the bile I directed at the largely harmless, and also long departed,  dome-headed Peter West, but must concur with Uncle Marcus that Jack Bannister was (and still is?) dismally dreary, so too 'Lord' Ted Dexter. 

Sky subscribers can now get all the cricket they want and more, but what the discerning cricket lover, bound by terrestrial constraints, surely wants, is a well-delivered TV highlights package. In the past, this was there, fronted by Richie Benaud, still without peer as a sharp, judicious summariser who tells it like it is. In days of yore, the BBC offered us late night Richie,  the perfect way to round off a night's viewing, particularly if you hadn't followed the days's play and knew nothing of the score.

Sad to say, Channel Five's early evening round-up falls horribly short of Benaud's standards.
The music is truly horrid.  Some years back, Channel Five (or was it Channel Four then?) went for Lou Bega's Mambo Number Five  as its theme music.  Better than Chihuahua perhaps, but I thought this was a paen to tropical bonking, "a little Sandra in the sun...a little Mary all night long" etc, not really what you want when the covers are being brought on again at Trent Bridge. 

Today, we are reminded that "The Time is Now", a message relayed at begining and end, while  trailing and closing the interminable ad breaks, which are full of plodding sponsor plugs and other drivel. Some late night Googling suggests this may be the work of Russell (or Russ??) Ballard, a soft rocker whose efforts have been recorded by Rainbow, the Bay City  Rollers and Frida from Abba. Anyone remember the Phil Collins-produced 'Something going On'?

Viewing figures are on the up, topping 1.5 million, but the message boards are alive with angry punters complaining about the bad timing and serious online deficiencies. Vaughan, Boycott and Hughes are all fine up to a point. It is mein host, M.C.J. Nicholas  you want to hurl bumpers or beamers at. As a CF malcontent pointed out: 'the camera clearly loves him and the relationship is clearly reciprocal'.  

I tend to agree. I would rather have a hail and hearty Peter West welcoming me to the proceedings than oleagnious Mark. I hesitate to use such a big adjective, but the dictionary offers: smarmy, unctuous and fawning, which seems to sum up MCJ's presentational qualities all too well.  I am sure he was a fine skipper of Hampshire,  although one recalls his appointment triggering the departure of county veteran pro Trevor Jesty, who moaned about the committee's preference for a posh schoolboy with too many initials over his own claims to the capaincy. Sour grapes, Trev, but you may have had a point.