WITH its uncanny ability to say exactly what the nation isn’t thinking, Football Focus went for broke, this week, straight after the Everton/Burnley preview.
“As it draws to a close,” said host Alex Scott, about to crunch through as many gears as syllables, “Ramadan is a time for reflection for practising Muslims up and down the country.”
Riiiight. This next bit better be good then.
“Liam McDevitt has been to West Ham,” Alex continued, at an apparent tangent, “To ask what his faith means to Kurt Zouma.”
Absolutely the last person I was expecting to see repent, on Saturday lunchtime, but apparently, Kurt’s beliefs are an opportunity for him to set an example, acknowledge his mistakes and “make sure I never do them again”.
Which is great news for cats, but a bit baffling for any stray fans who’d tuned in for the build-up to the Wycombe Wanderers v Peterborough United Football League Trophy Final.
Long-suffering BBC1 viewers know, though, that crowbarring wokery into proceedings is now par for the course and the title Football Focus has become a complete misnomer for the show.
Its main priority is not football at all — it’s fashionable issues and causes, like the LGBTQ alphabet people whose features are always punctuated with great solemnity by Alex in one of two ways.
She’ll either say: “We’ve come a long way, but there’s so much more to do,” which is a self-righteous presenter’s way of telling viewers: “I am indispensable. Beyond me there is only fascist tyranny.”
Or she’ll declare, with all apparent sincerity: “Football is for everyone.”
This is, of course, a lie. Because I can assure you, as a 56-year-old man, who ticks no boxes, my demographic is the very last group on earth (including corpses) that Football Focus wants to watch their show or attend games.
That’s why a recent exclusive with Chelsea’s Cole Palmer was conducted not by a trained journalist, who could string a sentence together, but by Love Island’s Jordan Mainoo-Hames, who referred to his interviewee as “Bruv” throughout.
The Beeb’s endless pursuit of the TikTok generation has its ironically funny side as well, though, I suppose.
This week’s surprise studio guests, for example, were Two Pints podcasters Will Mellor and Ralf Little, who on almost any other format would leave you wondering: “Who pulled out?”
In the charisma-free void of Football Focus, though, they were a lively revelation.
Man United fan Mellor knew his stuff as well, predicting the “2-2” outcome of Sunday’s game against Liverpool with a resigned certainty and accuracy that was way beyond the powers of resident expert Stephen Warnock.
For a few minutes you also remembered that, with the right hosts, Saturday lunchtime football shows could be funny, spontaneous and passionate rather than the stiff, sombre, holier-than-thou, right-on echo chambers they’ve become.
You also knew, however, that there’s as much chance of fun and honesty breaking out permanently on Football Focus as there was of LGBTQ ally Alex Scott giving up her aeroplane ticket to the Qatar World Cup.
Empty gestures and political correctness now rule TV.
Football Focus may be able to find sexism and racism lurking in your half-time pie but, on Saturday, it couldn’t bring itself to flag up a fresh example, from a live BBC game, that happened the week before. Why?
Because the game was Arsenal V Chelsea in the women’s Conti Cup Final, the perpetrator was Focus favourite Emma Hayes, who’d shoved Jonas Eidevall, in the full glare of the cameras, and accused him of “male aggression”, for his troubles.
A casual bit of stereotyping that bothers me not one little bit, as I’ve heard a thousand times worse at every game I’ve ever attended.
It’s just the endless double-standards of terminally woke shows like Football Focus that really grind my gears.
’Cos you’re either noisily against all forms of prejudice or you’re posturing, careerist hypocrites who should cut the pretence and just show us some goals.
THE egomania of the dressing up box community never fails to blow my mind.
The only people on earth who could look at something as brilliant and exhilarating as Prince Andrew’s Newsnight interview and think: “You know what could improve this? Us.”
A futile task. But, bless them, they’ve had a go anyway – and the resulting Netflix drama, Scoop, is as relatively underwhelming as you’d imagine.
I will admit to being surprised, though, that it turned into a battle of the thesps.
An unofficial contest to see who could deliver the most OTT performance.
I thought Rufus Sewell, gottle-of-geering away under the Prince’s prosthetics, would have been in the box seat with this one.
But he was matched, for eye swivels, by Billie Piper, who was still in I Hate Suzie mode, albeit dressed as Lily Savage, playing Newsnight producer Sam McAlister.
The clear winner, however, was Gillian Anderson, who pitched her deranged Emily Maitlis somewhere between Glenn Close, in 101 Dalmatians, late-era Maggie Thatcher and Fanny Cradock prepping a whippet casserole.
The great irony here is that, amid all their gurning histrionics, the story of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims was forgotten almost as ruthlessly as it was by HRH during the original interview, with the result that Scoop was as seedy and self-satisfied as it was selfish and surplus to requirements.
Or as Prince Andrew would say: “I think it went really well.”
THE Chase, Bradley Walsh: “In a 17th Century Rembrandt painting, a sleeping Samson is resting on which woman?”
Andy: “Mother Teresa.”
The Weakest Link, Romesh Ranganathan: “In shared names, what J is both a Middle Eastern country, with the capital Amman, and the former pseudonym of Katie Price?”
James Haskell: “Jerusalem.”
Riddiculous, Ranvir Singh: “Which word describes a racket sport and a fruit drink?”
Fred: “Tennis.”
And Pointless Celebrities, Alexander Armstrong: “Name a UK city that appears alphabetically between Cardiff and London?”
Martin Dougan: “Bristol.”
THE prospect of waking up on a Monday without an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm to watch.
Joe Lycett dressed like an a***hole and talking down to everyone on C4’s Travel Man.
Football Focus host Alex Scott telling me England’s women have been drawn in: “A group of deaf.”
And Have I Got News For You hitting all the same old easy targets, on its return, but having not a word to say about Scotland’s hate crime act, presumably because that cowardly little weasel Hislop would’ve had to venture an opinion that wouldn’t earn him the rounds of applause he so obviously craves.
Please put this show out of its misery.
TO clarify. The caption “Harry Van Hoof” was a reference to the Netherlands’ conductor at the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest, not rhyming slang.
GREAT Sporting Insights. Jamie Carragher: “The atmosphere is electric. You just can’t hear a thing.”
Martin Keown: “They just need to take one of the chances they haven’t quite created.”
And Jamie Mackie: “That goal will go down in history for quite a while.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray)
THIS week’s winner is Rufus Sewell as Prince Andrew and Peter Shilton.
Sent in by the astute Ian King, of Ashton Gate, Bristol.
LARRY DAVID and Jerry Seinfeld finding closure as they walked off into the sunset at the end of Curb Your Enthusiasm, one of telly’s greatest ever sitcoms.
Paul O’Grady’s Great Elephant Adventure, posthumously reminding us he was a caring and all-too-rare television natural.
Viv’s barbed endorsement of husband Stephen on BBC1’s Race Across The World: “His family mostly love him.”
And BBC4 reshowing the entire 1974 Eurovision Song Contest, where half-time entertainment was provided by The Wombles and David Vine heralded the dawn of a glorious pop era with the immortal words: “If all the judges were men, and I’m sure they’re not, this group would get a lot of votes.
“You’ll see why in a minute – Waterloo, by Abba, for Sweden.”
Different times.
GREAT TV lies and delusions of the week. Josh Must Win, Pete Wicks: “You can’t help but f***ing love the GC, can you.”
Ferne McCann: My Family And Me, random bloke in Portsmouth: “You are going to be an international film star, Ferne.”
And Josh Must Win, Amber Gill: “You have to be popular to win Love Island. If that makes me popular then . . .” It doesn’t.
LAST week I promised you I’d watch all remaining episode of E4’s The Underdog: Josh Must Win and explain the hidden point of this show that lay beyond promoting host Nick Grimshaw as some sort of ‘a nice guy.’ Well, I did and I can’t.
EASTENDERS: In memoriam. Tommy: “Keanu was acting weirdly, did he know something?”
Yes, son, he knew he couldn’t act.
MY Family And Me, Ferne McCann: “Peter Pan is the perfect panto role for Arg, the boy who never grew up.”
Not while there’s the a end of a horse’s costume to be filled, it isn’t.
