Flats that overlook stadiums & the optimum time for Sky Sports News: The listeners' loves & hates

21:51It seems like it would be a lot of fun to have a football pitch the other side of your window, but I guess not to these people.

21:57Charlie Eccleshare:Charlie, I started off this one, you know, sharing the fascination of what it must be like to live, you know, with a bird's eye view of a football stadium and then got annoyed alongside Leon about this bloke just paying no attention, no respect to a reasonable level football game going on while he came home from work how dare you just dismiss it even idly like that you don't think that yeah for people they're like an immunity develops to it yeah they just get so used to it yeah the novelty would probably wear off quite quickly i mean i guess it wouldn't if you were footy mad but if you're not then yeah probably just washes over you dave on balance would you like to live within eye shot of a football pitch I think there is definitely a danger, like Charlie says, of it becoming of a novelty wearing off and you just sort of not taking any notice of it.

22:42Because obviously you've got to live your life. You might be busy, but it sort of feels like it could be a cool thing. And I've been to Leighton Orient quite a lot of times. That's the closest ground to where I live. And they've got flats inside the stadium. It's not even sort of overlooking or like through a gap. You are on your balcony. You are in Brisbane Road Stadium, which. and most times when I go there's often someone at least there's there's probably what like maybe nine or ten flats or something I think three corners have got them maybe if it's four then maybe there's like 12 flats that have got them and there's often at least someone who's sort of sat out there having a watch I mean and the question also then arises is would a Leighton Orient fan really try and get one of those flats because then you've all of a sudden you've got a I mean, you have to buy the flat, of course, but you've got a free season ticket.

23:34Charlie Eccleshare:Well, this is a very extreme example, Charlie, because given that the flats are inside the stadium, you're buying that flat in full knowledge that you're going to experience, you know, at least fortnightly football. So the estate agent go, don't worry about that out there. It's a lovely green space, isn't it? It's all protected. Yeah, so yeah, it's right move heaven, sort of looking up sort of flats like that to imagine what it's like to live there. Yeah, Potters Bar Town, by the way, Charlie, our second bottom of the Islamian Premier Division. Just two points off the bottom. So no wonder this guy's probably sick of them.

24:06Charlie Eccleshare:Sick of watching this rabble after coming for a long day at work. Yeah, maybe it's sort of protest. So that, yeah, is an extreme example. And you sort of have to make a choice there whether you want to engage with it or not. I could see people just completely, like, just not going out on their balcony when the football's on. And it's just a quirky thing, but they like the flat and that's where it happens to be. But it's almost more alluring if you happen to live in a flat, which if you stand in a very particular spot, you can see a bit of the pitch. Yes. Tantalising glimpse. Because then it feels forbidden.

24:37Charlie Eccleshare:Right, Dave? I mean, it's always been a fascination of mine. Remember the old Upton Park? Are you allowed to say that now? The old bowling. The old bowling ground. Yeah. And there was a big sort of apartment block near there. And you got the distinct sense that there were people who could watch a whole game from very high up off their balcony there. And you think, that's illicit. That's free Premier League football. Should they be allowed to do it? I mean, what could the Premier League even do? I mean, was it a flying airship next to them? Sorry. Yeah, Richard Masters comes around with some blackout blinds.

25:09Sorry. No, you cannot have a beer in view of the pitch, even in your own home. But yeah, it is more tantalising for sure. And even if maybe you can only see half the pitch and you're trying to work out what the score is or how the game's actually going based on the bits of the action that you can see. It's like when you go out of the train on London Bridge south and you go past the den and you can see into the ground. I know. If you ever do it on a Saturday afternoon, you're getting like 10 seconds max and you've got to try and work out what's going on.

25:39Charlie Eccleshare:That glimpse of green, it just feels so forbidden, Charlie. Even when a game's not on, you think, oh, I should be allowed to see this. Yeah. Absolutely not. Yeah, as a breach of rights. There is also a thing that people have. If they live too close to a ground, watching on TV is kind of ruined because you can hear the roars and things before you actually get to see it. And so you're kind of like, I really then need to be at the game because the TV watching experience is really compromised. There's been a story during the rounds recently, Dave. Several outlets have done this very same story in the space of about two weeks.

26:12Charlie Eccleshare:Blackpool have a hotel in their stadium. the Blackpool Football Club Stadium Hotel. And some of the rooms have a view of the pitch, an unobstructed, essentially like director's box style view of the pitch. However, if you stay there, you have to shut the curtains. You have to shut the curtains yourself when games are on, or you'll get fined£2 ,500. You're not allowed to watch the games. Who's fining you? I don't know. The EFL? The hotel? I haven't got far enough down these articles in any case to figure out who, but um yeah so is it a criminal matter is your prosecution if i that's i mean that's bizarre but on a on a similar note to that i a couple of years ago i went to uh swindon against layton orient a couple of guys that i know who have swindon fans and a couple who lived in one of the flats inside layton orient had put their flat up on airbnb so you could hire the flat out for the night for a few hundred quid or whatever it might have been and stand on the balcony and watch the game you're inside the stadium and you know they got some cans from from the supermarket and we're just sort of having a few beers watching their team rather than buying a match ticket and and the couple were just sat in the living room watching telly we just sort of walked through the living room and they went it's out there guys crack on oh god oh that's cd but i felt like is this allowed like we're we've this is a real loophole here we are one of the only people in you know in the country who have been able to have a beer in front of the in the stands and watch the game yeah and that that's yeah that's that's got to be a fine as well for the club at least um yeah there you go another potential avenue for this it's um if you're living high up in one of those tower blocks i think it would be watching like amateur football from above you don't know any of the players you don't know any of the scores and there's like maybe five games on at once like if you live near hackney marshes or whatever or clapham common wherever you can see anywhere where you could see that many games that would be quite a good way to do it like i think I quite enjoy...

28:11Charlie Eccleshare:Like multi-view on Sky Sports, isn't it? Cutting to one pitch whenever there's a goal. I'll tell you what though, Charlie, the opportunity to watch a Sunday league game from a tactical view and see if, you know, the team's shape stays as it should do. I'd quite like to do that, I think. I think you might get bored quite quickly. Right. Yeah, fair enough. And people are filming these things with drones now. You don't even need to go up an apartment block. Anyway, our second fascination from the listeners for January comes from Paddy Hogan. Just another commentary observation. I've been for years watching football on telly and games that Gary Neville co-commentates on.

28:46I really enjoy it when a player scores a goal that has required them to kind of bend it into the far corner. And that little gap in between the goal being scored and showing the replay, I like to test myself as to whether he'll say, just set it out. And then the joy it brings me when Neville watches the replay back. He says, just sets it out. Or equally, I love it when a player gets an effort like that wrong. And I like saying to myself, just can't quite set it out. And the same again, Neville will say, just can't quite set it out. It brings me joy.

29:26Charlie Eccleshare:That's an absolute 8 out of 10 Gary Neville impression, Dave. I really like it. Yeah, that's nice. The repetition really sealed the deal for me there, Charlie. it just got better as it went on. Yeah, yeah, lovely stuff. There's also that thing, isn't there, they'll say, you can see what he's trying to do and it just doesn't quite bend it round enough for one of those efforts where it kind of whistles wide. So what Paddy's definitely got right here, Dave, is that the shot into the far corner, the curling effort, is very much the ultimate case study for what co-commentators really love talking about, which is whatever touch sets up the shot.

30:00Charlie Eccleshare:They're really keen on pointing that bit out because I think that's kind of mid-level technical knowledge that an average watcher might not know. So they do like pointing out the fact that that touch there was crucial in giving them the room to open up and have that shot. So I think this type of shot is good for that. Yeah, I think it's important. It's like the thing that gets done before to allow you to be in a position to score the goal, that is sort of co-commentary 101 really. But it's like, it is the sort of thing that could be missed. And you get the other thing, which is the, and it's just that touch there.

30:32he just gets stuck under his feet a little bit and that's what lets the defender come back.

30:37Charlie Eccleshare:Just one touch too many. He needs to shoot there and then get the shot away. Yeah, exactly. I don't know, it's kind of accessible technical knowledge, isn't it, Charlie? But it's good to have that kind of technique broken down. But yeah, just having that, that is the ultimate example, isn't it? Just opening their body up and getting the ball out from their body. And you kind of need it explained to you because it kind of enhances the satisfaction of seeing the goal, I think. because you think, oh, yeah. Like Mateus Cunha the other day, just the ability to get that ball the right distance from your body to get the right connection on it.

31:09Yeah. Or the like, he does so well to sort his feet out there. You know, and it's kind of like, it could get stuck under them, but they managed to kind of manoeuvre their body and, you know, get the shot away.

31:19Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah. Yeah, a nice glimpse of classic co-commentary there. But yeah, worth it just for the Gary Neville impression alone. Thank you, Paddy. Right, our third fascination from our listeners for this month comes from Gaz Lewis. I love nothing more than when it's a week where there may be one night during the week where there is no football happening whatsoever. And you're sat at home on a dedicated night where you think there is no football on. And you look at the clock and it could be 5 to 6, 5 to 7, 5 to 8. And then it just dawns on you. You can watch Sky Sports News for an hour from the start.

31:56and the joy that gives you. It's no football match, but it's not far off. Equally, you don't want Sky Sports News at half past seven. You don't want it at half six. You don't want it at half eight. You want it five minutes beforehand and you will quite happily watch the ad breaks. Looking forward to whatever the headlines are, especially if you've been at work that day.

32:19Charlie Eccleshare:It was the listing of times past half past the hour that almost ended up here, Charlie. Fair play, each to their own, But yeah, on a quiet night during the week, what would compel you to watch a whole hour of Sky Sports News? Just what kind of state would you need to be in? I can't really imagine that scenario. I've got to be totally authentic here. Like if I were, if I wanted to go down that route and watch just like a sort of totally just like, oh, I'm just going to lose myself in a kind of, could sit back and sort of have my mind numbed a bit by watching a football thing. I think I'd go for like a Premier League years or, I don't know, I'd flick on to like a Gary Neville soccer box or something like that.

33:00I don't think Sky Sports News would be the first port of call for that.

33:04Charlie Eccleshare:Just how crucial is Gaz's sort of main point here, Dave, that you need to get it at the top of the hour to really enjoy SSN? Depends on what show, because they do have sort of slightly different shows sometimes. They will stray from the kind of rolling news format. They're about as close to having an actual schedule now, Sky Sports News, as they ever have. But if it's the classic kind of headlines, then I don't know whether they have reset them on the half hour anyway. I don't know. But there is something satisfying about arriving at the top of the hour. And if you want to settle in, I've actually like I've gotten into Sky Sports News kind of again.

33:41I've sort of rediscovered it in the last year or so. I find myself watching it like years and years. I just basically I mean obviously because a lot of the places I've worked it would just always be on a screen in the corner without the sound or whatever so it's kind of I've always felt its presence without actually having to watch it whereas I quite often so I often edit this podcast quite late at night and I'll often put it on in the background so I'm not listening to it I've got my headphones on but I can sort of glance up and if there's something that's interesting maybe I can have a little listen and I have become I've become quite fond of the of the journalists that they get on at like midnight I'm quite fascinated by the blokes who just turn up all sorts of you know the great and good of the football journalism world will make get themselves up to their spare room at midnight on a weeknight and chat through the back pages pages um i saw yeah i do quite like it it's a there's a comfort

34:34Charlie Eccleshare:to it i think sometimes yeah definitely i mean and yeah that's sky sports news always used to be especially when it was like available on freeview charlie um you know it always used to be really really useful kind of background wallpaper football coverage but what are you getting in that average hour you're getting not just quotes from managers but quotes from managers that are trailed to just before the advert break and you think am i going to stick around to hear what eddie howe has to say about var in two minutes time and i think i am that's not tantalizing enough for me but mostly it's just repeated announcement or whatever the latest breaking news was from about an hour ago read out really slowly he has signed a four and a half year deal at Craven Cottage.

35:15I actually do remember once after night out at uni playing Pro Evo and we just had Sky Sports on on a loop as we played for hours to the point where the TV did that thing of being like, are you still there? Because you haven't touched a button in out, you know, it is a kind of, you know, that's always a fairly sobering moment. But I remember it so, I remember it so vividly. It was Cristiano Ronaldo moving to Real Madrid and the wording was exactly the same each time. It was something like, But leaving stage left will be Cristiano Ronaldo as he moves on to Real Madrid. And it's just like ingrained in my mind.

35:49Like you hear it because it's the same thing kind of over and over again. The flashing of cameras, the him talking in a quite stilted way. There's probably a translation or something. So you are going to have to make peace with that. You're going to hear the same thing a lot.

36:02Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, the classic message you get on a TV if you've left it on too long is do you want to go into standby mode? If it detects that you've gone into a second hour of Sky Sports News, does it bring up the Samaritan's phone number or something? Are you okay? Okay, so two people in two different camps here. Charlie's, you know, retired from Sky Sports News watching, it seems. Dave's very much re-found his love for it. Well, he's on it sometimes, though, now. That's true, yeah. I suppose, yeah, yeah. I suppose, how can you love it if you've been on it? Yeah, once you've been on it, it's different. Well, actually, the slot that you tend to occupy, which is what?

36:35Charlie Eccleshare:Sunday morning, Sunday supplement. That's a good time to watch Sky Sports News. People should be watching it then because there's an element of preview about it. I'm talking about midweek. That's very different though. Yeah, that's very different to what's being described here. That's not like your pure Sky Sports News. Okay, Dave, so where would you put an hour of undiluted Sky Sports News, crucially, you know, on the hour as well, where would you put it in the hierarchy of football broadcasting that you'd be up for watching if the mood took you? Because I would put it higher than, say, late era football focus, which became completely throwaway for me.

37:09Dispensable TV. There's way more chance of me sitting down and watching Sky Sports News than there is Football Focus. The big thing that Sky Sports News has got in its advantage here is that it's on all the time. So it's always there for you whenever you need it, whereas Football Focus, you have to be in front of the TV at, what is it, midday on a Saturday? You're watching an iPlayer, are you?

37:27Charlie Eccleshare:Football Focus, it's gone. It's annoying. It's like a sushi conveyor belt of Football News. It's always going to come back to the one you want. But yeah, you're not going to be hanging around for anything in that hour, are you? I've missed it. That's all right. It'll cycle back. You'll get the quote. I do like the efforts that they go to to kind of segment it up. And you've got like the Premier League show or whatever. Each bit, even though basically it's pretty much the same sort of content, apart from maybe something like the Sunday supplement. But generally it's just like an assortment of talking points and news.

37:59But they'll divide it up. and I've noticed this for a little while and I can't decide whether it's a classy touch or whether it's completely weird. I think it's on Friday. They've got like an hour or two hours that they call total football and they're just doing press conferences basically. It's like Friday press conferences, headlines, blah, blah, blah. But the graphics on the screen and on the side are orange and black, the colours of the Netherlands football team. No way! Is it a thing? Is it a quid? Is that just somebody who's in the graphics department and have gone, you know why it's called Total Football.

38:31Let's just make it. That's amazing, if so.

38:33Charlie Eccleshare:I really want that to be true. You'll notice it now. I've mentioned it. If you tune in for any average hour of Sky Sports News, just the assortment of studio guests you'll see, Charlie. An incredible kind of level of discourse. You've got Jamie O 'Hara, probably Jay Bothroy doing Ref Watch with Dermot Gallagher. She's slowly taking on cult status. There's a cheeky aspect to Ref Watch. I think they know that they've got some slim picking sometimes. You'll have Charlie Austin every morning giving his view on the Manchester United managerial situation, for example. It doesn't attract the greatest stellar names from punditry, does it?

39:08You're not going to be spending the big bucks on top-level names, are you, for mid-morning stuff. There's got to be a realistic expectation. So it's like a mid-level proving ground almost, or just people that have got deals with Sky that have a certain number of appearances in them. You can get away, give them 10 shifts on ref watch across the season. Job done.

39:28Charlie Eccleshare:Budgets have been slashed, let's face it. But yeah, Sky Sports News for a whole hour. If you can do it, fair play to you. Thanks a lot, Gaz Lewis. We'll be back after the break with the listeners' irritations.

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40:40Charlie Eccleshare:Welcome back to Football Clichés and the listeners' mezzat, harl and dicks for this month. We've done your fascinations, now time for your footballing irritations. Let's begin with Ben Berkson. My footballing irritation concerns a rising trend in the cringe moment as a television viewer. Watching a corner or throw-in taker for an away team interact with usually grown men in the first or second row of the home fans. I get distracted from the football. My eyes are drawn to those responsible. The interactions are usually sinister or trolling. It's increased significantly this season with the rise of set pieces and long throws.

41:19example in the Everton match on Monday Ethan Ampadu appeared to be laughing with one of the home fans as he wound up for a throw-in that's the nice side of the coin but I still hold my breath my toes curl whenever I see this and it's creeping into the game more and more and I don't like it

41:32Charlie Eccleshare:yeah this is a very awkward moment of a football game Charlie because first of all the cameras are very well placed to pick out this scenario as well you've got the corner taker and you've got what is usually the opposition fans behind them in this scenario that you know where it becomes particularly interesting and they basically got to summon up the courage to do something to either put the player off or just just have any sort of interaction to fulfill them that they've interacted with a with a premier league footballer and every now and then i think i saw declan rice do this when arsenal played chelsea in the league cup the other night when they just turn and give them a little smile you think okay the transaction's been completed and that makes it so much less awkward i'm so glad that rice had it in his locker to at least acknowledge whatever they were saying to him just with a smile and defuse the whole situation because there are also ones like you'll see that are uploaded of a group of opposition away fans or home fans saying to an away player like ah you're shit and then they score from the corner and then you know they give them a little look i think from that one they did so again it was like a little cheeky wink or something but there's such a spectrum for this sort of thing dave like it can just go from sort of timid kind of look there's a footballer in front of me isn't it weird all the way up to genuine like proper abuse like wanker signs right in their face as they're in this kind of cramped corner of a pitch about to run up a little slope to take a corner and you think okay they're probably used to kind of hostile atmospheres but do you think a footballer ever gets used to just be just being called all the names under a sun as they're about to take about to kick a ball in front of somebody how do you get used to that obviously there have been occasions where it's even worse than that but And it must be, yeah, I mean, it must be difficult, especially in like the heat of the moment when right on top of you, there are certain grounds where it's probably worse than others in terms of just the layout and how close you are to the supporters.

43:21It must take quite a lot of restraint at times. Maybe you just block it out. I don't know. Maybe you're so used to it that you just block it out. But I like it when, like you say, I think there should be an understanding and an acceptance from both sides. You call me a wanker, fine. and if we get one over you, I'll give you a little wink and everyone's happy. But obviously, too often, if the player does anything, back to the fans, God, you know, it's like really sets people off and they're like, oh, you're a disgrace. And all that, you know, just torrents of abuse come forth, which I think is a bit ridiculous.

43:56But you sort of get different characters that you'll see. Every now and again, you'll see like an old nan who's giving, flicking the Vs or just giving dogs abuse to the players and that's funny, will get picked up on. Or there might be a young kid who's surprisingly got involved in a funny way or something. Do you know what it is? It's very too good, too bad for her, isn't it? I'm sure for Adrian Charles, they would have been scouring what goes on at corners for any sort of thing like Dave's describing.

44:29Charlie Eccleshare:thing um you know but you know it can be it could be a good interaction like if it's their own player charlie and they're about to take a corner you get this really interesting situation where they want to show their support for their own player about to take the corner and you know it's a rare situation they become at close quarters with this player but also they don't really want to put them off the corner so they want to be too sort of vociferous with their support so that so you basically just get a go on go on with the corner i mean what kind of support is that exactly polite Like clap. Well done.

44:59Keep going. I think it's hard to resist, particularly if, I think if you're a season ticket holder and you sit down in that sort of spot, you probably, I mean, it's quite a choice actually, isn't it? To sit in the front row as a season ticket holder. You're sacrificing your view of the match so you can sort of be really close to the action. And I suppose in those moments, maybe, you know, there'll be some people that will just kind of like the flat thing. Some people just become immune to the presence of players so close to them. But there'll be some people that maybe feel like they've got a relationship with the players and maybe over familiar.

45:34They'll be like, deck. All right, deck.

45:36Charlie Eccleshare:Go on, son. Sling it in, deck. All right, Mark. Come on, KO. I want to factor in the fact that some of these fans probably sit there every week. So probably are sort of, you know, slightly desensitised to the starstruckness of being close to a Premier League football. But I think that starstruckness does fuel a lot of the awkwardness of these situations, Charlie. Take, for example, when a player tumbles into the stands and one fan will probably help them up because they are the closest there. But some of them, like three rows back, will reach over and just try and touch them on the shoulders. I touch the Premier League football.

46:05Charlie Eccleshare:It's magic. You get it. I totally understand what it must be like to just go, I feel like I need to touch them. They are an otherworldly being. I'll never get this close again. What do they feel like? Yeah. Yes, basically. Sweaty. Yeah, it must be magic. But in between these extreme situations, Charlie, I often see some fans and I've noticed this with kind of long throws recently because you get a lot of chance to see this. Fans who just sit there politely just staring at the back of the throw intaker because fundamentally they're just close to a Premier League footballer and think I'm just going to stare at this guy because wow.

46:36Charlie Eccleshare:Take it all in. Yeah. And they can't summon anything else either because they're too polite to be abusive or they don't want to undignify themselves by showing too much support by shouting go on at a throw intaker so they sort of just stare at the back of them. I think that's probably what I would do. What would you do if you were in the corner of the stadium? In your current situation, you're a professional journalist and you're a football cliches co-host. So you're above this sort of thing anyway. What would you do? I don't know how I would behave. In a neutral situation. Am I there or am I supporting one of the teams?

47:07Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, that's a valid question. Let's go with opposition player for now. Would you just sort of look somewhere else? It depends who it is. It depends on the situation. If it's like a pantomime villain, then yeah, you'd get involved. Would you? I think so, yeah. That's all part of the fun. What would you do? I mean, this is like saying, let's get you caught on camera. Would you do the wanker sign? I don't think I'd do the wanker sign. That feels quite old school as well. I don't think they're quite as prevalent. Boo? I think you'd have booing again is quite old fashioned. But I think you'd have a laugh.

47:38All right, OK. There are scenarios where you can engage in a bit of lighthearted. You are essentially abusing the players. But calling someone a wanker, if you do it in a certain way, it's sort of fine. I was at Bristol City against Middlesbrough before Christmas for a Christmas do with some mates who had family from Bristol we all went down, we all watched the game his dad was with us, his dad was getting all a bit he was excited for a day out with the boys and he might have been showing off a little bit but Middlesbrough had an old Bristol City player playing for them Tommy Conway and he was sort of the pantomime villain of the game every time he touched the ball he was getting booed and there was a couple of times we came on the touchline quite near where we were standing and there was a few wanker signs There was a few calls out from the crowd that I sort of got involved with just to be part of the fun.

48:22Charlie Eccleshare:It doesn't take much. No. The narrative appealed to you and you went with it. Oh, fair enough. But yeah, the whole thing is incredibly awkward, as Ben Berkson outlined for us. Right. Second irritation from our listeners this month comes from Chris Francis. My irritation of football is to do with the way that on the Sky Sports coverage, when they introduce the players at the start and they bring up the graphics of the players in their positions and they will line up the goalkeeper, the defenders, the midfielders and the forwards together. Now, the issue I've got is that they make them all the same height and not only is this sort of inaccurate, the fact that small players are made to look much taller also has the added effect of making them look a lot broader and basically really stacked.

49:21So for instance, I've been watching the Everton and Arsenal match, the front three of Mikayo Saka Victor Yokeres and Leandro Trossard were presented as all the same height but what it made both Saka and Trossard looked absolutely massive in terms of like they'd been hitting the weights so annoying I wish they'd just make them all the right size I do get this but Dave you know

49:46Charlie Eccleshare:two things two considerations are clearly going on here at broadcasters one there's a graphic design element you know they want things to be neat and tidy but two there's an editorial decision that's gone on here do they not want you know to emphasize that some teams have you know imposing tall players because as an opposition fan i look at that and think oh god they're gonna be they're gonna be tough to deal with at set pieces now i'm anxious so they should they should incorporate this yeah i think i mean player heights are famous the wild west in terms of actually finding out how tall anyone is online but um obviously if you've got a visual representation you should reflect it accurately like uh i don't know who's ian mattson i think is the shortest player in the Premier League I think I read that yeah I don't know and like Val Buena was famously small wasn't he like I think you should you should emphasize that on the graphics if you can at the start I mean not to go into a too lengthy a history of Sky Sports lineup graphics Charlie I mean they tend to flick between do they just have the headshots of the players in which case height becomes fairly irrelevant unless they're a very tall head I guess or Marino's got quite a tall head yeah he has or do they have them sort of walking towards the camera or they have something lined up, standing up, in which case you really should incorporate the height.

50:54Charlie Eccleshare:But it seems to be there's a slight inconsistency over the years. Sky Sports had never really figured out what they wanted to do with it. I mean, in mid-2010s, late-2010s, we had them lining up and you could see the height differences. And I thought that just goes to show it was a golden era. Was that the kind of arm-foldy period? Yes, exactly. For the step forward. Yeah, because that's how I imagine it. But, crucially, despite disparity in heights, you could never be sure whether they were the true heights or they were just sort of completely randomly placed. So it was just an extra layer of uncertainty.

51:24Charlie Eccleshare:So I didn't know what to make of it. Yeah, I'm trying to imagine them now. Like, I'm going to look out for this. I'm quite curious to see how, because I can imagine that looking really weird, yeah, but I can imagine that looking really weird as described to have people who you know are far shorter. You should represent Peter Crouch and Jermaine Defoe. Yeah. They shouldn't be the same height. It's mad. It's an important detail ahead of the game. But it adds texture to say, you know, like the front three, that Chris Francis has outlined here, Saka, Jokerez and Trossard. You want them. You want the height disparity to be displayed because that illustrates the dynamic of the front three.

51:59You want two diminutive little flitting little wide attackers

52:02Charlie Eccleshare:alongside the big totemic centre forward. Yeah. Sky Sports are letting us down, Dave. Well, yeah. I mean, it's not just Sky Sports thing, obviously. It's TNT and everything. But I saw Man City were playing, I think it was maybe last week or the week before when they're playing the Champions League and Max Allain, the young centre-back, who they had to recall from Watford and have very much derailed our season in the process. But he went straight into the team and they didn't have a graphic for him. Right. So they could have knocked one up on Photoshop, which sometimes you see, you know, they've clearly just stuck someone's head on another player's body or even a silhouette.

52:40But they didn't do either of the things. They just left it completely blank. So you had the three defenders, three other defenders, and then you had his name at the bottom I mean, there was just nothing in his space.

52:49Charlie Eccleshare:Interesting that you mentioned Man City because a few years ago, when Manuel Akanji had signed for them, they didn't have a photo for him for the line-up purposes. So they superimposed his head onto a player who was much shorter. So he was sort of a player, sort of a good six inches shorter than, presumably, I don't know, Ruben Diaz, who was next to him or whoever it was. And it looked absolutely ridiculous. He basically got stitched up. I mean, they can't have put his head on Ruben Diaz's body. No, it was next to Ruben. Quite an obvious issue there. No, it was next to Ruben Diaz. They put him on like Rico Lewis's head or something like that.

53:19Charlie Eccleshare:So Akanji was completely done over. He was about a foot shorter than he was supposed to be. So there you go. There are pitfalls to not standardising it. So that's maybe why they do it. You never know who's going to sign for who, Charlie. Yeah, that would make sense. Never had this problem in the, you know, the classic Champions League, just names on the pitch days. The Italia 90 graphics. Dave, could we start doing this for the sort of backstage photos before Football Clichés live shows? That would be really good for me if possible. okay yeah well we'd have to get we have to get some step ladders involved some yeah bring me up don't bring you guys down yeah make me look six foot two if possible right lovely stuff and now our final irritation from our listeners this month comes from dane eldridge all the way from down under this is my mhd and it's that ever-growing group of fans who consider themselves one step ahead by mocking commentators who make to them what are seemingly obvious uh observations for example, Liverpool went 1-0 up inside a minute and the commentators remarked, that's exactly the start that Liverpool would be looking for.

54:20And your boofhead mate says, of course, it's the start they were looking for. They scored a goal. What are they paying these blokes for, etc. Now, yes, on the surface, this is a very seemingly obvious statement, like I said before, but the real fan or anyone who watches the game knows there's a deeper line context to this. Liverpool had a Horror week. They're not winning games. They had the Salah thing. And that's obviously the start that the commentator said that they needed to get the monkey off the back and to quell the fans' anxieties early. So anyone who complains in this manner, I think they should be something like banned from the game forever.

54:57Charlie Eccleshare:Great to have a debut for the word boofhead on the Football Cliché podcast. Charlie, have you heard that on your travels yet? Oh, everyone's using it, yeah. Really? There are so many moving parts to this scenario, Dave. you know depending on on how deep your ball knowledge is how how into football you are how cynical you are how kind of cliches pilled you are and how sort of beyond the take you want to look but i am on the side of the commentators and pundits here like i feel like we're quite careful in this podcast not to decry this level of cliche use by pundits because it's filler it's really important filler it's the lifeblood of football broadcasting is stuff like liverpool you know that's the start liverpool wanted yes you have to say that that's the only way you can kind of feel that moment yeah as we so often point out to people that you know anyone who might be a naysayer to us we we are here to celebrate the cliches the cliches have their place yeah we're not here to mock them and say oh you shouldn't have said that or whatever but um you know they're the building blocks of the language of football saying what you see is the kind of basic remit of the commentator yeah i do know exactly what's but i i think this is a really good point and like i've been around buff heads who've you know made these kind of comments and it's like the commentator isn't suggesting what they're saying is like deeply insightful or interesting they just say they're just sort of setting the scene like well yeah we can see that it's like yeah yeah i know you can but they're not suggesting you can't but they're still it's still a way of just kind of keeping things moving and that's totally fine i saw a clip of wayne rooney analyzing arsenal against manchester united the other day and he was he was he was going through a passing sequence after Arsenal had taken the lead, the one that led to Zubimendi giving the ball away for Mbumo to score.

56:37And the first comment underneath this thing on Instagram was like, oh, how much do these people get paid to tell us exactly what they can see? Yeah, exactly. And you're like, that is actually good analysis. Like, he's actually explaining what's happening here. He's looking at, like, this player could have passed there. You know, it was at least half-decent analysis. And you just think, yeah, what are you... Like, these fucking people look at it like that. They are buffets.

57:02Charlie Eccleshare:but this is really interesting to me because you know sometimes it is good analysis day that's fine but sometimes it is just saying what they're seeing and and that to a certain extent is where we're at with some football punditry sometimes it is just they are just talking their way through an action replay and we take it because they're ex-players and we think okay that's the that is their analysis but this is one of the oldest kind of criticisms of punditry in the book charlie is um stating the bleeding obvious and you only ever hear this criticism people who don't actually like football they're just passing comment on it would be the sort of thing that ian hislop would say about football coverage one of those mps who said they enjoyed match of the day without any that's right or whatever yes yeah and so it's such so entry-level kind of football observation that it's obviously not worth taking seriously so as much as this podcast kind of revels in sort of picking apart stuff that commentators and pundits say i'm totally in defense of bread and butter cliches and filler content charlie because i felt i feel like if we didn't have it we'd really miss it yeah i mean it gets to the heart of yeah certainly not not anything we'd go in on i don't think i mean look let's not be totally one-sided i'm sure we've all been guilty of criticizing commentators when we think they are saying things that are like you know really obvious or whatever but yeah i mean it's that's that's not what we're about it's like you know when you talk about this podcast someone doesn't listen it's up to it it's like oh right you know like uh sick as a parrot or game of two halves that sort of thing you talk about it's like no that couldn't be further from what we're about but sure yeah we're up to 500 episodes actually mate nearly so uh not just that uh yeah so yeah long live stating the obvious in football commentary um thanks to dane eldridge for that one and thanks to all the listeners for sending in their submissions um keep them coming and we'll we'll pick the next best six for february as well thanks to you charlie eccleshare thank you thanks to you david walker thank you thanks everyone for listening.

58:53Charlie Eccleshare:Dreamland episode 16 out this week as well. We'll be back on Tuesday. See you then.

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