interesting article about alan green
Opinions are divided. Some love his outspoken style, others think he is an idiot gobsh*te who looks like a big, plump hamster.
Only a week ago the BBC felt it necessary to apologise to the Scouse Nation for his joke about Sly Stallone finding his limo up on bricks outside Everton's ground.
Unusually, he expresses open support for some causes such as the anti-Kelvin McKenzie demonstrations at Anfield recently. It's safe to say he worries the BBC, and rumours abound that they're trying to make him less confrontational and outspoken.
With the corporation seemingly terrified of falling out with any more football folk after their hapless Panorama programme on bungs brought them more legal action (well what else is the tax...sorry...licence 'fee' for?), this week they will also be blessed with a visit from friend of referees Keith Hackett.
Presumably Hackett has managed to get a free couple of hours from meeting disgruntled managers who want to have the increasingly bizarre offside law explained to them again, and he's pitching up at the BBC to meet journalists and broadcasters in order to persuade them to be less critical of referees! Yes, less critical!
Hackett believes that the criticism given to referees on BBC programmes is actually damaging the reputation of the officials. This week's meeting is an attempt to counter what he sees as a growth in anti-referee analysis in the corporation's football output.
Interestingly, he's not doing the same for Sky, who he sees as less critical in general of officials. But I don't think there is much difference between Sky and BBC's treatment of referees.
Sky's real crime in its football coverage is to cravenly suck up to the 'big' players, give them undeserved man-of-the-match awards and employ inarticulate ex-footballers like Jamie Redknapp to tell everyone how just how his mates and relations are geniuses, even when they have played poorly, or in Robbie Fowler's case have been fat and out of form for the whole of this century. Sometimes, it seems he hasn't been watching the game at all.
Hackett sees Green, as 5Live's highest-profile commentator, as an important opinion-former who helps to gear fans' views of referees. But surely, fans need no help in slagging off officials and on 606, Green is usually just a sympathetic ear for fans who feel cheated by an inept official.
But when doing a commentary he can be uncompromising in both criticism and praise of players and officials. We might disagree with him, but he calls it as he sees it. I'd rather hear opinions that I disagree with than the bland fence-sitting too often indulged in by the BBC's television counterparts.
Green has fallen out with Fergie and Big Sam because of his criticisms, but surely we need more broadcasters to fall out with managers and players when necessary, not less. There is way too much cosy chummyness in football broadcasting, and again Redknapp stands as the apotheosis of this gross self-indulgence and nepotism. Why is he employed when they could shave a monkey and put it on instead?
The worry is that Hackett wants more Redknapp nonsense and less Greeny savagings.
But Green has been in broadcasting for over 30 years and has the experience and the ego to go his own way, and in that respect is almost unique in BBC Sport output. He also does an excellent magazine style show called World Football on the World Service where people from Namibia, Murmansk and Daytona write in and ask him if Chelsea should play 4-4-2 or 4-5-1.
His Xmas programme about the history of football commentary was also superb, and his recounting of Hillsborough, where he was on duty with the legendary Peter Jones, was under-stated, but very moving. He described how after the whole terrible disaster was over, he drove Jonesy to the station and they just sat in the car, in absolute silence, weeping.
But Green is just one of a team of commentators on 5Live who do a really good job. Mike Ingham is the senior commentator and, along with Greeny, does all the big games. He is a bridge between the old school style of legends such as Byron Butler and Peter Jones and the more subjective, emotional, contemporary fashion.
John Murray is ten years into the job now and brings a fulsome north-east passion to his games, and they're even employing an excellent woman these days, Jackie Oatley. How progressive. And there are loads of others from the double-barrelled Alistair Bruce-Ball to Ian Dennis, David Oates and the magnificently northern Dave Woods and excellent idiosyncratic reporters like Clem from the Boro.
All of them are miles better than their TV counterparts, with the honourable exception of Jonathan Pearce. He was excellent during his time on 5Live, even if he tamed down the howling, attack dog insanity of his Capital Gold days.
Of course the BBC have lashings of our tax, sorry again, licence fee, to spend and loads of time on 5Live to fill, so they can dedicate 90 minutes to a round-table discussion if they want, which the TV coverage can't, but that being said, the under-lying attitude to 5Live football is that it's for proper fans, not just casual viewers. And all concerned tend towards offering considered, strongly -eld views, not just bland, anodyne nonsense. And that's why it's much. much better.
The reasoning behind their TV counterparts' refusal to have at least one regular weeknight in-depth discussion and analysis football programme on one of their you-have-to-pay-for-them-even-if-you-don't-watch-them digital channels is a mystery. All they have to do is put some of the radio discussion in front of the cameras and add clips and stick it on BBC3 instead of high art such as Fat Men Can't Hunt, Chicks With Dicks or Dog Borstal (only one of these is made up).
I'd almost always take a radio commentary over a TV one and often put up with the digital radio delay to listen to 5Live while watching Sky.
Here's a weird thing; even Lawro is better on the radio! When he does 606 occasionally, he's quite acceptable, as is Raymondo Stubbs. I think it's because they have to work harder and have more to do.
So with 5Live being virtually the only place left where anyone might dare to say the kind of things we all say every day of our football lives (I don't count Talksport - it makes my ears bleed), it's important for Keith Hackett to know that we like being critical of referees and we think it's all part of the culture of the game, and by the way Keith, a lot of referees are rotten. The likes of Bennett, Riley and Stiles are outrageously poor on a consistent basis and the media should reflect this, not bite its tongue for fear of tarring everyone with the same brush.
Hackett's meeting this week at the BBC sounds like another attempt to neuter the game and its most vociferous critics. It's worked on most of the TV coverage, but it's unacceptable, and I'm sure Alan Green for one will be quick to tell him so.
Opinions are divided. Some love his outspoken style, others think he is an idiot gobsh*te who looks like a big, plump hamster.
Only a week ago the BBC felt it necessary to apologise to the Scouse Nation for his joke about Sly Stallone finding his limo up on bricks outside Everton's ground.
Unusually, he expresses open support for some causes such as the anti-Kelvin McKenzie demonstrations at Anfield recently. It's safe to say he worries the BBC, and rumours abound that they're trying to make him less confrontational and outspoken.
With the corporation seemingly terrified of falling out with any more football folk after their hapless Panorama programme on bungs brought them more legal action (well what else is the tax...sorry...licence 'fee' for?), this week they will also be blessed with a visit from friend of referees Keith Hackett.
Presumably Hackett has managed to get a free couple of hours from meeting disgruntled managers who want to have the increasingly bizarre offside law explained to them again, and he's pitching up at the BBC to meet journalists and broadcasters in order to persuade them to be less critical of referees! Yes, less critical!
Hackett believes that the criticism given to referees on BBC programmes is actually damaging the reputation of the officials. This week's meeting is an attempt to counter what he sees as a growth in anti-referee analysis in the corporation's football output.
Interestingly, he's not doing the same for Sky, who he sees as less critical in general of officials. But I don't think there is much difference between Sky and BBC's treatment of referees.
Sky's real crime in its football coverage is to cravenly suck up to the 'big' players, give them undeserved man-of-the-match awards and employ inarticulate ex-footballers like Jamie Redknapp to tell everyone how just how his mates and relations are geniuses, even when they have played poorly, or in Robbie Fowler's case have been fat and out of form for the whole of this century. Sometimes, it seems he hasn't been watching the game at all.
Hackett sees Green, as 5Live's highest-profile commentator, as an important opinion-former who helps to gear fans' views of referees. But surely, fans need no help in slagging off officials and on 606, Green is usually just a sympathetic ear for fans who feel cheated by an inept official.
But when doing a commentary he can be uncompromising in both criticism and praise of players and officials. We might disagree with him, but he calls it as he sees it. I'd rather hear opinions that I disagree with than the bland fence-sitting too often indulged in by the BBC's television counterparts.
Green has fallen out with Fergie and Big Sam because of his criticisms, but surely we need more broadcasters to fall out with managers and players when necessary, not less. There is way too much cosy chummyness in football broadcasting, and again Redknapp stands as the apotheosis of this gross self-indulgence and nepotism. Why is he employed when they could shave a monkey and put it on instead?
The worry is that Hackett wants more Redknapp nonsense and less Greeny savagings.
But Green has been in broadcasting for over 30 years and has the experience and the ego to go his own way, and in that respect is almost unique in BBC Sport output. He also does an excellent magazine style show called World Football on the World Service where people from Namibia, Murmansk and Daytona write in and ask him if Chelsea should play 4-4-2 or 4-5-1.
His Xmas programme about the history of football commentary was also superb, and his recounting of Hillsborough, where he was on duty with the legendary Peter Jones, was under-stated, but very moving. He described how after the whole terrible disaster was over, he drove Jonesy to the station and they just sat in the car, in absolute silence, weeping.
But Green is just one of a team of commentators on 5Live who do a really good job. Mike Ingham is the senior commentator and, along with Greeny, does all the big games. He is a bridge between the old school style of legends such as Byron Butler and Peter Jones and the more subjective, emotional, contemporary fashion.
John Murray is ten years into the job now and brings a fulsome north-east passion to his games, and they're even employing an excellent woman these days, Jackie Oatley. How progressive. And there are loads of others from the double-barrelled Alistair Bruce-Ball to Ian Dennis, David Oates and the magnificently northern Dave Woods and excellent idiosyncratic reporters like Clem from the Boro.
All of them are miles better than their TV counterparts, with the honourable exception of Jonathan Pearce. He was excellent during his time on 5Live, even if he tamed down the howling, attack dog insanity of his Capital Gold days.
Of course the BBC have lashings of our tax, sorry again, licence fee, to spend and loads of time on 5Live to fill, so they can dedicate 90 minutes to a round-table discussion if they want, which the TV coverage can't, but that being said, the under-lying attitude to 5Live football is that it's for proper fans, not just casual viewers. And all concerned tend towards offering considered, strongly -eld views, not just bland, anodyne nonsense. And that's why it's much. much better.
The reasoning behind their TV counterparts' refusal to have at least one regular weeknight in-depth discussion and analysis football programme on one of their you-have-to-pay-for-them-even-if-you-don't-watch-them digital channels is a mystery. All they have to do is put some of the radio discussion in front of the cameras and add clips and stick it on BBC3 instead of high art such as Fat Men Can't Hunt, Chicks With Dicks or Dog Borstal (only one of these is made up).
I'd almost always take a radio commentary over a TV one and often put up with the digital radio delay to listen to 5Live while watching Sky.
Here's a weird thing; even Lawro is better on the radio! When he does 606 occasionally, he's quite acceptable, as is Raymondo Stubbs. I think it's because they have to work harder and have more to do.
So with 5Live being virtually the only place left where anyone might dare to say the kind of things we all say every day of our football lives (I don't count Talksport - it makes my ears bleed), it's important for Keith Hackett to know that we like being critical of referees and we think it's all part of the culture of the game, and by the way Keith, a lot of referees are rotten. The likes of Bennett, Riley and Stiles are outrageously poor on a consistent basis and the media should reflect this, not bite its tongue for fear of tarring everyone with the same brush.
Hackett's meeting this week at the BBC sounds like another attempt to neuter the game and its most vociferous critics. It's worked on most of the TV coverage, but it's unacceptable, and I'm sure Alan Green for one will be quick to tell him so.
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