A bit of a moan – On My Radio

It’s said in some quarters that the BBC’s standards are slipping. If so, 5Live appear to be applying the grease.


In the space of two days I was forced to turn the radio off twice rather than listen to the inane chat coming from the mouths of Alan Green and Robbie Savage – or dumb and dumber as I like to think of them.

Am I the only one who can’t understand a bloody word Green is saying just before – and then when - a goal is scored? He seems to scream inaudibly for a few seconds and then, after he’s calmed down and taken a deep breath, he finally describes what has happened – a good five seconds after the event. These days you could read a description of the goal on Twitter by the time his brain engages.

I deal with footballer players, week in, week out and can honestly say that the widely held belief that they are thick is generally unfounded.

Unfortunately Savage seems to plays up to that stereotype every time he opens his mouth and does the whole profession a disservice in the process. However, everything is always “in my own personal opinion” and so I will at least give him credit for taking the blame.

Last weekend on 606 he was harping on about shirt pulling and cynical fouls being “part of the game”, but missed the point the caller was trying to make about it not being entertaining for the people paying money to watch.

And yes, we know it goes on Robbie (some of us with a lot less talent even do it in five-a-side games at the local leisure centres), but as free kicks are given when you pull shirts and commit cynical fouls, they are obviously against the rules and therefore not 'supposed' to be part of the game.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those people calling for Robbie’s head every time he puts his foot in to a fifty-fifty challenge – it’s only when he puts his foot in his gob that he winds me up.

It’s an old media trick using a radio presenter or a newspaper columnist to get the listener’s or reader’s juices flowing – just enough to make them want come back for more punishment as a masochist might when visiting a very good dominatrix.

Well for this punter the Beeb have gone too far by employing the over-sadistic whiplash twins and I’ll continue switching off whenever I hear them struggling to string a sentence together.