Match of the Day (MOTD), that weekly festival of English Premiership football proceeded this weekend without its anker man (‘w’ omitted by our sensitivity reader) Gary Lineker, and he was joined in his absence by two of the Linekerati: Alan Shearer and Ian Wright. Unsurprisingly the viewing figures have skyrocketed, and the BBC might get the message that nobody wants this bunch of pea-brained pundits brandishing their high-status virtue signals and obstructing the beautiful game.
The controversy stems from Gary tweeting and comparing the UK to the Third Reich over government proposals to limit the invasion by boatloads of spongers from war ravaged France. All this despite the fact that these people continue to arrive by the thousand on our beaches while, if my history book did not deceive me, folk were trying to leave Nazi Germany by the thousand. How long before he compares the luxury hotels which many of them are forced to live in to concentration camps?
When my own team (Hull City AFC) is in the Premiership I watch MOTD regularly. Thankfully, due to incredibly bad ownership until recently, I have been spared MOTD for several years. Lineker receives an exorbitant fee for ‘presenting’ MOTD but, really, how hard can it be? He seems terminally bored, boasts two stock phrases: ‘Welcome to Match of the Day’ at the start; and ‘That’s it from Match of the Day for this week’ at the end. Other than that he says: ‘and now over to Anfield/The Emirates/Old Trafford for Liverpool/Arsenal/Manchester United versus…’; while in between it’s: ‘So, what do you make of that Alan/Ian?’ We are then treated to such a stream of convoluted inanities that you are no less clear on whether that decision really was offside, or if the referee is, in fact, a visually impaired twat.
The only variation in the programme are the approaches of Shearer and Wright who, if they were one person, would be described as bipolar. Shearer’s default setting is to be completely unenthusiastic about anything, with Wright’s default setting the exact opposite. Shearer speaks with the droll monotony of a Free Church of Scotland preacher, albeit with a Geordie accent, and Wright chirps on in a cheeky Cockney barrow boy accent. How relieved the footballing public must have been to have MOTD uninterrupted by these overpaid windbags sounding off between games.
It is said that Lineker is hired because of his ‘knowledge of the game’ and, presumably, the other two likewise. God knows, it is not for their personalities. If they do have that mystical trait called ‘knowledge of the game’ then they conceal it very well, and I can think of half a dozen lesser footballing mortals who could do the job better. Phil Brown, formerly manager of Hull City for one and Dean Windass (when sober) are genuinely funny and do seem to be knowledgeable. Both have Premiership experience as has Jamie Bullard, also of Hull City and they do very well on other channels. If we need pundits at all I reckon that whatever the viewing figures at the moment, these three would double them.
But back to what all this is about: Gary and his interminable tweeting. He has been in the news before for tweeting what he thinks about matters political, and accused of violating the BBC’s rules on impartiality. This time he seems to have gone too far and as a result has had to take a break from MOTD, sitting it out on the naughty step while the BBC decide how long before they reinstate him. Frankly, I could not care less what he tweets about but what I do object to is that this has been wall-to-wall front-page news for days.
The BBC investigating someone for impartiality is like Rudolf Hess investigating war crimes. The BBC gave up its impartiality long ago and this has been obvious over issues such as Brexit, Covid-19 and the war in the Ukraine. I say, let Gary Lineker tweet all he likes. I won’t pay any attention, and neither should you.
Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He is a columnist with Unity News Network and writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.
