Monday 24 January 2011

Where Were You When It (Football) Was Shit?

Hey, we've never really needed Peter Sissons to point out the predominance of left-leaning ideology at the BBC, but the orgy of outrage at today's Sky Sports sexism non-story is astonishing even by their standards.

Don't get me wrong, Keys and Gray were monumentally stupid and their remarks rather puerile, but the orgasm of righteous over-reaction beggars belief.

All day long, it's been "are they bigots?", "how must they be punished?", "should they be sacked?", "should their balls be cut off?", "should they be sacked and have their balls cut off?", with any defence that football is a male-oriented game where - oddly enough - stupid and/or puerile remarks have always been prevalent, being dismissed as sexist apologism.

As one would expect, the Graun weighs in heavily too, with the usually world news-centric CiF posting up article after gleeful article, including this one by Georgina Turner writing about ... the comments to a previous CiF article on the same subject.

I don't suppose the fact that Rupert Murdoch owns Sky Sports may have more than a little to do with it, might it? It's a perfect whirlwind for the axis of lefty British media. Sexism is a big attraction, but sexism in Murdoch's empire is fucking irresistible!

Unfortunately, this leaves Keys and Gray as patsies - their lives to be now manipulated for the sake of political expediency. Georgina even describes 24 hours as "depressing as the length of time Sky took to react with disciplinary action". Yes, that's right, not quick enough! Someone of the left - you know, the ones who brought in employment laws so prickly that even sacking someone for tossing off on a secretary's desk requires serious deliberation - presumably considers that Sky were improper in not just throwing them out of the building instantly.

It's that important, see?

What a crock of shit!

Keys, it would appear, burbled a reference to one of the most lazily clichéd critiques of women, that being their lack of understanding of the offside rule, and this is being taken to mean that he doesn't understand the training that the lino in question would have received. Come on now, people, the guy's life has revolved around football for 20 years since he left TV-AM where he was known for his hairy hands while broadcasting to a predominantly female audience. I'm pretty sure he is well aware that the woman knows how to spot an offside, that's as lame an accusation as it's possible to get from supposedly educated individuals, even if only out for a politically-motivated turkey shoot.

I'm wondering where the outrage is towards TV adverts featuring women dreaming of a hunky guy to replace their fat, ignorant, useless couch potato husband; or the ones portraying men too backward to use a kitchen surface cleaner spray; or totally incapable of empathy or fashion unless they're gay? Because all men are pigs or potential rapists ... yes, you know full well opinions such as that are articulated regularly.

Now, just swap the genders above and imagine the professionally-offended nuclear explosion that would ensue. By comparison, Keys's remarks appear positively tame.

But there's one more depressing aspect to all this, encapsulated in a Georgina Taylor subordinate clause which is inherently North London in its crafting.

for some, laddish behaviour is more precious to their football experience than gender equality
What the blithering fuck? Football is - or always used to be - precisely about laddish behaviour. Lads would go to stand in the cold with their mates, following in the footsteps - and often the teams - of their fathers, I don't recall 'gender equality' ever having any fucking thing to do with the football experience.

Of course, the middle class lefties who have helped to gentrify the game, thereby pricing out large swathes of the working classes who supported it from its 19th century origins, are more interested in altering the politically-correct presentation than they are the raucous testosterone release it used to offer. They'll buy their hideouly expensive season tickets to illustrate an earthy appreciation of the working man's sport, but insist it adapts to suit their suit their equality and diversity-led sensibilities.

Nick Hornby, an Arsenal fan (where are they from again?) bemoaned the very phenomenon in Fever Pitch. He argued that the “vicarious and parasitical” nature of football fandom - alluding to the swearing and non-PC outlook of regular attendees - was a vital ingredient to the spectacle which has brought the less-tolerant to the party in the first place.

“Who will make the noise now? Will the suburban middle-class kids and their mums and dads still come if they have to generate it themselves? Or will they feel that they have been conned. Because in effect the clubs have sold them a ticket to a show in which the principal attraction has been moved to make room for them."
Now we see the Beeb/Guardian pincer movement demanding the last vestiges of male ribaldry be removed from even unguarded private conversations between Sky presenters.

How ironic is it that lefties should so deride Sky for this ... when the injection of Murdoch's millions was the very stimulus which sexed up football and ripped it away from those whose language and opinions the righteous despise.

Without Sky, the pathetic bile we've seen from Georgina, her Graun chums, and the BBC today couldn't have been uttered without attracting hysterical ridicule.


19 comments:

Snowolf said...

Yep, a non-story. Keys and Gray are idiots (well there's a shock), who have become so smug in their little comfort zone they think they are untouchable.

They shouldn't be sacked, but should be made to cover women's football where the officiating is fine, but the goalkeeping is hilarious.

Oooops. Did I just write that?

marksany said...

I hope, through the lack of support Keys and Gray are getting, that Sky execs see that they do not matter to viewers of Sky sport and can be sacked with impunity. Just for being rubbish.

Dick Puddlecote said...

Snowolf: Yes, you did. Cricket is my game, and it's completely different there. They're really good, honest.

Marksany: I used to think they were quite good, but admit I haven't watched Prem football since 2002.

Snowolf said...

Ah yes, well, cricket is a proper sport, rather than a wage bill with a bit of running around attached.

Our girls are proper good at it as well. Much more civilised.

SadButMadLad said...

Overheard a comment from my niece about the story - "I've heard this story all day, everyone should get over it. They said something, they were wrong, they got punished, end of story."

Scottie said...

Another storm in a tea cup.

They were stupid to say the things they did and naive to think the microphone is ever off.

Why they couldn't just be b*llocked and then get on with their jobs is beyond me.

This, like the Jonathan Ross furore, has been blown out of all proportion to fill column inches and nothing more.

PT Barnum said...

Putting aside my cricket-obsessive's brain temporarily (and the dramatic change of fortune being witnessed in the land of the roo), those of us who have, for decades, supported a team in the lower reaches of the professional leagues are well used to seeing women officials (who are as good, bad or indifferent as their male counterparts), and even, heaven forfend, hearing bad words and seeing good old-fashioned tackles without the prima donna hysterics. The Prem is not football as we know and love-hate it, it's like the ballet and opera with more expensive tickets and less entertainment.

@Snowolf, I heard some audio of the same duo commenting on the women's FA Cup final from a few years back and chuckling nastily to themselves. I would rather see them cover pigeon racing or angling.

Leg-iron said...

Didn't the Brown Gorgon make some idiotic remark while forgetting his microphone was on?

That seems to have been forgiven.

It should really be brought up every time any off-air remark is leaked, broadcast and criticised.

Why? Because his gaffe while Prime Monster trumps anything anyone else could possibly say.

Unless we get a recording of Cameron referring to a constituent as a 'noisome oik', it'll never be beaten.

joe said...

Keys and gray are idiots.But your right this is a non story.

Where was i when football was shit?
On the terraces fucking loving it,that was before the time women were forced to have a "favourite team"

Where am i now football is "good"?not there so often.And if a cetain club move out of north london,i will be there even less.

The haert end soul was ripped out of football the day the premiership was born

t said...

Can someone tell me whether, if I tell a sexist joke, that makes me sexist?

Presumably logic (Offside rule is complicated, and women in general don't care about football, therefore don't bother to learn about a complicated uninteresting thing, therefore don't understand the offside rule) is no defense?

I am Stan said...

Yo Dickie,

I used to enjoy footy, then I grew up some,being herded around by the police, invited to sit in the freezing cold and eat an over priced shit pie while listening to large gangs of braindead window lickers shout "you *uckin* *un*" etc for ninety minutes at opposing players, their own players, opposing fans and referees, lost its appeal when I became self aware aged 5.

Watching overpaid, infantile girly men kick a bag of wind around in a field, falling on the grass in tears of agony whenever an opposing player ruffles their hair style and abusing the ref when he refuses to fellate their Godly member like their team mates WAGS do regularly has me checking the yellow pages for my nearest gun shop.

As for dumb and dumber, well I hope they get sacked and are left to wail in self pity and a sense of injustice on the celeb trash heap, not only are these spoilt,dull, overpaid mouth breathers suffering from delusions of grandeur but were laughably totally wrong about the lineswomans (see what I did there) decision regarding the offside.

What hese man boys,as (god knows why) respected commentators did through their spite and ignorance do was drag the culture of "the beautiful game" back another couple of years to the Cro-Magnon period, when those who truly love the game and respect both genders right to participate without prejudice are trying to drag football culture kicking and screaming into at least the 18th century.

Good luck to any women going into football, kick em where it hurts!
Rugby`s a much better sport mind,courageous players, civilized fans and commentators with brains in this century...;)

To dull and duller...she`s a woman,get over it!

JuliaM said...

Can I say, as a female, I've no idea what the offside rule is.

Nor do I care. In fact, I don't care about it almost as much as I don't care if a couple of football commentators are 'insufficiency respectful to women'.

But I would LOVE to see the right-on crowd taking on a Jamaican dance hall compare on the same grounds... ;)

Ivan D said...

I am not normally a Mail Online reader but I will congratulate them on publishing the extract from Peter Sisson’s book that you link to at the beginning of this piece.

Now I understand why BBC news output seems to be of such poor quality and so biased to me. I thought I might be being oversensitive or personally biased but it appears that it isn’t me that’s the problem.

The lady at the centre of all this ridiculous guff seems pretty good at her job which to be honest is more than I can say for Andy Gray but I may be alone in finding him an annoying bore.

Longrider said...

So... What's this offside rule all about, then? Not a footie fan, you may guess ;)

Anonymous said...

Andy Gray sacked with Andy Burton now suspended.

Unfucking believable.

Ed Butt said...

Right Dick, non - story.

Slightly off main topic maybe but I never got this PC thing about gay guys being oh-so-well-dressed.
There's well dressed and there's self conscious hey-look-at-me dressed.
And the fashion victim faction of gays would contrive to be overdressed at a state banquet.

Wouldn't it be great if we could all get back to saying what we think in public.

John M said...

This one is a bit curious I think. The comments were recorded off camera and leaked to the Press.

So the question is : who benefitted from the leak to the Press? Who was able to retrieve off camera footage and feed it to the wolves?

I mean Andy Grey acted like a bit of a dick but who wanted him out of the way enough to do this?

That is the real story.

Anonymous said...

John....

Isnt Gray suing News Intl for phone tapping?

The same News Intl that is owned by Murdoch

The same Murdoch that owns a large chunk of Sky

Not wanting to sound cynical, but.....

Dick Puddlecote said...

Good to see News Corp - who brought us page 3 - sticking to their principles. ;)