Review of The Football League Show
The BBC's new Soccer Highlights Show is more Miss than Hit
The first thing viewers notice about The Football League Show is that it seems to be filmed inside a warehouse. The set is huge, the cameras unsure where to point as they take in walkways that lead off into the darkness, miles of iron railings and a table big enough to accommodate the Last Supper, though its only occupants are presenter, Manish Bhasin, and Steve Claridge, chief pundit.
Bhasin presents in the style of someone who's daunted by the sheer enormity of his surroundings. As though trained to be nervous before the camera, his style is one fit of giggles away from being shambolic. Opposite him, Claridge is the man of steel. Apparently in full knowledge of every inside detail about all 72 league clubs, he’s an authorative presence, and even when he's not he still has the air of someone who sounds like he'd hold his own in any two-pint conversation. The Football League Show also employs a female anchor, whose one, frankly thankless role is to sift through viewers’ e-mails and read them out on air. As all those endless phone-in shows have demonstrated, none of the resulting material adds anything substantial to the experience.
Problems with Scheduling Matches
One problem with the show is one it can’t resolve easily. With so many teams to cover, actually doing justice to the wealth of football from which the researchers have to compile highlights is no easy task. The featured matches are selected virtually at random, unless Newcastle are playing, in which case they get top billing apparently as a rule. To some extent, the schedulers can’t be blamed for this. One of England’s best supported clubs and currently deep in a crisis of their own making, the relegated Newcastle are a novelty as well as providing endlessly good copy. At the same time, the sheer imbalance in coverage is at best irritating to supporters of the other 71 sides in the show’s remit, and at worst simply insulting.
Failing to follow Match of the Day's example
But by far the programme’s greatest sin is its effort to provide a ‘magazine’ feel to the proceedings. As roving reporter, Clem, is sent around the country to provide some needless reportage on a subject of limited interest, and Bhasin begs the viewers for their opinions, the BBC seems to forget what made its flagship football show, Match of the Day, so successful. Here, the format – which has been followed slavishly since MOTD returned to UK screens in 1992 – is simple, and irresistibly effective. Extended highlights of the day’s games are followed by analysis from pundits of varying ability. Audiences can take their choice from the good (Alan Hansen), the bad (the dour, cynical-for-the-sake Mark Lawrenson) and the ugly (a former professional who's obviously out of his depth; the show seems to favour Alan Shearer these days), and part of the fun is in disagreeing with what they have to say. The whole deal is presided over by a smooth, unflappable Gary Lineker, who appears to treat the format like it’s a pub chat with his mates. If MOTD sounds dull, then that’s because it is. Kind of. Crucially, the excitement comes from the football on display. Studio banter plays second fiddle to the highlights, which is exactly how it should be.
This is a lesson The Football League Show is yet to learn. As though the show’s producers are perpetually frightened that match highlights and compilation clips of goals aren’t going to be entertaining enough on their own merits, they seem intent on adding gimmicks and needless waffle to a format that has proved itself over the years. It's to be hoped that the show will settle down as the football season develops.
Neil Warnock's Timely Rant
In the most recent episode (screened Saturday, 15 August), Bhasin talked to Crystal Palace manager, Neil Warnock, following a match in which his side had lost, thanks partly to a disallowed goal that had clearly crossed the line. Warnock, never one to hide his feelings and almost always angry, was asked by the presenter whether he was disappointed, prompting a rant that cut into the deathly quiet of the cavernous set and, for a brief moment, brought it sharply to life. Here was a man who had trained and prepared his squad all week for the match, only to fail on the whim of a linesman’s error. Warnock did everything but swear live on air as he raved about the injustice, a priceless glimpse of real drama for the audience before he was quickly ushered off and boring normality returned.
What do you think about this article?
Latest Articles