SkyDaz Banter: Pre-Fulham

The Mighty Blues deservedly beat Newcastle and in typical tradition the opportunity to gloat was cruelly snatched away from me by Sky Sports electing to show Wycombe v Wednesday, on a Monday! Don’t worry folks that Geordie will be getting plenty of stick the next Monday Night Show.

As some of you will have seen the format of the show has changed. Gone are the Chuckle Brothers double act of Richard Keys and Andy Gray to be replaced by Ian Payne. The first Monday Night Show also had Alan Smith (the ex Arsenal one!) and Matt Le Tissier on board for their insight into the opening day’s action. Alan Smith pointed out that he had been to St Andrews on a few occasions last season reporting for Sky and thought that the passion of the crowd was often worth a goal for the Blues. I wondered if he was intimating that our penalty was suspicious, surely not! Smudger was keen to let it be known that contrary to the much held belief that he is a Villa fan he is actually one of the few people who support all Midland clubs and wants them all to do well. A very noble belief but I am sure Smudger would be stumped by the old Norman Tebbitt question, Villa v Blues, who are you cheering for? In fairness he did berate Ian Payne for not talking to me about the Spurs match and was genuinely interested our progress. I don’t think Le Tissier cared at all!

It can be frustrating being on the show and not speaking but it is the director calling the shots and not the presenters. The director is trying to ensure a live show fits into the time slot available and this will be obvious to the folks watching at home as some weeks there appears to be ages on certain games and a brief replay of the goals from others. All fans claim the regional bias although this is rightly refuted by Sky. As Blues fans we have to accept that teams such as Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea will have more airtime than we will. All we can do is keep singing our hearts out and cheering the boys on. They are certainly giving us something to crow about, now where did I put that Geordie’s email address?

Darren Porter

3.09.03

Article reproduced with kind permission of the BCFC official matchday programme.