Football Biscuits

"I've talked to the manager and the owners and they've convinced me this is where I belong." Let me give you a rough translation. “I talked to the manager and the owners and they wilted to mine and my representative’s demands and as a result I’m considerably richer than I was before”.      

Wayne Rooney has signed a new five-year contract with Manchester United. This is only three days after his manager Alex Ferguson’s impassioned press conference stating Rooney wanted to leave the club. This ridiculous turnaround is indicative of the absurdity football reaches these days in the press. Only one week ago, the tumultuous sale of Liverpool Football Club was concluded. We were subjected to around the clock bollocks consisting of on location reporting outside courts, training grounds and stadiums; legal experts proving how clever they are; and club ‘legends’ asking to display their ability to have both an opinion and an arsehole. Sky Sports News as ever has been at the forefront of this coverage now reminding everyone who is paying attention that ‘you can get all the latest’ in shiny HD. Why it’s necessary to watch someone reporting possible eventualities from the possible location at the time when it will possibly be concluded in HD, is beyond me. A couple of months back when Sky Sports News was removed from freeview, people were in uproar as they would now have to concentrate for more than 30 seconds when turning on their television; or alternatively engage in lifeless conversation that they previously could have avoided. They must be thanking the person responsible for that decision as they can now instead avoid furore surrounding earth shattering BREAKING SPORTS NEWS such as Frank Lampard has shaved his chest, John Terry’s Dad is now dealing heroin or Wayne Rooney has consumed a cupcake. On location reporting breaking news has been with us for a while now and has been appropriately savaged by others for its ridiculousness. The breaking news training ground reports from Sky always seem to focus on the individual’s car and how it’s being driven away like they’re giving them marks out of ten for swerve, acceleration and whether or not they were able to run over any reporters from the BBC.
    Upon the launch of Sky Sports News HD, we were invited to log on to their website and download the podcast to catch ‘exclusive behind the scenes footage’ of them doing….? Anyway, I refused to waste my time with that but I was fortunate to see some behind the scenes footage during a recent visit from boxers David Haye and Audley Harrison. As the boxers walked through the corridors to the studio I noticed that the pictures of all the presenters lined the walls. It was like a really shit hall of fame where really plain faced boring bellends in black suits and blonde tarts with adequate cleavage and gloss were awarded for conforming to the channel's image as self-important and relevant.  Georgie Thompson is probably the presenter that irks me the most. She’s clearly king bitch of shit mountain. Her voice swirls round unfortunate people’s heads all day like a nagging step mum reminding you to keep bang to up date with all the latest bullshit. Mike Wedderburn is the bloke I presume gets on most viewers nerves. His little morning jokes and ad-libs are excruciating and have often resulted in me shouting FUCK OFF at the TV at 7am resulting in me spilling my cornflakes all over the floor and probably waking up my neighbours.
    For many viewers, Sky Sports News is unavoidable. When you get home from a long day at work, you turn on the television and it feels like the default setting is set to the channel. If you sit down in front of the TV at a couple of minutes past the hour or past the half hour, you will inevitably turn on Sky Sports News or another news channel. You’ve already missed the start of an interesting documentary about nature on Discovery and you can’t really handle watching an old episode of Top Gear on Dave, so you bang on the sports news and wait until the next half hour rolls in. But then you are enticed by what’s coming up and think ‘I’ll just watch the headlines’. Then you find yourself back in the same scenario watching the same stories yet again, missing something actually worth watching and getting Georgie Thompson’s annoyingly deep voice swirling around your head.  Freeview has taken all this nonsense and pain away for many of us. For the rest with Sky or digital boxes, the hell continues, but at least it’s in HD I guess.