The January Transfer Window

Its “silly season” in the exciting world of English Football. This is a time where players can be bought and sold or loaned out for just one month only; which can have a large effect on a club’s eventual success or failure for the rest of the season. Chairmen and managers worry about potential incomings and outgoings from their club whilst greedy agents, players and the press all get a collective hard-on for the money, exposure and acclaim that they possibly could enjoy. Welcome to the January Transfer Window.

Even if you couldn’t give one solitary shit about football never mind which overpaid bellend any useless fucking manager wants to sign, you’re entrapped by it. If you’ve managed to avoid all the press by some stroke of genius or undeserved luck, a quick jaunt to the local shop will render you defenceless from the impending shitstorm heading for your ears. Your friends and acquaintances are more often than not the guiltiest parties. It’s in the pub, it’s at the dinner table and it’s most notably in the workplace, where the most un-athletic tedious bore always wishes to talk about it with anyone who’s unfortunate to be in ear shot. 

Sky Sports News are the chief architects of this month of nonsense. The channel essentially goes into overdrive during January. The bright yellow breaking news line at the bottom of the screen seems to be a never ending list of what may happen, what has happened, what someone thinks of what might happen and what someone think would happen if what may happen would eventually happen.  The BREAKING NEWS of a player taking a piss into a pot or whatever they assess on medicals suddenly becomes more important than the job cuts, the VAT rise and Jordan’s brand new divorce all put together.  It’s not only Sky Sports News that are to blame. Each daily newspaper has pages devoted to hearsay, insider information and expert analysis from columnists by people as intelligent as Ian Wright.

Their websites also include ‘Transfer Centres’ where in simply pressing refresh on your keypad you can catch up on all the transfer stories that have happened in the past nanosecond. It’s almost like watching the vidi-printer on a Saturday afternoon with goals and results coming through; except there are no goals and no results but only a regurgitation of what is spinning around every available media outlet about any potential transfer. 

The resident expert on the Sky Sports website is none other than Paul Merson. If anyone has ever sat down to enjoy Soccer Saturday with Jeff Stelling they will appreciate the word ‘expert’ and Paul Merson should never belong on the same page. He has an innate ability to think of one word to describe a player or a piece of play then sets out to repeat it over and over like a small child yearning for attention just because they’ve recently learnt how to wipe their arse all by themselves.  I just hope his ghost writer has some patience either that or a huge dictionary to hit him over the head with.

The most annoying part of the transfer window, any transfer window for that matter is how self-important and smug certain reporters on Sky Sports News become. The clear winner of biggest twat in the office must go to ‘chief football reporter’ Bryan Swanson. This guy is so pleased with himself that he probably thinks he shits diamonds. When he stands in front of his huge transfer board, he emits the prospect that he is in control of the football transfer market. Not clubs, players or agents. Oh no; they pale in comparison to the power and influence one cock of a sports journalist has with his huge shiny computer transfer board and his black book full of transfer window groupies.

A month long transfer window in January enforced by an control crazy authoritative board run by a sexist and senile neutral nutcase has now become a focal point now of any football season. Its importance to clubs, managers and players futures can make many act in haste signing players they don’t need or require or paying over the odds for someone they think will save their season. The importance that this period is exacerbated by the media tenfold where they control their supposed influence on events. Therein lays their problem. They don’t have any influence, they just purport to. They use all their new shiny gadgets, 10000+ presenters at every possible location; resident ex-players acting as experts; and smug self satisfying pricks like Bryan Swanson to make everyone believe that they matter. But we’re all drawn in, the maybes and possibilities of him, them, they of moving in out and elsewhere seems just too important to miss out on. Internet discussion forums teem with every fan wanting to have their two pence worth whilst phone lines on radio stations such as Talksport are rammed with callers wanting to air their opinion.  Sky Sports News promises all sorts of exclusives and what’s ‘coming next’ and we’re hooked. We simply can’t help ourselves. Anyway I must dash, its top of the hour and I want (downright have to) to catch the transfer gossip because, you know haven’t you heard…………………….?

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.