Changing of the guard
The BBC’s coverage of the Masters snooker this week is happening without one of its most recognisable voices. The decision to dispense of Clive Everton’s services is the latest in a long line of such moves by the Beeb, who have now got rid of nearly all of their long-serving commentators. Bosses insist that age has not been a factor in their decisions, but there is a general televisual drive towards pushing younger, supposedly more dynamic personalities into the foreground and your Bruce Forsythes and Peter Allisses are very much the exceptions that prove the rule.
In sporting terms, the modern trend is to appoint famous former stars to replace the veterans who’ve been forced into retirement. There have undeniably been successes on this front, Sam Torrance, Steve Cram and Andy Jamieson to name a few BBC examples. But equally there are those that confirm the belief, which applies to commentators and pundits/trackside interviewers alike, that just because you’re famous for excelling at a sport doesn’t automatically mean you’ll be any good at talking about it. At least the Beeb admitted they made a mistake by appointing Peter Schmeichel and jettisoned the big Dane fairly sharpish, however they’ve yet to do the same with Shearer, Lawrenson or Garth Crooks, for whose verbal skills I’ve never heard anything but disdain. And dearie me, there’s no doubt that Kelly Holmes was a fantastic athlete but she’s one of the least charismatic or articulate speakers ever to appear on the box.
The sheer number of ex-sportsmen and women now working in TV is amazing. Only a few Olympics ago, there would be pretty much one commentator for each sport (except athletics), a couple of studio anchors and a handful of reporters and interviewers. In Beijing, most sports had the two-man combo of one play-by-play guy and one analyst in the booth, plus for all the major sports (or the ones in which we had good chances of winning stuff, if you prefer) you had a host or interviewer right there at the event, e.g. John Inverdale for the rowing, Jill Douglas for the cycling, Sharron Davies for the swimming. That was on top of the studio anchors and all their guests, and for the athletics Sue Barker was permanently in the company of Michael Johnson and Colin Jackson.
The coverage was mostly superb, as you’d expect with all those resources, but I wouldn’t say the quality of the commentary was exponentially better. It certainly suggests that the modern strategy for sports coverage is a greater quantity of talking heads to perhaps compensate for the loss of sheer enjoyability that the older heads brought to proceedings. Wimbledon is a very good example of this - it’s now the norm to have three men commentating on one match, and unless that team includes the superb John McEnroe it’s never really riveting to listen to. Andrew Castle is smoothness personified but you’d never swap a team of him, John Lloyd and Tim Henman (blandness personified - what else did they expect when hiring him?) for a single John Barrett or Dan Maskell given the choice.
Coming back to snooker, and with Clive Everton gone the booth and studio are now stacked with veteran and ex players, who have made the transition with varying degrees of success. Steve Davis is a quality analyst, and as a 6-time world champion you implicitly hang on his every word. Then you have Willie Thorne, who you would assume had won as many titles as Davis if you didn’t know any better, such is the rather smug, know-it-all nature of his commentary. In a Guardian article last Saturday about Everton’s demise, David Vine gave a telling quote:
In sporting terms, the modern trend is to appoint famous former stars to replace the veterans who’ve been forced into retirement. There have undeniably been successes on this front, Sam Torrance, Steve Cram and Andy Jamieson to name a few BBC examples. But equally there are those that confirm the belief, which applies to commentators and pundits/trackside interviewers alike, that just because you’re famous for excelling at a sport doesn’t automatically mean you’ll be any good at talking about it. At least the Beeb admitted they made a mistake by appointing Peter Schmeichel and jettisoned the big Dane fairly sharpish, however they’ve yet to do the same with Shearer, Lawrenson or Garth Crooks, for whose verbal skills I’ve never heard anything but disdain. And dearie me, there’s no doubt that Kelly Holmes was a fantastic athlete but she’s one of the least charismatic or articulate speakers ever to appear on the box.
The sheer number of ex-sportsmen and women now working in TV is amazing. Only a few Olympics ago, there would be pretty much one commentator for each sport (except athletics), a couple of studio anchors and a handful of reporters and interviewers. In Beijing, most sports had the two-man combo of one play-by-play guy and one analyst in the booth, plus for all the major sports (or the ones in which we had good chances of winning stuff, if you prefer) you had a host or interviewer right there at the event, e.g. John Inverdale for the rowing, Jill Douglas for the cycling, Sharron Davies for the swimming. That was on top of the studio anchors and all their guests, and for the athletics Sue Barker was permanently in the company of Michael Johnson and Colin Jackson.
The coverage was mostly superb, as you’d expect with all those resources, but I wouldn’t say the quality of the commentary was exponentially better. It certainly suggests that the modern strategy for sports coverage is a greater quantity of talking heads to perhaps compensate for the loss of sheer enjoyability that the older heads brought to proceedings. Wimbledon is a very good example of this - it’s now the norm to have three men commentating on one match, and unless that team includes the superb John McEnroe it’s never really riveting to listen to. Andrew Castle is smoothness personified but you’d never swap a team of him, John Lloyd and Tim Henman (blandness personified - what else did they expect when hiring him?) for a single John Barrett or Dan Maskell given the choice.
Coming back to snooker, and with Clive Everton gone the booth and studio are now stacked with veteran and ex players, who have made the transition with varying degrees of success. Steve Davis is a quality analyst, and as a 6-time world champion you implicitly hang on his every word. Then you have Willie Thorne, who you would assume had won as many titles as Davis if you didn’t know any better, such is the rather smug, know-it-all nature of his commentary. In a Guardian article last Saturday about Everton’s demise, David Vine gave a telling quote:
"... Apparently, as we have seen in many other sports covered by the BBC, the trend is for celebrities, former players and star names to be invited to do the job of professional journalists and trained broadcasters."
Sadly, of course, Vine died a few days later. Barry Davies, David Coleman, Gerald Sinstadt, Hamilton Bland, Bill Maclaren, Alex Hay... they’re all gone from our screens too. It’s not the end of the world. As I say, some of these star names make for very good commentators. But it’s hard not to look at the above list and wonder whether the career commentator, with all the skill, finesse and above all impartiality that comes with him, is soon to become a thing of the past.
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