tweedle dum and tweedle dumb
When asked for his view’s on a woman’s place in football, Ron Atkinson replied, having given it due thought and consideration, “in the kitchen, the bedroom and the discotheque”. Thankfully, it was over 20 years ago and Big-Ron was managing Sheffield Wednesday at the time which surely throws all of his opinions into question. Times have moved on of course and my, how they haven’t changed!
There is no need for me to repeat verbatim the comments made by Sky ‘reporters’ Andy Gray and Richard Keys concerning amongst several others, lineswoman Sian Massey (I can’t bring myself to call them ‘assistant referees’), only to say what a couple of outdated nitwits and numbskulls. Listening to what they said, and to HOW they said it, there was nothing harmless or funny about it. There was no humour, no lightness of touch, no self-deprecation or irony. Gray sounded like the toothless lion he obviously is, unable no longer to make the headlines he appears arrogant and condescending. If ever there was a more obvious case of the older he gets the better footballer he used to be, I certainly haven’t come across it and I, for one, am glad he’s obviously achieved what he’s always wanted in becoming the story once again! As for Mr. Keys I had the misfortune of seeming him perform ‘live’ only the other month as he turned on the Christmas lights in Sunningdale. Whilst he obviously relished his ‘celebrity’ status I have to inform you he was underwhelming in the extreme, lacked any level of charisma or personality and appeared to have great trouble in speaking ‘off script’ in joined up words. Yet another example of TV elevating an individual to a position they are unworthy of and who fails to realise their own lack of significance. Small wonder they were unpopular with both their colleagues and the public at large.
Of course I’ll admit that I, like most of the blokes I know and hang around with, do have a laugh, a joke and a whinge about the often incomprehensible opposite sex but there is a context and a humour to it. The former is I’m not being paid for my opinions, I’m not being placed on a pedestal of any sort, my words are treated as no more than the uttering’s of a drink-addled Northern buffoon and of course, you can’t live with ‘em…and you can’t live with ‘em. The latter is that every time I get on court, on a bike, in the pool or on the track I’m invariably out-played, out-ridden, out-swam and out-run by none other than a member of the fairer sex!
NB Remember it could be worse: Australian sports commentator, Jacqueline Magnay was once told to ‘go home and wash the dishes’ live on air by Aussie rules coach Danny Frawley. Ouch.
