Jesus. That is the most unintelligent op-ed I have yet read about the Ian Wright case. My overall opinion is closer to that of DurkheimwasRight (thankfully the 2nd comment down) – Wright was abysmal and so, frankly are the rest of them.
2 things though do need to be said, not in any what whatsoever as a defence of Jacques, but just because they need to be said.
1. The BBC is riven top to toe with problems in this regard. I don’t think the BBC football coverage is in any way transparently racist: the African Nations cup is well covered and Marcel Desailly seems to be almost revered in the studio, not to mention Stan Collymore’s airtime on 5 Live showing that if someone is good, it doesn’t matter who he is or what he does or what colour he is, he will get his time. However, there is a nasty undercurrent to the coverage in some respects. Garth Crooks, for example, is a knowledgeable commentator whose eccentricity provides a ready excuse for repulsive schoolyard bullying by the Lineker/Hansen axis. Lineker is a particularly unpleasant offender in the piss-taking stakes and the whole atmosphere is deeply deeply sinister when they are together. Loathsome is a word that springs readily to mind.
2. A far far more important issue for the BBC than whether Ian Wright continues for them (he was no worse than Peter Schmeichel in that both were so abject as to make comparison/evaluation otiose) is that they have continued with the Hansen/Lineker axis in the face of years of overwhelming arguments for their consignment to the fucking furnace. For goodness sake do these boys not watch RTE? Johnny Giles, Eeamonn Dunphy and Liam Brady (anchored by Bill O’Herlihy) provide more insight and value in a single show than Lineker/Hansen have done in a fucking decade. That sounds like an exagerration. It isn’t.
Jesus. That is the most unintelligent op-ed I have yet read about the Ian Wright case. My overall opinion is closer to that of DurkheimwasRight (thankfully the 2nd comment down) – Wright was abysmal and so, frankly are the rest of them.
2 things though do need to be said, not in any what whatsoever as a defence of Jacques, but just because they need to be said.
1. The BBC is riven top to toe with problems in this regard. I don’t think the BBC football coverage is in any way transparently racist: the African Nations cup is well covered and Marcel Desailly seems to be almost revered in the studio, not to mention Stan Collymore’s airtime on 5 Live showing that if someone is good, it doesn’t matter who he is or what he does or what colour he is, he will get his time. However, there is a nasty undercurrent to the coverage in some respects. Garth Crooks, for example, is a knowledgeable commentator whose eccentricity provides a ready excuse for repulsive schoolyard bullying by the Lineker/Hansen axis. Lineker is a particularly unpleasant offender in the piss-taking stakes and the whole atmosphere is deeply deeply sinister when they are together. Loathsome is a word that springs readily to mind.
2. A far far more important issue for the BBC than whether Ian Wright continues for them (he was no worse than Peter Schmeichel in that both were so abject as to make comparison/evaluation otiose) is that they have continued with the Hansen/Lineker axis in the face of years of overwhelming arguments for their consignment to the fucking furnace. For goodness sake do these boys not watch RTE? Johnny Giles, Eeamonn Dunphy and Liam Brady (anchored by Bill O’Herlihy) provide more insight and value in a single show than Lineker/Hansen have done in a fucking decade. That sounds like an exagerration. It isn’t.