IF YOU'VE ever had a season ticket you'll know the Alan Green-type of fan, because he probably sat behind you for a season. In August he seems great, with his kindly voice and his love of the game. But as winter drifts by, his obsessive and voluble hatred of one aspect of the sport slowly grinds out its fun.
It might be a particular player he despises, or the manager. Perhaps it's the chairman's reluctance to sign Ronaldinho that's got his goat. But match after match the man drones on, until his wife, driven to despair by a mixture of tedium and embarras
sment, drops hot Bovril in his lap, and the offender is carted off to hospital. This solution is not available to listeners to Radio 5 Live, where Green is one of the principal commentators. So we have to endure his particular shtick – which is for referees – every week of the year.
His technique is predictable. First Green delivers a sermon, like a teacher telling off a schoolboy in front of his mates. "I've news for you, Mike Riley" (or whoever it is), he says, looking around knowingly before turning to the object of his condescension. "A player is not allowed to attack his opponent with a blunt instrument. That should have been an automatic red-card, Mr Riley. You've got to sort yourself out, son."
Then he confides: "I know I mention this every week, folks, but the standard of refereeing in the Premiership really is terrible. It really is."
Well, I've news for you, Alan Green. In case you've forgotten, out here in Radioland we can't see what's going on and we are relying entirely on your words to give us colour and entertainment. Don't keep saying the same thing, in the same way, or we'll get bored. This irritant aside, Radio 5's football coverage is a Force for Good, informative commentaries leavened by conversation and humour. Even during last week's Champions League tie between Manchester United and Roma, radio contrived to contain all the best of a good night in. It kicked off with two articulate Geordies, John Murray and Chris Waddle. "The burly, muscular, shaven-headed Norwegian Tom Ovrebo is tonight's referee," said Murray. "Doesn't have the look of someone you'd want to upset." "Right Said Fred," put in Waddle, with that insider's grasp of the pop world.
Maybe it was this early intervention by his colleagues which cured Green, but for once he largely ignored the officials and joined in the fun. He laughed at Roma ("No 77 – is that his age?"), and scorned their "utterly wretched" penalty miss. And when the incredulous Waddle added a personal touch from England's World Cup semi-final defeat in Turin – "That reminded me of 1990, that was worse than mine" – Green was ready to pounce.
"Tell me, Christopher," he asked sweetly, "as a professional, how do you manage to hit a penalty that badly?" In the second half, Murray raised the issue again: "De Rossi has scored penalties in more pressurised environments than this – like a World Cup final."
On air, Waddle gave a mirthless laugh, but surely his must have been covering his microphone as he added: "Haway. Do you want to make something of it, bonny lad?" Because the subject was never mentioned again.
Compare that kind of banter with anything the television offers. A fortnight ago, Peter Drury and David Pleat's 'Veni, Vidi, Vici' cliché festival ruined ITV1's coverage of the first leg of the United tie from Rome, and viewers could suffer again last week, if they chose to listen to the same commentary team voicing Chelsea's victory over Fenerbahce on ITV4.
Instead, I chose Tuesday's other match, Liverpool against Arsenal, with the TV on mute and the radio blaring. It's true, that Green was at it yet again, with his pointless criticisms of Mr Fjordfeldt, the Swedish official. Nor was my enjoyment enhanced by that peculiar phenomenon of knowing a second earlier than the radio boys that Fernando Torres had turned on sixpence to score.
But it comes down to this. If you haven't got tin ears, would you rather listen to "Chelsea's Turkish Delight" with Pleat, or to that voice in the ether, lamenting referees? I'd still take Green any day.
But you've got to sort yourself out, son.
