Commentary job has changed, but still has a role

COMMENTATORS - do we really need them? At the moment when there are no supporters in the stadiums cheering or groaning it helps to have a rumble of sound to go with the pictures, and we can tolerate them while they provide it.

But these abnormal circumstances will not last forever.

Then we will be able to decide whether these compulsive talkers serve any useful purpose.

If this was not a question I chose to ask when I was one of them, I can only plead that the job then was different in significant ways.

Live coverage was limited to the FA Cup final and a few international matches.

Otherwise, viewers had to make do with edited highlights on a regional basis.

As a result, the arrival in English football of some expensive new foreign star would not mean that he was instantly be seen nationwide.

In consequence, when he turned up for the first time on a Granada programme for example, that gave grounds for updating the details of his career thus far. We provided a useful function.

At that time I was an avid collector of background information.

Magazines such as Shoot and the unsurpassed World Soccer were indispensable.

I also always took the chance to pick up overseas publications which meant weekly visits to Charing Cross Road where the Sports Pages bookshop was an invaluable source.

I kept my records long hand in ring binders and used the details when they seemed relevant.

But this was where I clashed with the late Brian Moore, a friend whose move from The Times sports staff to the BBC I helped to facilitate.

We played cricket together around the picturesque villages of Kent and Sussex, but we never came to agree on the subject of football statistics.

Even the arrival of the internet didn’t change our respective approaches, although by then I had moved on to Granada and Brian to London Weekend.

It had, of course, made my ring binders obsolete, and that was bad news for the young man I had been paying to keep them for me.

Now before the new superstar has so much as put his coveted foot on a Premier League pitch any fan in the country will have had the chance to see him in action for his previous employers, and to call up every statistic, relevant or irrelevant, from his CV.

What is left for the commentator to add? Nothing, you, might think. But these are individuals earning a comfortable, if not excessive salary.

Start to examine the real value of their contribution and you threaten their very existence.

No wonder they resort to ingenious means of justifying their presence in your sitting room. Commentating no longer demands that each player touching the ball must be identified.

Instead the viewer has a wide-ranging roam around the history of the game in question.

Not just the result the last time these teams met, but what the score was at half-time or, indeed, at any minute of the 90.

How many years have passed since there was a goalless draw, and who was the manager when that happened?

With no resort to ring binders the answers can be found by due diligence around a few of your favourite websites.

If I were still in the business of non-stop talking, would that be my voice you would be hearing?

I would like to think not, but commentators are an arrogant tribe.

Don’t tell them that viewers switch on for the game not for the burble of sound in the background.

Ok, but you would miss us if we weren’t available at the flick of a switch.

DO you agree with Gerald Sinstadt’s views? You can have your say on his latest column by visiting our website, which can be found at stokeontrentlive.co.uk. You will also find all the latest local sports news and views.