BT’S latest spin leaves Jeff ’s Boys needing to grow up
Sky’s pioneering and successful Soccer Saturday suddenly finds itself with a serious rival, writes Alan Tyers
The show felt younger, more inclusive than its rival, less beery and blokey
Iwould have loved to have been in the meeting when somebody pitched Sky’s Soccer Saturday. The idea, on paper, has the look of a 55lb turkey with all the trimmings.
“Right, Josh” – television executives are usually a Josh – “Here it is. We get some exfootballers, rent-a-gobs, boozehounds or both, generally 20 years past their playing days, in most cases not great at talking coherent English, and we’ll get them to watch football on the TV and tell you what they are watching. And once he retires, Paul Merson will be on it, shouting.”
Another Josh interrupts. “But Josh. I don’t get it. Will the viewer see clips of the football?”
“No Josh. As Josh in the Rights Department has pointed out, we cannot show the actual football. But we will have Jeff Stelling relaying footy stats from an earpiece.”
Despite the protests of Josh, Josh got his way, and Soccer Saturday became one of the unlikely TV hits of our sporting lifetimes.
The antics of Jeff And The Boys have been a weekend fixture for a generation. And one of the trickier manoeuvres of BT’S battle plan to storm into the market was how to match it.
When faced with a rival having a hit, the preferred solution of any media exec is to copy it precisely but with just enough of a twist that a) Josh in Legal doesn’t get nervy and b) the executive can “claim ownership” of the resulting knock-off as a piece of brilliance and thus slither further up the greasy pole.
BT started trying it last season with Mark Pougatch, an admirable broadcaster and a fine chap, and gave him a studio – for some reason the size of an aircraft hanger – stuffed with the sort of football people who can roll their sleeves up and do you a job on a Saturday afternoon. With the exception of Harry Redknapp, they were a different vintage to Jeff ’s Boys: your John Hartsons, the Harry Kewells of this world. Jermaine Jenas was even in his early 30s. Unbelievable, Jeff.
People were generally mean about the programme, but then we football fans fear change. It had its faults but was not horrible.
Its major problem was that it was not quite Soccer Saturday and not quite different enough. But this season, Josh in New Media at BT had an idea: put it on Twitter. Free. I watched it in its entirety on Saturday on @btsportscore and think they may have cracked it.
There were not one but two women on the programme. Absolutely incredible scenes, Jeff. One of them was co-host Jules Breach, who is very good, and the other was Alex Scott, who was not particularly good.
It sometimes strikes me that true equality will only come about when minorities who are bang average get the plum gigs, rather than having to be miles better than the white males merely to get through the door. In this, Scott is a trailblazer.
Still, she has played 140 times for England, and that has to count for something. She also said a somewhat rude word within the first five minutes, and Pougers had to apologise for her un-(arsenal)ladylike language, so that was quite entertaining.
The show felt younger, more inclusive than its Sky rival, less beery and blokey, more fans sending in little videos of themselves doing match reports, excitable squeaking from Robbie Savage, Job-like patience from Graham Poll explaining the rules to Robbie. Chris Sutton in the Bob Willis role.
I did not hate it and it did not cost me any money, so Josh can probably chalk this one up as a win.