Sky kids stunt a flop

‘GOOD luck keeping your jobs,’ said 12-year-old Naveed as he strutted past pundits Jamie Carragher and Micah Richards pitchside at the Gtech Community Stadium. ‘Good luck keeping your viewers,’ thought anyone watching Premier League Juniors on Sky Sports last night. Naveed was one of four children picked from schools in West London and Merseyside to host Sky’s alternative coverage of Brentford v Liverpool — a concept dreamt up by the channel for reasons known only to themselves. Mercifully, Kelly Cates was in place as the responsible adult stopping the show from descending into chaos. But Naveed, Rishi, 12, and Delilah and Aman, both 11, were trusted to carry out the pre and post-match interviews and co-commentate on the game. ‘This is going to be fun,’ said Cates as she introduced the kids. And there were some amusing moments. Take Rishi telling Brentford trio Bryan Mbeumo, Mads Roerslev and Saman Ghoddos in an interview that he was predicting a 3-1 Liverpool win. Or Naveed asking Ben Mee if he was only a defender because he wasn’t good enough to play striker. Naveed was also responsible for the best one-liner, claiming: ‘My dad could have finished that and he’s useless,’ when Darwin Nunez missed. The commentary was novel, if largely incoherent. It is hard to imagine that anyone, barring family and friends, stuck with it. ‘The younger generation are the future of Sky Sports,’ said the channel’s director of football, Gary Hughes. Like Fanzone before it, though, surely there is no future for Sky’s latest innovation.