Date: 19th April 2018 at 6:56pm
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Martin Wickham discusses his annoyance with the emergence of Channel 4’s new programme.

You may have seen advertised on BT Sports recently a documentary called Golazzo: The Football Italia Story.  Covering the period from 1992 to 2002 when Channel 4 had weekly coverage of Serie A, the programme brought back memories for this writer of a time when, with no Sky TV in the household, I became more familiar with likes of Beppe Signori and Fabrizio Ravanelli than many of the players plying their trade in the nascent FA Carling Premiership.

There was also a little bloke who played for Parma called Zola who wore baggy shirts and scored magnificent free kicks.  I wonder whatever happened to him?

The show comes highly recommended, and with it having first aired days before the tragic passing of Ray Wilkins, the memories of his humorous commentary double act with Peter Brackley are ever more poignant as it features an interview with Ray himself, which reinforces everything that has been said about the man since his death.  I only hope he knew how highly regarded he was by everyone while he was alive.  RIP Butch.

Listening to the memories of the staff behind the original show, it becomes clear they wanted to do football coverage a bit differently, by treating the viewer as an intelligent participant and emphasising the funny side of the game as well.  Not ‘dumbing down’ is something Channel 4 were renowned for in a lot of their sports coverage in the past, you certainly didn’t get a fashion show midway through their horse racing coverage for instance!  So it was disappointing to see them publicising a new show this month that will, by virtue of some of its participants, completely fly in the face of such an ethos.

I refer, with regret, to Channel 4’s planned Real Football Fans Show, a vehicle that is putting a bunch of YouTube fan channels on terrestrial television for a late night talk show format.  Much has already been said about fan channels recently, and there is little more I can add that hasn’t already been remarked upon about their exploitative nature, lack of careful editing, and their high handed attitude to any type of criticism.  However, once I stopped pondering whether they were going to create history by producing the first-ever English language programme on a British channel to require subtitles at the bottom, thoughts turned to Channel 4.  Specifically, the show title and the implications and assumptions therein.

The idea that a shouty subset of fans are getting promoted to a wider audience (or as wide an audience as a post-midnight slot on the fourth terrestrial channel can provide) as ‘real’ and authentic’ would be funny if it wasn’t a bit of an insult to the rest of us.  Someone pitching this has seen the emotionally stunted ranting that passes for analysis and conversation on some of these videos and decided that this bear-baiting is preferable to a format that would show match going fans in a more positive light on national television.  I may be speaking only for myself on this, but I strongly question the authenticity of anyone in a football ground filming themselves during the game to create social media content.  I also question whether anyone shouting abuse at an OAP in the dugout should be considered a ‘real football fan’.  Come to think of it; I question whether they can be considered functioning members of society.

Rather than deciding to go for a show that will take a sideways look at football, in the style that it has been brave enough to do in the past, Channel 4 have decided to commission a series that instead reflects the game today, certainly at the highest level.  Devoid of humour and warmth, hyper-sensitive to any perceived slight (the Arsenal Fan TV lot’s hysterical overreaction to perfectly reasonable criticisms from Hector Bellerin would give Donald Trump a run for his money) and pushing a myopic, polarised view that absolutely subscribes to the belief that one must choose between Messi and Ronaldo rather than appreciating the otherworldly talents of both.  Football isn’t that important folks; you are allowed to take the piss out of it every so often!  Like so much football programming over the last few years, it feels like the sheer amounts of money coming into the top level of English football from across the world have led to a fear of mocking the sillier side of it, just in case, someone cancels the cheque as a consequence.  How else to describe the reverential tone that shows like Soccer AM now take?  In a game that finds ever new ways to disappear completely up its own backside, the Real Football Fans Show will fit in perfectly.  Their conversations will bear little resemblance to the ones had in pubs before and after games, and in workplaces during the week.  In that sense, they have very little in common with and are not representative of match-going supporters.

Needless to say, I won’t be watching.  Perhaps OFCOM regulations will tone down some of the nonsense seen in the YouTube videos, but I won’t be staying awake to find out.  In any case, if I want to watch incoherent, ill thought out, invective dressed up as an authentic view of the people, I can tune in to Question Time that night anyway…

Written by Martin Wickham – @Martin_Wickham

 

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