Female Football Pundits

[AlexLaw76]

Not entirely related 

but anyone agree?

 

[Turkish]

33 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Not entirely related 

but anyone agree?

 

When will he be cancelled?

[Patrick Bateman]

2 hours ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Not entirely related 

but anyone agree?

 

That made me laugh.  I only agree on the basis of the screeching, it does get too much and often the push to include all others means we get worse pundits. I mean bad pronunciation is now prevalent across TV, it is appalling how many people can't speak properly; I don't mean regional accents, I just mean speaking badly with any accent, using the wrong verbs / tenses, the fact that nearly all pundits speak with a glottal stop and the dropping of the letter 'g' at the end of words. I don't know why people can't speak properly anymore?

Anyway ... yes, the screeching of female pundits does my head. But then you have superb female sports presenters like Hazel Irvine making the snooker a pleasure, Gabby Logan, Claire Balding and Sue Barker (although retired).  But they are probably considered "old school" now as they don't screech and they speak properly. 

 

[Turkish]

5 hours ago, Patrick Bateman said:

That made me laugh.  I only agree on the basis of the screeching, it does get too much and often the push to include all others means we get worse pundits. I mean bad pronunciation is now prevalent across TV, it is appalling how many people can't speak properly; I don't mean regional accents, I just mean speaking badly with any accent, using the wrong verbs / tenses, the fact that nearly all pundits speak with a glottal stop and the dropping of the letter 'g' at the end of words. I don't know why people can't speak properly anymore?

Anyway ... yes, the screeching of female pundits does my head. But then you have superb female sports presenters like Hazel Irvine making the snooker a pleasure, Gabby Logan, Claire Balding and Sue Barker (although retired).  But they are probably considered "old school" now as they don't screech and they speak properly. 

 

Gabby Logan 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

[hypochondriac]

6 hours ago, Patrick Bateman said:

That made me laugh.  I only agree on the basis of the screeching, it does get too much and often the push to include all others means we get worse pundits. I mean bad pronunciation is now prevalent across TV, it is appalling how many people can't speak properly; I don't mean regional accents, I just mean speaking badly with any accent, using the wrong verbs / tenses, the fact that nearly all pundits speak with a glottal stop and the dropping of the letter 'g' at the end of words. I don't know why people can't speak properly anymore?

Anyway ... yes, the screeching of female pundits does my head. But then you have superb female sports presenters like Hazel Irvine making the snooker a pleasure, Gabby Logan, Claire Balding and Sue Barker (although retired).  But they are probably considered "old school" now as they don't screech and they speak properly. 

 

Mostly agree with that. Laura woods also excellent. I think the problem is the poor female pundits they get in for box ticking reasons rather than the good ones you mention. Barton is correct when female footballers are employed to talk about mens football by relating it to their female football experience because as he says its not remotely similar no problem with a female presenter in a Laura woods role though, she's great. 

[The Kraken]

1 minute ago, hypochondriac said:

Mostly agree with that. Laura woods also excellent. I think the problem is the poor female pundits they get in for box ticking reasons rather than the good ones you mention. Barton is correct when female footballers are employed to talk about mens football by relating it to their female football experience because as he says its not remotely similar no problem with a female presenter in a Laura woods role though, she's great. 

Agreed. Gabby Logan is a top class presenter, some of the girls doing match analysis offer some decent info, and who doesn’t love Jules Breach? I’m not a fan of female commentators (just too high pitched) but it must also be said that plenty of the fellas on comms and punditry are crap. I’m a Barry Davis man myself, old school class.

Watching the Fa cup draw this weekend, they had Trevor Steven and someone called Jen Beattie drawing the balls out of the bingo machine; Trevor Steven played in 4 finals with Everton, and Jen Beattie has won the women’s FA cup 4 times apparently. And they’re asking her about it, what the magic and history of the FA Cup meant. What she has won is obviously a very honourable achievement, and I wouldn’t at all wish to belittle it;  but the women’s FA cup was founded in 1970, its really not a very good comparison comparing it directly with the men’s.  I just found it a bit silly.

[Weston Super Saint]

6 minutes ago, The Kraken said:

Agreed. Gabby Logan is a top class presenter, some of the girls doing match analysis offer some decent info, and who doesn’t love Jules Breach? I’m not a fan of female commentators (just too high pitched) but it must also be said that plenty of the fellas on comms and punditry are crap. I’m a Barry Davis man myself, old school class.

Watching the Fa cup draw this weekend, they had Trevor Steven and someone called Jen Beattie drawing the balls out of the bingo machine; Trevor Steven played in 4 finals with Everton, and Jen Beattie has won the women’s FA cup 4 times apparently. And they’re asking her about it, what the magic and history of the FA Cup meant. What she has won is obviously a very honourable achievement, and I wouldn’t at all wish to belittle it;  but the women’s FA cup was founded in 1970, its really not a very good comparison comparing it directly with the men’s.  I just found it a bit silly.

Apart from Ian Wright, do they have any retired male footballers at the draw for the women's fa cup?

[hypochondriac]

2 minutes ago, The Kraken said:

Agreed. Gabby Logan is a top class presenter, some of the girls doing match analysis offer some decent info, and who doesn’t love Jules Breach? I’m not a fan of female commentators (just too high pitched) but it must also be said that plenty of the fellas on comms and punditry are crap. I’m a Barry Davis man myself, old school class.

Watching the Fa cup draw this weekend, they had Trevor Steven and someone called Jen Beattie drawing the balls out of the bingo machine; Trevor Steven played in 4 finals with Everton, and Jen Beattie has won the women’s FA cup 4 times apparently. And they’re asking her about it, what the magic and history of the FA Cup meant. What she has won is obviously a very honourable achievement, and I wouldn’t at all wish to belittle it;  but the women’s FA cup was founded in 1970, its really not a very good comparison comparing it directly with the men’s.  I just found it a bit silly.

The best pundits are the ones you watch and most of the time forget what sex they are. If they fit in seamlessly enough then it's not an issue. Bbc and itv especially have a load of shite women on though who are awful and detract from the experience. You're also right that there's some awful male pundits too but that's rather a different issue, they'd still be more qualified to discuss football from their experience had they had a top flight career. 

[whelk]

You don’t need to have played the game to be able to give insight. Look at those halfwits Sky employ to say Arsenal Football club. 

[AlexLaw76]

39 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Mostly agree with that. Laura woods also excellent. I think the problem is the poor female pundits they get in for box ticking reasons rather than the good ones you mention. Barton is correct when female footballers are employed to talk about mens football by relating it to their female football experience because as he says its not remotely similar no problem with a female presenter in a Laura woods role though, she's great. 

I thought Laura Woods was a terrible host on Talksport Breakfast.  Much better on TV mind

[whelk]

29 minutes ago, The Kraken said:

I’m a Barry Davis man myself, old school class

Genuinely used to get annoyed when commentating. “Interesting………very interesting. Look at his face, just look at his face”. Don’t hear lines like that these days although Drury for all his annoyance can be quite poetic

[hypochondriac]

7 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

I thought Laura Woods was a terrible host on Talksport Breakfast.  Much better on TV mind

Agree to disagree. I've always thought she was decent. Saw her in the boxing the other week and she was great on that too. 

[Turkish]

This endless circular discussion is pretty pointless as TV is going to push forward with this whatever. the point about Trevor Steven and the bird who also won the fa cup is a good one, but as we’ve seen when it’s good how great the womens game is is rammed down our throat, anything negative and it’s a different game that can’t be compared to the mens.
 

As for commentary/pundits I’d take Alex Scott and Gabby Logan over 95% of blokes and I think Karen Carney, what’s her name Dalglish and Alex wood were also very good. Can’t remember the names of the others but a few have been absolute car crash and a few been okay. So not much different to the blokes. But let’s not keep On trying to have it both ways, if something in the women’s game is shit let’s call it not try and make out it’s a different game, same as if something in it is good. 

[AlexLaw76]

1 minute ago, Turkish said:

This endless circular discussion is pretty pointless as TV is going to push forward with this whatever. the point about Trevor Steven and the bird who also won the fa cup is a good one, but as we’ve seen when it’s good how great the womens game is is rammed down our throat, anything negative and it’s a different game that can’t be compared to the mens.
 

As for commentary/pundits I’d take Alex Scott and Gabby Logan over 95% of blokes and I think Karen Carney, what’s her name Dalglish and Alex wood were also very good. Can’t remember the names of the others but a few have been absolute car crash and a few been okay. So not much different to the blokes. But let’s not keep On trying to have it both ways, if something in the women’s game is shit let’s call it not try and make out it’s a different game, same as if something in it is good. 

don't forget, every time some ladies game gets a big crowd, we are told about it....a lot.

Never mentions that it was a £5 entry for adults and a £1 for kids

[whelk]

7 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Agree to disagree. I've always thought she was decent. Saw her in the boxing the other week and she was great on that too. 

I couldn’t get past her cringey sucking up the Sheiks. Nauseating 

[hypochondriac]

7 minutes ago, Turkish said:

This endless circular discussion is pretty pointless as TV is going to push forward with this whatever. the point about Trevor Steven and the bird who also won the fa cup is a good one, but as we’ve seen when it’s good how great the womens game is is rammed down our throat, anything negative and it’s a different game that can’t be compared to the mens.
 

As for commentary/pundits I’d take Alex Scott and Gabby Logan over 95% of blokes and I think Karen Carney, what’s her name Dalglish and Alex wood were also very good. Can’t remember the names of the others but a few have been absolute car crash and a few been okay. So not much different to the blokes. But let’s not keep On trying to have it both ways, if something in the women’s game is shit let’s call it not try and make out it’s a different game, same as if something in it is good. 

Eni eluko is absolutely horrendous though it must be said. 

[hypochondriac]

1 minute ago, whelk said:

I couldn’t get past her cringey sucking up the Sheiks. Nauseating 

She's a presenter and a pundit though not brain of Britain or a journalist. She's paid to be authentic and knowledgeable on the telly and seem like a bit of a laugh with a sense of humour and she accomplishes that well. She could be absolutely awful in her personal life but that's not really important to do the job. 

[whelk]

Lucy Ward on co comms for Everton game has been excellent 

[Whitey Grandad]

4 minutes ago, whelk said:

Lucy Ward on co comms for Everton game has been excellent 

Irritating northern accent.

[hypochondriac]

2 minutes ago, whelk said:

Lucy Ward on co comms for Everton game has been excellent 

Seems that for most it's not female pundits that are the issue, it's shit female pundits. 

[Whitey Grandad]

9 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Seems that for most it's not female pundits that are the issue, it's shit female pundits. 

Especially ones that talk too much.

This applies to male commentators too.

[whelk]

12 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Seems that for most it's not female pundits that are the issue, it's shit female pundits. 

Seems to me that some really put research in. Unlike lazy fuckers like Andy Townsend

Edited 7 December, 2023 by whelk

[AlexLaw76]

4 minutes ago, whelk said:

Seems to me that some really put research in. Unlike lazy fuckers like Andy Townsend

"better"

[Lord Duckhunter]

.

Edited 7 December, 2023 by Lord Duckhunter

[Turkish]

1 hour ago, whelk said:

Lucy Ward on co comms for Everton game has been excellent 

Not for me

[Turkish]

Whatever happened to georgie Thompson and Kirsty Gallagher? They should be on TV more great presenters 

[bpsaint]

2 hours ago, hypochondriac said:

Eni eluko is absolutely horrendous though it must be said. 

As has been proven a few times she’s a fucking idiot, but she ticks a couple of boxes on the diversity form so she’s got a job for life now.

I do think a lot of people secretly agree with Joey Barton, however nobody is going to come out and say ot publicly and risk getting cancelled. Barton will get away with it because he’s a rotten cockwomble anyway.

Like most sports I personally don’t have issues with female presenters, there’s some fantastic ones out there. It’s the female ex players in the studio, giving it the “I would have done this” or “ he should have done that” as if their respective games are anywhere close to being comparable. As for female commentators, fact is they just do not have nice voices for the sport of football, they are screechy and it really is tokenism that they commentate on such high profile games.

[SaintsLoyal]

No issue with women presenting, but they shouldnt be officials or commentary as its solely ticking the woke box.

[hypochondriac]

1 hour ago, bpsaint said:

As has been proven a few times she’s a fucking idiot, but she ticks a couple of boxes on the diversity form so she’s got a job for life now.

I do think a lot of people secretly agree with Joey Barton, however nobody is going to come out and say ot publicly and risk getting cancelled. Barton will get away with it because he’s a rotten cockwomble anyway.

Like most sports I personally don’t have issues with female presenters, there’s some fantastic ones out there. It’s the female ex players in the studio, giving it the “I would have done this” or “ he should have done that” as if their respective games are anywhere close to being comparable. As for female commentators, fact is they just do not have nice voices for the sport of football, they are screechy and it really is tokenism that they commentate on such high profile games.

I think Joey was mostly referring to Amazon Prime coverage where it is getting out of control. It would be lovely if you had a choice of commentary and punditry on the equivalent of the red button which would be nice but I doubt they would ever allow that because then they'd see a clear preference for one over the other and the pretence would be over. 

[Weston Super Saint]

7 hours ago, SaintsLoyal said:

No issue with women presenting, but they shouldnt be officials or commentary as its solely ticking the woke box.

I disagree about officials.  If they are good enough, no reason why not.  God knows we've got enough shit male ones to be replaced.

[Whitey Grandad]

4 hours ago, Weston Super Saint said:

I disagree about officials.  If they are good enough, no reason why not.  God knows we've got enough shit male ones to be replaced.

They are not ‘shit’. They just give decisions that you don’t agree with.

 

[Lord Duckhunter]

12 hours ago, hypochondriac said:

It would be lovely if you had a choice of commentary and punditry on the equivalent of the red button which would be nice  

I thought the very same thing last night. But as you say they won’t do it because it’ll show just how unpopular these birds are with normal supporters.

[Whitey Grandad]

3 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

I thought the very same thing last night. But as you say they won’t do it because it’ll show just how unpopular these birds are with normal supporters.

Apparently on Prime there is an option to have ‘no commentary’.

[revolution saint]

I'm not sure we need that second co-commentator anyway.  Most of the time they don't offer that much of an insight.

[Whitey Grandad]

1 hour ago, revolution saint said:

I'm not sure we need that second co-commentator anyway.  Most of the time they don't offer that much of an insight.

They just won’t stop talking. Sometimes it seems that they feel that they have to say something. I know that if those two were sitting me they wouldn’t get through the game in one piece.

[rallyboy]

I think I'm slightly more annoyed when broadcasters ask us to check out a brilliant goal in the WPL that turns out to be a shinned shot that bobbles straight through a keeper or a sliced cross that goes over a midget.

Similar things in the male game - what a brilliant save!  No, it was shot straight at him, he couldn't have dodged it if he'd tried.

That's right in the top corner!, nah, it's a metre and a half inside the post.

On reflection I think it might just be annoying people of both sexes, and some in between.

[whelk]

I think it is more amusing seeing people frothing about something so flawed ie. often uneducated ex players spouting cliches, using poor grammar, telling us about something most of us can see and work out for ourselves. Women spoiling this beautiful eloquent art of punditry eh. How dare they!

[Turkish]

31 minutes ago, rallyboy said:

I think I'm slightly more annoyed when broadcasters ask us to check out a brilliant goal in the WPL that turns out to be a shinned shot that bobbles straight through a keeper or a sliced cross that goes over a midget.

Similar things in the male game - what a brilliant save!  No, it was shot straight at him, he couldn't have dodged it if he'd tried.

That's right in the top corner!, nah, it's a metre and a half inside the post.

On reflection I think it might just be annoying people of both sexes, and some in between.

Like the one Ederson made in the champions league final. It was straight at him and hit him, he couldn't not have saved it, yet they were raving about it like it was the great save of all time.

[AlexLaw76]

Worth a watch

 

[Whitey Grandad]

46 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Worth a watch

 

 "Yeah, absolutely, I mean..."

Very articulate! 

Some fair points made by Barton. 

[Whitey Grandad]

Get three women in the same room and you can’t get a word in edgeways 🤯

[SaintsLoyal]

I think the most obvious thing with women in mens football is that theyre more or less all good looking and not 20st wtih acne and greasy hair.

[whelk]

I worry for anyone who doesn’t think Barton is a bit of a prick.  

[The Kraken]

5 minutes ago, whelk said:

I worry for anyone who doesn’t think Barton is a bit of a prick.  

I think that would be being a bit kind on him. The geezer’s an absolute whopper, always has been.

[Whitey Grandad]

1 hour ago, whelk said:

I worry for anyone who doesn’t think Barton is a bit of a prick.  

Just a bit?

[Holmes_and_Watson]

My tuppence...

Many commentators have been dreadful for decades. Many co-commentators, even worse.

I tune in to listen to the game. Not to listen to the senior commentator moan that he would rather not be there (England friendlies for years), or for their endless promotion of their fantasy football teams or other pointless in jokes like having to drop in commentary lines based on a quiz from the week before.

For the BBC, funding and other pressures, highlighted their endemic sexism, racism and elitism. That resulted in what seemed like the disproportionate arrival of various women and ethnic minorities to address that as quickly as possible.

Other platforms were also looking at their own inclusion practices and recruited similarly. "woke", "tokenism" "inclusive" “equality” depending on your views.

The quality of those coming in was mixed. As you'd expect from any group of new faces, not helped by the quantity arriving in a short spell.

Some excellent. Some dreadful. Some in between.

One that was dreadful, until she dropped the endless cliches and gave a really insightful tactical analysis of the game.

That made me wonder if some of the adjustment and training was reducing the talent of the newcomers to the low bar of the people who were already there. Beyond all the new starts having to be repeatedly hit in the head to reach the low levels of their predecessors.

Hypo mentions box ticking. I get the feeling that that’s what they are all trained to do, as annoying as that is. It takes out many of the insights we’d be getting from men and women of their experiences in the game.

But that’s the level they want, and those are the same folk that produce clumsy, forced sounding, sometimes counter-productive marketing for the women’s game.

The men are often ex-players, and I get the feeling that some of the women, even if ex-players in the women’s game, felt that they had to try extra hard to commentate in the men’s game. Which sometimes came across as too hard.

We're a bit on from that. The excellent ones pretty much still are. Others have got more comfortable. Some are as painful as some of those they replaced. Few have found a brand-new voice, with their training/ workplace knocking a lot of that out of them.  But there are moments.

For any annoyance of any of the new faces, there’s just as many, if not more, from those they’ve replaced or from those that have held onto getting just as much air time.

I’d not be surprised to find in a decade’s time I still think that many commentators are dreadful, whether it’s a more diverse group or not.

As for Joey Barton, I’m guessing the glasses are not to make him look more intelligent, but to help protect him should anyone try to put a lit cigar in his eye, as he did to that youth player years ago.

He did say “some of the men are bad enough.” No reason not to change that then. Shame if that limits the amount of air time an ex-manager, looking for punditry work, is able to get.  

[whelk]

Carragher claiming a penalty will definitely be given for foul on Jesus just then in Villa game. I thought absolute bollocks no way that is a pen and obvs VAR agreed. Had Karen Carney spouted the same shit as Carragher would no doubt be accused of not understanding the men’s game

[The Kraken]

14 minutes ago, whelk said:

Carragher claiming a penalty will definitely be given for foul on Jesus just then in Villa game. I thought absolute bollocks no way that is a pen and obvs VAR agreed. Had Karen Carney spouted the same shit as Carragher would no doubt be accused of not understanding the men’s game

I thought Carragher was talking shite, and also seemingly some bias in it as he kept saying he thought it was similar to the one given against Liverpool today.

[stknowle]

On 07/12/2023 at 12:41, Patrick Bateman said:

That made me laugh.  I only agree on the basis of the screeching, it does get too much and often the push to include all others means we get worse pundits. I mean bad pronunciation is now prevalent across TV, it is appalling how many people can't speak properly; I don't mean regional accents, I just mean speaking badly with any accent, using the wrong verbs / tenses, the fact that nearly all pundits speak with a glottal stop and the dropping of the letter 'g' at the end of words. I don't know why people can't speak properly anymore?

 

 

Agree. Male or female. Northern or Southern, even West Country. It matters not.

All I ask is that pundits speak proper English like what I do.

[egg]

Joey Barton has lost the plot on this. He referenced Rose and Fred West when talking about Eno Eluko and Lucy Ward, and has since had cracks at Union Berlin referencing the wars, Itv bringing up Phil Schofield, and Gary Neville talking about "grooming" and "noncing". It's mor entertaining than the pundits he's talking about to be fair - worth a look. 

https://x.com/Joey7Barton/status/1743175947514515819?s=20

https://x.com/Joey7Barton/status/1743206615913009231?s=20

https://x.com/Joey7Barton/status/1743205584693010516?s=20

https://x.com/Joey7Barton/status/1743335074463170928?s=20

https://x.com/Joey7Barton/status/1743529495783747668?s=20