Steve Claridge ate my baby

Match of the Day 2 was so awful this week that my brain shut down all biological processes for its own safety, refusing to process any of what was said. For the best, as most of the program seemed to be Shearer and Murry self-abusing themselves over Robbie Savage and his flouncing around in a silk shirt on Strictly Come Dancing. If one could sit down at a table and design an event to specifically degrade the culture of a nation, it would be exactly that.

Luckily, Saturday's edition remained steady and its companion The Football League Show was ably raped by Steve Claridge, an excellent footballer but a man of a most alarming appearence - as if some wise alien race from beyond the stars has had human beings described to them, and thus attempted to create one from their bio-mulch vats without actually observing a true specimen. Everything about his face is subtly wrong and different, provoking an unnerving horror in the viewer, such as one might experience from a visitation by a dark entity from an H.P. Lovecraft novel.

Beware, for if one gazes long enough at the Steve Claridge, eventually the Steve Claridge will gaze back

'They were playing pattycake in the penalty area' - They were shoving each other about like children

'Stam is in a really menacing position' - Pretending to be a T-Rex? Prowling around like a dragon?

'If you play well, you need to put the ball in the net and take the points' - Martin Jol accurately describes the point of the game of football. Always useful when a manager knows this.

'The better players enjoy other players coming on to them' - I bet they do, Steve

'Carlton Cole went for a curler' - Conjures up unwanted images of Carlton Cole shaking like a shitting dog while attempt to squeeze out a cylindrical turd in the centre circle.

'At one-nil it's always close' - That's the sort of analysis we expect from our license fee

'You don't win game unless you keep clean sheets' - Unless of course your team should itself be fortunate enough to score more goals than the opposition; but that's rather unlikely with your teams isn't it, Mr Steve McLaren

'He loves his teams to play football' - Unlike the opposition team, who like to play Mahjong
 

Mark Lawrenson's awful wardrobe

MOTD was hosted by regular word-mongers Shearer and Lawrenson this weekend, with Lawro sporting some kind of terrible shiny space-age material, possibly used for lining re-entry shuttles, that clings to his wrinkled old body in a disconcerting fashion. 

Imagine waking up and seeing this sitting in the corner of your bedroom. FUCK!

There is something ridiculous about Lawro, from his thinning bouffant of hair, to his complete disregard for the basic rules of fashion - in fact, one wonders whether or not the wardrobe department at BBC 1 are merely playing a decade-long joke on him, which is rather unfair considering he is such an easy a target - similar to dressing your alzheimer's-ridden grandfather in clown make-up and a tutu, "for a laugh." It is demeaning and humiliating to the disabled person in question - and so it is with Lawro. He should be afforded some basic human rights, not dressed for our amusement. He clearly cannot dress himself so it is unfair to subject him to this degrading treatment.

But then again, I've just remembered his habit of giving world-weary smirks at Gary's "jokes", that makes me hate him all over again, so now I don't care.

Anyway, on to this weeks guff - 

'He's been playing in the MLS now for 2 or 3 years, so..." Robbie Savage disparaging Beckham's chances of playing for a Premier League club again, while completely failing to get basic facts right about the most famous football player on earth. Beckham has in fact been playing for almost 5 years in the MLS, not to mention his two loan spells in Italy.

'It's been an awful time in that part of the world. But it was good to see Swansea get the win' Lawro consoles the families of the dead miners from the Gleision Colliery that at least a team of men have won a game of sport.

'They tried to make the pitch as wide as possible' By inserting extra grass during half time?

'That's the first premiership goal scored outside of England . . . so that's important considering what's happened this week.' Again, yet more succour for the Welsh families grieving their dead. I don't even know what they are upset about, eh Lawro!

'There's the push! . . . if there was one . . .' Make your mind up, twatty

'It gave them a two goal cushion, and then they could play their football.' What were they playing before? Basketball?

'This guy is so quick, he catches pigeons' Alan Shearer's analysis of Everton's loan signing Royston Drenthe  

ITV is shit too

International break this week, with England taking on Wales at Wembley. ITV are past masters of shit-spewing commentary, now ably led by missing link Adrian Chiles, the man described by the stand-up comedian Stewart Lee as "A speaking Toby Jug, filled to the brim with hot piss"

Jesus wept

So without further ado, onto the nonsense - A portly, confused looking John Hartson was rounded up as the most famous Welshman they could find, distracted by bright lights and shiny things, and asked his opinions about the men running around outside the window. Gareth Southgate, looking like a disabled horse, rounded off the trio of buffonery in the studio. The actual pitchside commentators are completley generic, spawned from ITVs cloning vats of idiocy, and one does not even need to know their stupid, ugly names. I believe one of them may have been Andy Townsend. God help us all.

'He's got loads of attributes...he's quick'. John Hartson getting confused between "loads" and "one"

'Fully capable of producing the quality when required' That was shit, but he should be able to do it normally

'He looked to double team Bale with Ashley Cole' A video taken on a mobile phone in a hotel room that one doesn't particularly wish to see

'It was a professional game they played' They were fucking boring, but won

'First piece of true, vintage English quality tonight' Stewart Downing finally crosses a ball accurately

'Not the quality of cross he would have wanted' Stewart Downing produces yet another shanked piece of shit

'He's a little bit wasted out wide left . . . but that's where he's at his best' Harston gets metaphysical with us

'Put it back in the pot and let others scrap for it' Cross the ball into the penalty box

'He's a nimble, agile man for being so big' A variation on the "big man/good feet" classic


'He knows where the net is'  Is he applying to become a groundskeeper?

'The goalkeeper gets a real big arm on it' One assumes his other arm is tiny and malformed

'That's a searching cross' It was aimed at no one in particular

'Just knock it on the back of the net' For once, the nation agrees with the advice of Andy Townsend, upon seeing lightbulb-headed striker Robert Earnshaw miss from two inches out