Liverpool FC Forum

by **dawson99** » Fri May 27, 2005 2:43 pm

great article in the telegraph today (well about 50 great articles, nice pullout) about the difference between sky and itv. Personally i dont remember the match much but did watch on sky and was more than appy.

ITV, however, apparently cut off mid celebration for a commercial break... i couldnt have standed that if it ad happened while i was watching.

did anyone else notice this?

Great job by sky and sky sports yesterday, made it worthwhile for those of us not able to travel

(i dont work for sky or the telegraph before u ask )

by **adamnbarrett** » Fri May 27, 2005 2:46 pm

Yer well done to them, from watching the plane take off for istanbul to watching it land with sky sports news they followed everything including the celebrations yesterday. They even showed a full training session a few days ago, iv been really impressed. Even though I had to put up with andy gray for the whole match we got to watch all the celebrations.

by **LiverpoolThroughAndThrough** » Fri May 27, 2005 2:48 pm

Andy Gray........................what a P**CK

by **lawrenson_sarah** » Fri May 27, 2005 2:48 pm

Wel i was at the pub
Was drunk
We won...

So cant say it would have really phased me that much!!

by **joependo** » Fri May 27, 2005 2:49 pm

I hate that Andy townsend or sutin he :censored:

1n hates us the w@nker.If it was CHELSEA OR aC WHO HAD WON IT THEY WOULD NOOT OF TOOK THE BREAK b@STARDS

by **stmichael** » Fri May 27, 2005 2:50 pm

Dawson, I presume you're talking about this article?

Sky's perfect pitch ensured that we, the viewers, never had to walk alone
By Jim White
(Filed: 27/05/2005)

John Humphrys was in particularly hurrumphing mood at the end of yesterday's Today programme. There had been emailed complaints, he said, about the amount of the show that had been dedicated to the previous evening's Champions League final.

The coverage had included not only the normal sports bulletin, with its clips from Radio Five Live's commentary in which Alan Green had reached such a pitch of excitement that he was in danger of inflicting on himself the sort of groin strain that inhibited Jamie Carragher in the match's latter stages. But also reports from bars in Liverpool, from bars in Istanbul, from the arrivals terminal at Liverpool airport, where, we can safely assume, the bars would have been cheerily patronised. It was enough to provoke a froth of emailing fury.

"Some of the emails are rude," spluttered Humphrys. "Very rude, actually."

Listeners are always complaining that the balance of the Today programme is wrong - too much American politics, too much election coverage, too much Humphrys - but it seemed to me that this was one story about which the editors were absolutely right. Such was the epic, heroic, astonishing, valiant, agonising - I need Clive Tyldesley here to help me with a few more adjectives - quality of the evening, personally I couldn't get enough of it. Which was why I was glad I decided to watch the game on Sky and not ITV.

Like many, I had been infuriated by ITV's coverage of the Liverpool v Chelsea semi-final, annoyed by the way the post-match interviews had been cut off and coverage of the wild celebrations curtailed to accommodate commercials about car insurance. Although I couldn't be bothered to dispatch a rude email, when offered a choice I was sufficiently moved to take it.

True, this decision meant missing out on Tyldesley, the John Gielgud of commentary whose fruity grandiloquence was perfectly attuned to an evening of such theatricality (so hyperbolic was he, when I flicked over at one point, I'm sure I heard him suggest that Jamie Carragher had "pulled both his groins"). But it did mean I enjoyed a moment of sheer joy during the post-presentation celebrations.

Across the Ataturk Stadium's public address system came the strains of a song those of us from elsewhere in the North West (not the time even to mention Manchester) are inoculated against at birth. As Gerry Marsden sang his treacly guff about the sweet song of the lark, Sky's director instructed his commentary team to keep quiet. For five minutes Rob Hawthorne, Andy Gray, Richard Keys and the rest were absent from the soundtrack. All we heard was the delirious Liverpool thousands joining in with their anthem. It was tuneless, rhythm-free, monotonal and utterly magnificent; a great example of the sort of shared communal values best expressed through sport. On ITV, meanwhile, they went to an advert break.

Goodness knows what hearing that singing would have done to Phil Thompson's emotions. The former Liverpool captain was another reason to stick with Sky. In ITV's analysts' box they had Steve McManaman. Apart from reassuring Manchester City fans that they need not, after all, alert the Missing Persons helpline, there seemed to be little point in his presence.

Thompson, on the other hand, perfectly mirrored what every Liverpool fan from Penzance to Penrith must have been feeling. Transplanted directly from Fanzone, he was undoubtedly the most biased analyst ever to occupy a chair on Sky's expert panel. Morose at half-time, his main contribution to the discussion about Milan's total domination was to suggest that when Alessandro Nesta elbowed the ball away from Luis Garcia, "Stevie Wonder could have seen it was a penalty."

At full time, rather than letting him dig himself deeper into Big Ron territory, the director simply showed Thompson's reactions to each of Liverpool's second-half goals. When Steven Gerrard scored the first, he was up, banging on the commentary box window as if hoping to draw the attention of the goal scorer. By the time Xabi Alonso scored the equaliser, he appeared to be trying to demolish the box entirely in a bid to get down to pitch level.

Shame we didn't see his reactions during the penalty shoot-out. In our house, it was the behaviour of Jerzy Dudek that provoked the most discussion. The keeper's Grobbelaar-style shenanigans were deemed by the less cynical members of the household to be ungentlemanly and unnecessary.

For the rest of us, the unusual camera angle from directly behind the penalty-taker made you realise what a shrewd tactic his flapping about was: how small the target looks when it is mostly filled by a mad Pole indulging in such urgent semaphore that you half expected the Milan team jet to taxi into the centre circle. It was truly great viewing. "Football, bloody hell", as Tyldesley put it on ITV. What an apt aphorism to quote at such a time. And in the moment of Liverpudlian triumphalism, it would be wholly inappropriate to mention who it was that first coined it.

by **dawson99** » Fri May 27, 2005 3:03 pm

thats the one, altho clive tyldesly had an article about itv on the same page

good find tho

Liverpool FC Forum

Itv a disgrace again - Gonna stop watching this channel 4 good

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