Cod Almighty | Article
by Ian Rawson
15 August 2006
It's a Saturday afternoon. It's a bit dreary out. Town are away from home. I'll just flick on the radio. Make a cup of tea. Grab the biccies. Sit back on the sofa. Pick up my book. Stare at the same page of the book for the next two hours as I concentrate on the radio commentary. Except I can't. It seems Radio Humberside aren't carrying the games. So much for comfort. I'll have to drag myself in to the spartan spare room, where the computer is currently dumped. It's the armchair supporter's equivalent of a freezing afternoon on the terrace. And it stinks.
I tried sitting in front of the computer recently to catch up on an episode of Lost. "Content on demand" is appealing, kind of like a hi-tech video recorder that you don't have to program. But sitting in front of the computer is not appealing. It just doesn't feel right. No matter how much society impresses technological advances upon us, sitting in front of a computer for one hour, two hours, three hours just to watch or listen doesn't work. I can tolerate the odd internet 'surf' during breaks at work - and who doesn't? But going home and going online? Who wants to do that, especially on a Saturday afternoon? "OK love, I'm off upstairs to the computer for a couple of hours to watch something." Unsociable and lonely. But the radio... downstairs - in the heart of the house.
Plainly and simply, Town and Town fans need radio commentary. Not everyone has internet access, let alone broadband (which is necessary for listening to games). And how many people echo my feelings of dedicating their Saturday afternoon to sitting in front of a computer listening to the game? Whether it's Radio Humberside or some other party, I care not. As contrived and shouty as David Burns is, there's an element of devotion to the Radio Humberside coverage and it is carried out by professionals. As you would expect from any commentary carried by a professional radio station that had paid for the privilege. I'm neither pro-club or pro-Radio Humberside. Does it matter who does the commentary? And do we care who carries the games' radio commentary?
The answer is 'no'. Whatever, whoever, it will be streets ahead of what we're having to put up with on Mariners World (because I did endure it in the face of no alternative). The make-do commentary this season has been scratchy, akin to listening to long wave radio. The interviews we have had to endure for the past couple of seasons are fronted by a mumbling interviewer. And all with the enthusiasm of people whose minds are on knocking off work in a minute. All for £35 a year. Not really a bargain. And on top of a season ticket and the expenses that accompany every game?
I don't care how much the club does or doesn't get. That's for the club and its officials to worry about - and not in public. That's what they are there for, paid for: to do that dealing professionally. Those of us who can't make the games, home and away, just want to listen to them. Listen to decent commentary that conveys the game, boring or exciting. And without having to sit at a computer. How difficult can that be?
Maybe this is part of a deeper-rooted problem. The club's shunning of traditional media seems to be growing, with the poorly edited and maintained official website - which reaches new levels of amateurism every week - becoming its main outlet of communication. Do the officials at the club presume that because they have internet access, everyone else does? Whatever happened to traditional and more openly available and usable forms of media? Has someone had their head in a marketing book and read that 'new media' is a 'market' they can 'exploit'? And no sooner do I write this than I find an incomprehensible piece on the club's official website in reply to something I have no idea about. It is like living in an internet bubble, being exposed to some sort of clique or in-joke. Although the situation is laughable, it isn't funny.
In the meantime, Town's two defeats on the road are being overshadowed by the prominence given to the schoolground argument between Fenty, Burns and every other Tom, Dick and Harry with their twopennyworth. Come on everyone - just grow up, concentrate on the football, and give the fans the service they want.