Few could argue that over the years, Transfer Deadline Day has given many football fans something to talk about. For me, Sky Sports News has been a main stay on my screen around this time of year. It’s an occasion that makes me feel like a kid at Christmas, except I’m 26 with a beer and a beard, not 16 with bum-fluff, spots and college to look forward to.
However, am I the only one starting to feel a sense of disappointment? Does anyone else want to rename their channel Sky Sports Olds? I used to look forward to Jim White and the team getting excited at every development, finding news from rumour & in-the-knows and allowing reporters to include fans in their segments. Now it feels like over-produced nonsense and hearsay while a minority of supporters, who crowd behind the terrified suited man holding an overly large microphone, shout exhausted catchphrases from viral YouTube videos and toss blow-up dolls around the crowd. “Back to the studio, Jim”, followed by apology number 17 of the evening.
Despite the swearing and the shocked-faced plastic lady, the worst offence was yet to come. The precarious position these reporters put themselves in is entirely unnecessary.
Alan Irwin outside Everton’s Finch Farm Complex with supporters
Alan Irwin (pictured), standing outside Everton’s Finch Farm complex, was speaking about the things that weren’t happening, when something did happen. There was one fan that probably caused as big a stir as Falcao that day, but for all the wrong reasons. How can anyone justifiably applaud a man who pokes another man in the face, repeatedly, with a big purple sex toy? I was as shocked as the doll I saw 5 minutes earlier, nay, disgusted (and I’m not easily offended, usually because these types of incidents are written as a joke). How dare he do that to anyone, who knows where it had been? I give 100% credit to Mr Irwin for not turning around, for not breaking stride and for continuing his non-report about Tom Cleverley. As desperate as he was for the Utd midfielder to make his move to Everton, it never materialised. £9m was banded about as a fee; Everton should probably be renamed Cleverton.
Which brings me back to why I’m so disillusioned with Deadline Day. Firstly, I don’t blame Sky, Jim White, Alan Irwin or any of the hundreds of idiots plastered around the grounds acting like kids in a park drinking White Lightning, trying to recreate a face Ricky Gervais does in the bath. As a public we demand attention, we want news and we want it now. What happens when nothing happens though? We get Olds. Tottenham signed a defensive midfielder, Benjamin Stambouli, a 24 year old from Montpellier. I admittedly hadn’t heard of him before this news broke early in the afternoon. By the end of the night, I had created a drinking game. Anytime Stambouli’s name was mentioned… you get the idea.
The day seemed destined to be about one player though. Radomel Falcao and his proposed move to the Premier League dominated the headlines all day. His arrival to Manchester was replayed long into the night by way of the fascinating video package of three cars, all with blacked out windows, driving through a country lane with nothing else to tell us, other than Jim shouting “THAT IS FALCAO. HE IS IN MANCHESTER”. That sequence played for 4 hours over and over and over again – more olds from Sky. If there’s nothing to report, break away for 5 minutes and tell me about Golf or Tennis.
Luckily for me, I didn’t care too much; I was drunk from playing the Stambouli game.
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